00:05:44.100And I started playing around with fermenting vegetables and that led me very quickly into
00:05:50.960wanting to experiment with fermenting other things. How do I make yogurt? How do I make
00:05:56.660country wine? You know, that first year I even learned, you know, how to make tempeh and how to
00:06:01.920make miso. So, you know, I really went down the rabbit hole and, you know, started experimenting
00:06:07.240with all different kinds of fermentation. And, you know, my obsession with all things fermented has,
00:06:14.320you know, continued to this day. Yeah, I can almost feel my mouth watering
00:06:19.780as you're talking, thinking about really good krauts and pickles. I haven't had a good pickle
00:06:25.920in a long time. There's a few other maybe foundational questions I want to go over.
00:06:30.860In your book, Fermentation as Metaphor, you write, quote,
00:06:33.940the only thing that makes do-it-yourself fermentation radical is context. Our contemporary
00:06:39.240system of food mass production, which is unsustainable in so many ways. Our dominant
00:06:44.640food system is polluting, resource depleting, and wasteful. And what it produces is nutritionally
00:06:49.680diminished, causing widespread disease, end quote. I think there's often this myth that our
00:06:56.620food system, because it's so big, is more efficient, or maybe that's just what they
00:07:00.760want us to believe, or that it's the only way to feed all the people on the planet is through this
00:07:05.680mass agriculture and food processing system. So I'm wondering, how does your work debunk this idea?
00:07:13.140Well, ideas like this are very pervasive. And because the vast majority of people are so completely cut off from the realities of food production, it's very easy for people to believe that feeding ourselves requires factory farms, centralized production.
00:07:39.060And with respect to fermentation specifically, because fermentation is simultaneously part of everybody's everyday life and completely invisible to most people, it's easy to project complexity upon it and imagine that you need a laboratory and an environment that you can control in an absolute way.
00:08:02.860And, you know, people imagine that it's a very high tech process when, you know, in fact, you know, all of the fermentation processes that we work with around the world, we've been practicing for, you know, hundreds or in most cases, thousands of years.
00:08:17.260And so, you know, they actually don't require huge amounts of technology.
00:08:22.260But, you know, I think because food production is so far from most people's lives, it's easy for people to believe whatever.
00:08:30.960I see my work with fermentation as part of a broader process of reclaiming food. And reclaiming food can take many different forms, from having a garden, shopping at a farmer's market, buying food from local people who've directly produced it, to just learning how to cook things from scratch in your own kitchen.
00:08:57.640There's many different forms that reclaiming food can take, but it all involves demystifying the process of producing food and taking it away from the large centralized actors and making it something that we participate in in our own homes, wherever we live, and in our communities, wherever we live.
00:09:21.980And, you know, I mean, I don't dispute that there are, you know, certain kinds of foods maybe that can be efficiently produced in centralized ways at high scale.
00:09:33.820But, you know, they're only as reliable as our distribution networks are.
00:09:39.580And, you know, one thing is for sure, which is that, you know, the distribution of, you know, food resources or any other kind of resources that are centralized, I mean, it's great as long as it works, but it's always subject to disruption.
00:09:57.020And, you know, that disruption could have to do with climate and climate change. It could have to do with, you know, fuel and, you know, international control of fuel and economics. It can be certainly affected by, you know, wars and political violence.
00:10:16.360And, you know, I think the pandemic illustrated for us how vulnerable supply chains can be. So, you know, I think that, you know, it behooves the people of every region in the world to expand the productive capacity for food at the local and regional level.
00:10:36.700You know, certainly I'm not against, you know, trade in food. I mean, I think it's really, you know, sort of fun and expands everybody's experiences to have access to foods from faraway places. But, you know, I think that it puts us in an extremely vulnerable position to all be completely dependent upon food resources that are coming from faraway places.
00:11:00.600So I think that in whatever ways we can, at whatever level we can, it makes sense for all of us to get involved as producers of food and to support local and regional food production so as to get away from complete dependency on this sort of centralized, globalized food production system.
