00:00:39.820Colin, welcome back to the Witches Found branch of the Missing Witches podcast experience. We're0.66
00:00:47.580so happy you're here. And I'm so excited to talk to Dr. Julia Skinner today. We love calling Dr.
00:00:53.520witch's doctor, Dr. Witch. Dr. Skinner and I met over the internet over a mutual excitement about
00:01:01.420women and beer and the history of witchcraft. So maybe with that in your minds as a starting point,
00:01:08.100allow me to welcome into our circle, Julia. And I wonder if you would sort of give us a bit of
00:01:13.520an intro to your work with root kitchens and as a food historian, and maybe we can go from there.
00:01:18.840yeah that sounds great and thank you so much for having me on i am the founder of root kitchens
00:01:27.720which is a fermentation and food history organization here in atlanta and so it has
00:01:36.520it has a few different things that i do there one of them is education so online classes as well as
00:01:45.440in-person classes in the non-COVID times. And then I do a lot of consulting for creative
00:01:53.960folks. So like I've helped filmmakers and authors and stuff, like if they're trying to tell a story,
00:02:02.640you know, of course in their work and, you know, helping people think through how they can use
00:02:09.180food to strengthen those uh those narratives and then i also do like a like a membership uh like
00:02:16.860newsletter and program and that's you know that's a lot of fun i write articles for it and like you
00:02:22.780know develop recipes for it and so it's a lot of playing in the kitchen oh playing in the kitchen
00:02:28.460is one of our favorite family activities um can you talk about where you sit at the intersection
00:02:36.140of science and witchcraft yeah so um I yeah in in my work I you know I deal a lot with things that
00:02:48.860can feel very heady and scientific and often you know sometimes feel over my head you know
00:02:54.540microbiology is not what my PhD is in um but you know I I think something my mom told me when I
00:03:03.220was younger, um, really comes to mind every time I think about how, how those two things, um,
00:03:11.840intersect for me. So my, um, my mom used to tell me like she was, um, very Christian, but also,
00:03:21.220you know, unlike many of her peers would like take me to natural history museums and all that,
00:03:26.540you know, all of these things. And I remember asking her about the tension between her faith
00:03:31.740and her love of science and she was like well I don't see a tension between them you know my
00:03:37.500like science gives like reconfirms my faith like science tells me you know we've learned all these
00:03:46.040things and isn't it amazing that like this has you know been built and that this is you know
00:03:52.320that we have this wonderful world to be in and so that's really informed how I think about
00:03:57.360witchcraft and science in my own practice is that you know science adds to that sense of wonder it
00:04:06.400doesn't detract from it and so the more I learn about all of the amazing things that you know
00:04:12.000fermentation microbes do um and all of that the more I'm just like in awe of them like
00:04:18.320there's such a big part of my own personal craft that's just being in awe of all of these things
00:04:23.760around us yeah i mean experiencing life from a perspective of awe in the natural world i think
00:04:33.440is really my anchor for what i think of as as a witch philosophy or a craft for sure um i want to
00:04:41.740come back to that because i have a question for you about fermentation and leavening but
00:04:46.100because i've sort of teased this idea about beer and i guess fermentation is connected and right
00:04:51.980now I'm sitting in a room with two big containers of beer fermenting so my office just reeks
00:04:57.900delightfully um can you can you tell us a bit about beer history and and women's history and
00:05:07.780which history give us a little bit of that story yeah so it's it's it's something like I started
00:05:15.420looking at a couple um a couple years ago and then also explore in um in my next book too
00:05:23.500it's interesting because it's one of those many cases of women both being vilified for witchcraft
00:05:29.780and being erased from what were once women dominated spaces and so brewing for thousands
00:05:38.160of years has been quote unquote women's work it was something that was done you know in the1.00
00:05:43.760household kind of a like a daily driver sort of kitchen chore you know you could also buy beer of
00:05:49.760course from neighbors vendors whatever but like this was primarily women one source I looked at0.98
00:05:56.980said that it was the most dominant profession of women in medieval court records which is you know0.78
00:06:04.740is one of the few ways that we have documentation of women from that time because of course like
00:06:09.220we weren't important enough to write about otherwise so um it's kind of an interesting
00:06:15.260like it was so prevalent and it was so so much connected with the identity of you know being a
00:06:24.740woman being a housewife in um you know particularly in northern europe um england um stuff like that
00:06:32.740not so much in um southern europe as far as i can tell because that was more of a wine drinking um
00:06:38.440area but even back in ancient Egypt women you know wine was considered this thing that the men made
00:06:46.140and was very expertise driven and then you know they're like oh yeah and beer just like I don't
00:06:50.780know women make that whatever and then you know kind of had eventually kind of had this shift