00:11:26.280And, you know, in fact, if we're thinking about, you know, maximizing food production,
00:11:32.060you know, let's say per acre of land, you know, you definitely can produce more food
00:11:37.920on an acre of land with labor-intensive methods that involve lots of people and not so many
00:14:20.480When people are sitting together, let's say, hauling beans or any other kind of harvest
00:14:28.140related task, you know, their hands might be very much occupied, but, you know, they're talking,
00:14:35.220they're listening, they're singing, you know, these are important cultural moments. And,
00:14:42.140you know, a lot of people's happiest memories, let's say, of their grandparents, you know,
00:14:46.520involve like food preparation with them. So, you know, the cultural aspects of it are not
00:14:53.000insignificant. And, you know, it breaks my heart when I meet people who just like,
00:14:59.740categorically don't cook, like, you know, whatever they eat is, you know, what's been
00:15:04.700prepared for them. And, you know, it just seems like that's a very disempowered place to be.
00:15:10.360And these are really important skills to acquire, you know, in terms of fermented foods and how
00:15:18.000that fits in with it. I mean, sure, a lot of fermented foods preserve the harvest. So certainly
00:15:24.400like the fermentation of vegetables is generally, you know, above all else, a strategy for preserving
00:15:31.500vegetables from seasons of relative plenty for people to eat in seasons where, you know, they
00:15:37.960don't have fresh food resources available. But, you know, there's a whole range of practical
00:15:43.580benefits to fermentation and preservation is only one of them. Just to give you an example,
00:15:48.680nobody has ever fermented a grain or a bean in order to preserve it because these foods in their
00:15:56.720mature state are very stable. As long as you keep a grain of wheat or a bean dry, it will preserve.
00:16:06.440And so, you know, generally the first step in fermenting these foods is to introduce water, to reawaken dormant microorganisms that haven't been able to function because of the lack of water.
00:16:20.240But the fermentation can make these things more easily digestible.
00:16:27.240They can make these things more flavorful.
00:16:29.960So, yeah, there's a whole range of potential benefits from fermented foods and beverages.
00:16:35.060And of course, we can't forget alcohol because far and away, the most widespread form of fermentation is the fermentation of every different kind of carbohydrate source you could imagine into alcohol.
00:16:50.960I think it's really important for us to understand the value of culture, community building, especially as an antidote to what's happening to our communities now.
00:17:03.960But anyways, I could stay on that topic and really dig through the whole session. But I do want to talk about gut health with the concept of it as a trend versus reality. And as you often say, quote, fermentation is not a fad, it is a fact, end quote. And it's clear that fermentation is vital to human life as we know it.
00:17:25.300And something that does seem to be more of a fad though is the way we talk about and market
00:17:32.920fermentation and fermented products. And I'm thinking especially of the recent rise of gummies
00:17:38.700and diets and the probiotic sodas that are sold to us as ways to improve gut health.
00:17:46.140So I'd just love to hear why you think this has recently cropped up as a marketable trend and
00:17:51.540how we can talk about fermentation in ways that are evergreen, not focused on selling a particular
00:17:58.040product in that immediate moment. Really, fermentation is a manifestation of the fact
00:18:06.640of biodiversity. Fermentation historically was a bit of a mystery. It was really only in the 19th
00:18:17.600century that science came to understand that fermentation was a biological phenomenon based
00:18:24.660on the activity of microorganisms, bacteria, and fungi that are part of the food. The emerging
00:18:32.120science of microbiology since then has come to the realization that all multicellular forms of life,
00:18:42.180including ourselves, including all animals, including all plants, are host to elaborate
00:18:50.200communities of microorganisms. You know, so really, you know, no organism is an island.
00:18:57.120You know, every organism, you know, exists in the complexity of biodiversity. And, you know,
00:19:06.220I think that the reason why fermentation is practiced everywhere on the earth is the simple
00:19:13.100reality that all of the things that make up our food, all of the plants and all of the animal
00:19:18.400products that we eat are populated by these elaborate communities of microorganisms. And
00:19:24.320these microorganisms can develop in different ways. So these microorganisms could decompose
00:19:31.840our food into a disgusting, ugly mess that nobody would ever want to put into their mouths,
00:19:37.180you know, or, you know, with certain simple environmental manipulations, we can guide
00:19:43.540the microbial development so that organisms that either help preserve the food for a longer period
00:19:49.480of time or, you know, break down some toxic compounds that could be in the food or just
00:19:56.380break down macronutrients into simpler, more elemental forms that our bodies can absorb more
00:20:02.440easily, you know, or just make the food more flavorful or produce alcohol. There are all
00:20:09.940these potential positive outcomes. So, you know, whenever you ferment food successfully, you know,
00:20:16.060A, you prevent it from decomposing into a disgusting, ugly mess that nobody would ever
00:20:20.840eat. And B, you're turning it into something with these additional practical benefits for us.
00:20:27.720And so, you know, I think that, you know, fermentation is a manifestation of biodiversity,
00:20:33.820the everything we could possibly eat is a manifestation of biodiversity. And, you know,
00:20:42.980the cultures that have developed in different parts of the world largely have to do with,
00:20:49.540you know, how people interact with the other life forms that are around them in acquiring food. And
00:20:56.820so, you know, our very, you know, sort of cultural existence and our ability to have food is sort of
00:21:03.620also based on this biodiversity. So, you know, it's all very interesting. And yet, the fact that
00:21:11.140so few people are directly involved in this, you know, sort of speaks to humans trying to,
00:21:18.400you know, let's say opt out of these most basic relationships that define every other kind of
00:21:25.760organism. I mean, every kind of organism, you know, is interacting intimately with its environment
00:21:32.360as it feeds itself. And, you know, we have, you know, tried to take ourselves out of this equation
00:21:39.980and, you know, supposedly we have liberated ourselves by, you know, not having to, you know,
00:21:46.700spend each day procuring the food resources to get through that day. But, you know, in fact,
00:21:53.660it has, you know, alienated us from our environments and, you know, led to this
00:22:00.320incredible environmental destruction. So, you know, I think it's just made us less attuned
00:22:06.840to our environments and careless about them. So, you know, our gut health also is a manifestation
00:22:15.400of this biodiversity. And, you know, I think one of the reasons why, you know, over the last 20 or
00:22:22.32025 years, there has been, you know, so much more, you know, interest in fermented foods and
00:22:29.180beverages, awareness about fermented foods and beverages, you know, marketing related to fermented
00:22:37.300foods and beverages is this growing awareness of the biodiversity within us. So, you know, like,
00:22:43.960In my growing up in 20th century United States, I never heard a good word about bacteria. Bacteria
00:22:51.940were the cause of disease, period, and we needed to avoid them and we needed to destroy them by
00:22:58.580any means necessary. I would say pretty much since the dawn of the new millennium, probably dating to
00:23:05.040the Human Microbiome Project, there has been growing awareness that bacteria are actually
00:23:11.000an important part of our own human functionality. And that the incredible populations of bacteria
00:23:21.760that exist in our intestines most prominently, but in many other parts of our bodies, that these
00:23:29.420bacteria give us a lot of our functionality. They enable us to effectively digest the food that we
00:23:35.860What we call our immune systems are largely the work of bacteria in the gut.
00:23:42.360And bacteria play a role in regulating lots of the chemical processes in our bodies.
00:23:48.000So for instance, serotonin and other chemical compounds that determine how we think and
00:23:53.320how we feel are regulated in ways that are not fully understood by bacteria in the gut.
00:23:59.260So the health and vitality and biodiversity of the bacterial communities within us have great significance to our health and well-being.
00:24:10.640And I think that this fact, newly established for many people, is driving a lot of the awareness of fermentation, interest in fermentation, and certainly the marketing of a lot of different kinds of fermented products.
00:24:26.860Now, the products of fermentation themselves, I mean, they have enjoyed enduring popularity and wherever our great-grandparents might have been from, fermented foods and beverages were just as prominent in their diets as they are in anyone's diet today, potentially much more so.
00:24:47.720so the products themselves you know are not new it's just you know people's awareness and
00:24:56.100thinking about them and some of the marketing strategies are the things that are new
00:25:00.080i really feel so relieved learning about the truths of the immune system and bacteria
00:25:08.380it's actually been a really healing journey for me just intellectually understanding
00:25:13.460my own body a bit more. I think it's just really interesting. And it actually kind of brings me to
00:25:19.700this idea that I feel like you've spoken to in a few of your interviews, which is being open to
00:25:24.880new forms of life. And in an interview with Emergence Magazine, you say, quote,
00:25:30.000in our human societies, this idea of protecting the purity of our society against the contamination
00:25:35.440of outside ideas is, well, it's been weaponized really. The way people project fear of the quote
00:25:42.300other has been such a theme throughout human history, end quote. And so, yeah, I guess I'm
00:25:49.100kind of combining this idea of purity in terms of bacteria and purity of thoughts too, and
00:25:56.120wondering how does this idea of purity come to hurt us and separate us from key aspects of
00:26:01.460ourselves and our communities? Well, I mean, certainly in the literal realm of our lives
00:26:11.000and the foods that we eat, you know, purity is completely a fantasy. And, you know, I would
00:26:18.460argue that in terms of like, you know, ideas and heritage, you know, purity is an abstraction
00:26:27.320in that realm as well, in every realm. I mean, purity simply does not exist. So, you know,
00:26:35.660in terms of making fermented foods. Sometimes people who watch me demonstrate fermenting
00:26:42.440vegetables are shocked that I'm not using some kind of a chemical to sterilize the jar that
00:26:50.280we're about to put the vegetables in, or that I'm not wearing gloves or doing something to prevent
00:26:56.680the bacteria on my hands from getting onto the vegetables. But the point is that all plants
00:27:04.440growing out of soil on planet Earth are host to lactic acid bacteria, the ones that are going to
00:27:11.380ferment them for us, but also they're host to many other things. And, you know, which organisms are
00:27:19.260going to dominate, you know, just depends completely on, you know, the environment that
00:27:26.040we create. And that's what the practice of fermentation is. And in the fermentation of
00:27:30.700vegetables. Generally, it's just about getting the vegetables submerged to protect them from the
00:27:35.340steady flow of air with oxygen. And protecting the vegetables from air with oxygen means that
00:27:43.320the spores of molds that are present there can't develop. So getting them submerged is really all
00:27:50.140it takes to assure that the lactic acid bacteria are going to dominate. And this happens every
00:27:55.400single time. I mean, fermented vegetables are about as safe as food gets. You know, there's just
00:28:01.140no, you know, recorded case histories of food poisoning or illness from fermented vegetables.
00:28:08.520And I would just point out that we have plenty of case histories of illness from raw vegetables.
00:28:15.520You know, this year it was red onions. You know, one year it was scallions. One year it was lettuce.
00:28:21.380one year it was tomatoes, one year it was apples. So, you know, clearly there's the possibility
00:28:27.360that vegetables or fruits could become contaminated by salmonella or other organisms that can make
00:28:34.340people sick. You know, usually the story is manure from a factory farm uphill washes over a field of
00:28:41.140vegetables and they're contaminated that way. It could just as easily happen from sloppy handling,
00:28:47.440people failing to wash their hands at critical moments and handling the food.
00:28:53.660But even if you took vegetables that had cells of, say, salmonella on them, if you shred them,
00:28:59.060salt them, get them submerged under their own juices and ferment them, well, the lactic acid
00:29:04.540bacteria will always dominate. And as they metabolize carbohydrates into lactic acid
00:29:11.320and acidify the environment, if there happen to be some cells of salmonella or other potentially
00:29:18.040pathogenic organisms, they will perish. It's just a very convenient fact for us that, you know,
00:29:26.000the organisms that have the potential to make us sick can't survive in an acidic environment.
00:29:31.620So, you know, fermentation really is a strategy for safety as much as anything. But, you know,
00:29:38.120in my career as a fermentation educator, I have encountered a lot of, you know, people projecting
00:29:45.060their generalized anxiety about microorganisms and bacteria or about food preservation in general
00:29:55.600onto the idea of fermentation. But, you know, the reality is that, you know, fermentation
00:30:01.420is a strategy for food safety above all else, really.
00:30:31.420Going back to the Emergence Magazine article, you continue by saying, quote,
00:30:58.900in both literal fermentation and metaphorical fermentation, the fermentation is breaking down
00:31:04.780previous forms into new forms, end quote. And so I'm wondering, how can we come to embrace a way
00:31:12.320of being that is open to experiment and open to new forms and to the messiness that comes from
00:31:19.240allowing the old forms to rot and decay into something else entirely?
00:31:23.140I guess I would challenge a little bit of how you phrased that question because generally when food is fermenting, it's not rotting. Sure, microorganisms are breaking it down, but generally we're not inventing the wheel. We're not creating something completely new.
00:31:42.440We are, you know, sort of following a way that other people have done things.
00:31:48.860And, you know, generally, it's fairly predictable, you know, what will happen in a given setup.
00:31:56.000So, you know, we're not rotting the food at all.
00:32:00.520You know, we are processing the food in some generally straightforward way.
00:32:05.240We are creating conditions that we have seen or been told will yield the desired result.
00:32:16.720And then we are sort of implementing a plan that many other people before us have implemented.
00:32:24.580So I think it's largely a matter of having confidence in these traditional methods.
00:32:31.720I want to talk for a moment about starters. One way that people in the present moment
00:32:39.740start fermentation processes is to buy a starter. I think the most widespread example of this would
00:32:46.600be the packet of yeast that you can buy in any supermarket. But that packet of yeast,
00:32:51.940which is a fungus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, that packet of yeast really has only been
00:33:00.000commercially available since the 20th century. So we've been baking bread for something like
00:33:07.50010,000 years. We've been making wine, making beer for similar periods of time. There was no such
00:33:17.780thing as a packet of yeast until the 20th century. So for like 9,900 years, the only way anyone was
00:33:25.520making these foods was by working with the food to develop the yeast that's already there
00:33:35.380in the food. And that's what sort of, you know, all the traditional techniques involve is,
00:33:41.320you know, what I call wild fermentation. And my first book about fermentation was called
00:33:45.380Wild Fermentation. But this isn't a phrase that I made up, it's found throughout the literature.
00:33:49.840And it describes any fermentation based on the organisms that are there in the food already,
00:33:55.300or to a limited degree in the environment around us or on our hands, but generally it's in the
00:34:02.520food. So, you know, when you shred cabbage or other vegetables to make sauerkraut, the bacteria
00:34:07.520is already in the cabbage or the other vegetables. When you press grapes to make wine, the yeast is
00:34:15.940already on the grapes. And so, you know, this is wild fermentation, just working with, you know,
00:34:22.760the life forces that are already there on the food. And the vast majority of fermentation
00:34:28.620processes are wild fermentations. And, you know, anything that involves, you know, a little packet
00:34:35.540of a starter, you know, I mean, that can be a very effective method to use, but that's like a
00:34:41.040very, very modern technological method. But also, if we're going to rely upon, you know, the
00:34:46.920organisms that are there, like they have to exist in, you know, high enough concentration that they
00:34:53.600can easily become dominant. And that's why we don't have to worry about sterilizing things when
00:34:58.920we're dealing with wild fermentation, because, you know, there's like a critical mass of the
00:35:04.260organisms that we need. We're creating conditions favorable to them. And, you know, in a very
00:35:11.440reliable way they come to dominate the environment. And so, you know, all of these
00:35:17.440ideas of sterilizing things, like they are just born by the use of pure culture starters,
00:35:24.720this sort of, you know, new method of fermentation that was developed during the course of the 20th
00:35:30.000century. And so, if you're going to sort of kill all the organisms in your substrate and then just
00:35:36.600introduce a single pure culture starter, then with that method of fermentation, our notions
00:35:44.240of sterility and purity become somewhat more important than they are in the traditional
00:35:52.100context where we're relying on these heavy existing populations of organisms on the foods
00:36:02.180And by the way, the people who, you know, developed and figured out these methods, they did not have the benefit of microscopes or the ability to identify specific organisms.
00:36:13.980So, you know, they were based on results that if you do this, it works, but without necessarily understanding the specific, you know, mechanisms of the process that's going on.
00:36:28.520Mm-hmm. I love talking about wild fermentation and yeast. It's really exciting to me. And I
00:36:35.640remember when I first tried it myself about maybe, I don't know, 10 years ago now, I did it with
00:36:40.020wine berries in Pennsylvania. And I actually experimented. I had a couple starters I bought
00:36:45.820from the store and then I just did the wild ferment. And I love wild fermentation. I love
00:36:52.200the taste. It honestly feels much better on my body. Like with wines, there's such this movement
00:36:58.140with organic wines, but like organic wine doesn't mean that it has wild fermentation. It just means
00:37:02.980that the grape itself is organic, but it could have sulfites, could have all these additives in
00:37:06.880there. And yeah, there's just something about wild fermentation and the flavor. It's so complex to me
00:37:14.160and it really calls to me. And I'm thinking about home fermentation, wild fermentation more,
00:37:21.520and I'm wondering how traditional ferments also connect us to the unique biodiversity of the
00:37:28.020areas around us. Yeah, just wondering if you could elaborate more on the ways fermentation
00:37:32.540can tap into biodiversity in general. Well, sure. I mean, just the word that you just used,
00:37:39.600complexity. What gives fermented foods or beverages complexity in their flavor is precisely
00:37:48.960biodiversity. Because, you know, with a pure culture starter having a singular organism
00:37:56.960driving the fermentation, you know, typically you'll have, you know, just a single byproduct
00:38:04.920or a relatively small collection of metabolic byproducts. But, you know, the more different
00:38:12.920organisms are involved in the fermentation, the more flavor complexity you're going to have. And
00:38:18.780And, you know, sometimes people appreciate that flavor complexity and sometimes people's, you know, taste gets so narrowed that they only want like the one singular metabolic byproduct.
00:38:31.980But I mean, I absolutely agree with you that most products of wild fermentation just end up possessing greater flavor complexity as a reflection of the greater biodiversity than ferments made through pure culture starters.
00:38:53.440And I think that, you know, in every realm of fermentation, in every category of fermented products, we could talk about breads made with natural fermentation. We could talk about, you know, raw milk cheeses where the fermentation is driven by organisms that are present in the milk.
00:39:10.320We could talk about, you know, salamis made without starter cultures.
00:41:19.320I have really come to like, you know, very, very strong, flavorful cheeses. You know,
00:41:27.540if I try to imagine like my nine-year-old self looking at some of the cheeses that I get excited
00:41:33.580about eating at this stage in my life, you know, nine-year-old Sandor would be just utterly
00:41:38.220horrified. You know, as a kid, I did not like strong flavored cheeses. I don't even think
00:41:45.260I tasted them. I mean, just the smell of them was enough to put me off. But I watched my parents
00:41:52.040enjoying cheese. And I think that the way we come to acquire tastes that didn't come to us
00:42:01.480from birth is by watching other people take pleasure in them. So, I mean, I have a long
00:42:08.020list of things that as a kid were not appealing to me. I mean, coffee was not appealing to me.
00:42:12.180Now I can't imagine beginning a day without coffee. Beer was not appealing to me as a kid. And now I love beer. You know, these strong flavored cheeses. I mean, many other examples. So, you know, I mean, we learn to acquire the taste that we do acquire by sort of watching other people take pleasure in them.
00:42:33.540And I think that, you know, I don't have like an easy recipe to recommend for people to sort of acquire the taste.
00:42:43.200But I would point out a couple of things.
00:42:46.020You know, first, I would point out that one of the great pleasures of fermenting food yourself is, you know, you can control a lot of the variables.
00:42:54.940If you don't like extremely sour food, you can ferment it for a shorter period of time and it'll be less sour.
00:43:03.540So, you know, you can make it less sour or more sour, you know, as you prefer or as your
00:43:10.920partner or your children or whoever you might be trying to feed prefers.
00:43:15.960You have control over the process, you know, how salty it is, how sour it becomes, how
00:43:25.520And so, you know, you can find like the flavor that you're comfortable with.
00:43:29.800You know, the other thing is, don't think about these foods as, you know, something to be eaten on its own, although they can be very delicious eaten that way. You know, fermented vegetables are really condiments and, you know, therefore, you know, making other foods more exciting and interesting.
00:43:48.920So if you think about sauerkraut, like let's say on a sandwich, it'll just sort of add a layer of flavor to the sandwich. And I think that sometimes with foods that seem too strong to just eat on their own, if we think about incorporating them into something else where their flavor will be spread into more food is a great way to make the flavors more acceptable.
00:44:15.720And third, what I would just say is like, you know, I've met so many people who just tell me as if it's a fact that like kids don't like the flavor of fermented foods.
00:44:28.740Like kids can be very receptive to these foods.
00:44:31.900Young kids, you know, if a kid is, you know, nine years old, the first time they're tasting sauerkraut, they're probably going to reject it because it hasn't been in their palate.
00:44:41.700But if you take a young child who is sort of first being introduced to solid foods and start incorporating some of the flavors of fermentation into the food, they very likely will accept them and love them for their entire lives.
00:45:01.860I've even read a couple of articles suggesting that if a woman during her pregnancy is eating fermented foods, then the baby will be born with more openness to those flavors.
00:45:31.860What I was also hearing in your response was just the creativity and even the
00:46:01.040culinary artistic aspect of using certain foods or fermented foods. There's an interview you did
00:46:08.140with NPR in 2012, and you said, quote, we reject certain foods because it is rotten. Certain food
00:46:13.900we can see is fresh, but there is this creative space between fresh and rotten food where most
00:46:19.820of human culture's most prized delicacies and culinary achievements exist, end quote.
00:46:25.560So yeah, I'd like to riff a bit more on how does fermentation
00:46:28.620allow us to express our creativity alongside practicality? And how can we apply an experimental
00:46:36.460and open approach to the things that sustain us? Well, I mean, as I've mentioned a couple of times,
00:46:43.340the practice of fermentation is really all about manipulating environmental conditions in ways that
00:46:52.780encourage the growth of the organisms that we want and simultaneously discourage the growth
00:46:59.200of the organisms that we don't want. But with fermenting vegetables, what that means
00:47:04.760is getting vegetables submerged. And that can be done in different ways. The sauerkraut dry
00:47:12.040salting method, you just shred vegetables to create surface area. You add salt. The salt
00:47:17.340through osmosis, draws some of the juice out of the vegetables, the vegetables get nice and juicy,
00:47:23.540and then you pack them into the vessel. Now, what vegetables you use, what combination of
00:47:30.620vegetables you use, what kinds of seasonings you use, how you shred the vegetables, whether it's
00:47:38.100coarsely or finely, you know, all these things are open to interpretation. So as long as you get
00:47:44.960the vegetables submerged, I mean, you can be incredibly creative about it. And, you know,
00:47:50.600I mean, I had a young woman show up at one of my workshops with vanilla sauerkraut and she had
00:47:55.780minced vanilla beans into the shredded cabbage and it was delicious. It wasn't something I ever
00:48:02.240would have thought of, but it was great. I've had so many curry krauts where people incorporate
00:48:07.960curry seasonings into the sauerkraut. And that works really well. You can incorporate cooked
00:48:14.720things. I met a woman whose family was from a town in Poland where everybody bulked up their
00:48:20.440sauerkraut with mashed potatoes. So you can incorporate cooked elements or I've made kimchi
00:48:27.900with little pockets of sticky rice in it. So really, once you understand the condition that
00:48:37.700you need to create, well, then you have all of this creative leeway to, you know, to experiment
00:48:44.360with, you know, different vegetables, different kinds of chopping, different combinations of
00:48:49.540vegetables, different seasonings, different amounts of salt, different lengths of fermentation.
00:48:56.500So it actually lends itself to, I mean, as much creativity as you want to bring to it.
00:49:02.380Mm-hmm. It's exciting to hear you speak about this and the creativity and of course the health
00:49:09.500benefits and the cultural benefits. It's really, really beautiful. And I am thinking how we've
00:49:18.560lost the practice of fermentation and how we get that back and why teaching is so important. And
00:49:24.540in your book, Fermentation as a Metaphor, you write, quote,
00:49:27.400Our dominant food system de-skills and disempowers people, distancing us from the natural world and making us completely dependent on systems of mass production and distribution, which are fine as long as they function, but are vulnerable to many potential disruptions from pandemics to flu shortages to price spikes to war and natural disasters, end quote.
00:49:48.580so yeah it makes me think of just how many practical skills people have lost over the last
00:49:54.580few hundred years and i'm wondering how is teaching fermentation and as you've witnessed
00:50:03.220that what it means for people to reconnect to these skills well you know for 20 years now i
00:50:10.500really have been you know devoted more or less full time to being a fermentation educator and
00:50:17.100And my experience from the very beginning was that there is a hunger for this information
00:50:24.020because so many people possess in their living memory images of something that a grandparent
00:50:34.300was doing every year, whether it was making sauerkraut, making wine, making vinegar, whatever
00:50:43.980But, you know, then as, you know, supermarkets, convenience foods, you know, all these things, you know, became more and more available in a lot of families, these practices ended up, you know, falling by the wayside.
00:51:01.920The practices didn't get passed down to the next generation.
00:51:05.400But sometimes just like a generation or two later, people still have the memory and regret that they didn't learn.
00:51:11.620Um, and so, you know, I mean, my life as a fermentation educator has just been full of
00:51:18.220people getting excited that they can reclaim something that they remember their grandparents
00:51:24.240doing that sort of, you know, fell by the wayside in the interim.
00:51:29.700And that's, um, you know, that's very exciting and, and, and very gratifying.
00:51:33.920And, you know, the, the things that get people interested in fermentation are quite varied.
00:51:38.400I mean, sometimes people are interested in, you know, the probiotics and improving their health or their digestion. Sometimes it's these sort of, you know, cultural ideas and people wanting to, you know, reclaim some aspect of their cultural lineage.
00:51:55.120You know, sometimes it's, you know, people who are moving back to the land and just want to, you know, sort of learn skills for turning the produce that they can grow into, you know, the foods and beverages that people like to drink.
00:52:11.380So, you know, there's a lot of reasons why people are interested in this.
00:52:14.220But, you know, my general experience is that, you know, many people are extremely interested in fermentation and find it relevant.
00:52:22.540And, you know, sometimes sometimes I'll meet people who hear about what I do and they'll make they'll make a face, you know, sort of indicating that they hate fermented foods.
00:52:32.960And, you know, they're probably just associating fermentation with like, you know, the strongest flavored fermented food that they ever ate that was too strong for them or something like that.
00:52:44.560Almost every individual in almost every part of the world eats and drinks products of fermentation every day. Your coffee is fermented. Your bread is fermented. Your cheese is fermented. The condiments that you put on your food are either directly fermented or rely upon vinegar, which is fermented. Chocolate is fermented. Vanilla is fermented. Just an incredible range of the foods that people eat and drink every day.
00:53:13.680And I'm, you know, I'm just giving you examples that would be, you know, pretty common in a standard American diet, but in different regions of the world, there would be, you know, different kinds of fermentations that people are eating regularly.
00:53:29.060But it is just like a prominent feature of human culture in every part of the world.
00:53:36.100I had no idea chocolate was fermented.
00:53:38.320That's new to me and makes me feel even better about the chocolate bar I ate yesterday.
00:53:43.680Although it was milk chocolate. I don't know if that cancels out some of the health benefits.
00:53:49.280Well, I would also just say things don't have to be healthy to be fermented. I mean,
00:53:52.720just an incredible range of foods and beverages people eat and drink are fermented. And
00:53:58.860many fermented foods are extremely healthy. But just because it doesn't mean that if you switched
00:54:05.840your diet to eating only that, you would be healthier. I don't think anyone who's eating
00:54:09.900only bread is healthier. I don't think anyone who's eating only cheese is healthier. I don't
00:54:14.300think anyone who's eating only sauerkraut is healthier. I don't think anyone who's drinking
00:54:18.800only beer is healthier. You know, I think with all of these things, you know, moderation and
00:54:23.940balance are what, you know, sort of make it healthy or unhealthy. It's so fascinating.
00:54:31.880Everything that we've covered today, it's really, it's inspiring because so much of it's practical
00:54:38.000and I love that. I really love that it can be done by anybody in their home and you don't need
00:54:43.400to buy packets of yeast and you don't need to have so much experience to start. And I think
00:54:50.520there's something so beautiful about the grassroots quality of getting in touch with your food in this
00:54:57.820way. So thank you so much, Sando, for your time and your inspiration and your knowledge that
00:55:05.680you've been cultivating over so many years. Well, it's a pleasure to be with you and to
00:55:10.440have the opportunity to speak with you about fermented foods and beverages and biodiversity.
00:55:26.940Thanks for listening to For the Wild. The music in today's episode is by Matthew David.
00:55:32.640For the Wild is created by Ayanna Young, Erica Ekrum, Julia Jackson, Jackson Kruf,
00:55:40.580Jose Alejandro Rivera, Bailey Bigger, and Evan Tenenbaum.