00:06:57.840towards it being more professionalized is the kind of weird term that we often use but0.66
00:07:03.620And we see that again in England. And so in England, you know, like I said, these court records showed us that women were really, really the ones brewing. This was very much women, you know, quote unquote women's work.0.66
00:07:16.480and then at some point men decided that they wanted to do brewing and they wanted to like0.98
00:07:23.100make it something that they could control and so you know as as often happens um women were then1.00
00:07:33.720rather than being able to continue to exist in their spaces of expertise were pushed out1.00
00:07:41.860and their histories largely erased and their you know their professional work actually vilified
00:07:48.180and so witchcraft perceptions of witchcraft at least became a very central part of
00:07:53.120the narratives around getting women out of those spaces and so you know how our modern
00:08:01.480our modern kind of image of a witch like here in the U.S. is pointy hat you know bubbling cauldron0.97
00:08:10.860cats like you know broom all of this stuff all of that originates from you know the the ale wives0.84
00:08:19.000women who sold ale on street corners in england and so these women were you know they they were
00:08:25.900just making it and selling it and you know the men were like no we want this to be you know big
00:08:30.320business we want to professionalize quote unquote professionalize this by putting guilds around it0.56
00:08:35.340and all of these other structures that inherently exclude women and so they did and they as they did
00:08:41.100that they used all of this imagery from the ale wives professional work to vilify them so the
00:08:50.460pointy hats um that we associate with witches now those were like i don't know kind of like their
00:08:56.580like costume thing like they're on the street it's like they're like notice me i'm over here
00:09:01.240i'm the beer person here's my hat and the you know the cats they would keep cats because
00:09:08.240they had stores of grain that mice would get in so you know having um having cats to catch the
00:09:16.720mice was helpful they had a broom to sweep up fallen grain off of the floor and of course the
00:09:21.900bubbling cauldron itself is a cauldron full of fear and so and so we have this you know these
00:09:31.240women who had been doing this forever who then when the men wanted them out you know just kind
00:09:35.360of did this thing we see over and over and over again you know of women being framed as witches
00:09:42.040in order to um scare them out of a space or to scare people away from them for various you know
00:09:50.300reasons and it you know it if I can go off on a little bit of a tangent it I've been thinking a
00:09:57.320lot about it please yay I've been thinking a lot about that history and about the the Celtic
00:10:10.340goddess Keridwen also because I feel like we see a similar erasure within her story you know
00:10:18.860Clarissa Pinkula Estes talks a lot about how the stories that we have now are often the bones of
00:10:27.020what were older, more women-centered stories. And these were often subverted and made into
00:10:33.900more patriarchal stories. And so we have people like Keridwen, gods like Keridwen, who are vilified
00:10:40.700as being these, you know, really spiteful goddesses and whatever, but they very much may not have been
00:10:47.740in the original story so caridwin um in celtic mythology was the goddess who cared for the
00:10:55.440cauldron of like knowledge and inspiration so you know kind of if you're familiar with like the
00:11:00.380viking mead of inspiration she kind of had a similar thing um but they think that it was it
00:11:05.760was barley beer instead and so she has this cauldron with this like special brew in it
00:11:12.760um and just like with the women who were vilified by the male brewing guilds her story0.59
00:11:20.880has has taken on this light of you know this this kid that she like entrusted to
00:11:30.020stir this cauldron for her you know steals some some of the brew of knowledge and inspiration
00:11:37.000out of this cauldron and then she goes after him because she's like dude what are you doing like
00:11:42.500and so you know but we've now like now in this story you know they've had like there's all this
00:11:49.960stuff about like she gave birth to this baby and it was hideous and then like this you know
00:11:53.940triumphant kid that ended up like actually stealing stuff from her is the good character
00:11:59.500in this story now it's like she you know she was guarding this very special gift to share
00:12:06.940and then a male character takes away her agency to share that gift in the way she wants and then
00:12:12.920she's vilified for it and I think that's because of that particular framing it leads me to believe
00:12:19.140that you know her and her beer are framed you know through a patriarchal lens in a way that
00:12:25.940the original myth was not not meant to be yeah we do see that so often and you have those I have
00:12:34.500those moments anyway where I'm reading history or mythology and I'm like this just feels flipped
00:12:40.120the woman became this violent raging beast and it sure seems like the reason for that has gone0.67
00:12:46.680with sin yeah yeah I'm actually writing about the Haitian revolution now about the women and
00:12:54.020priestesses of the Haitian revolution and I hit on this quote it's in Jane Boisvert's essay
00:13:00.220colonial hell and female slave resistance in Saint-Domingue. And it just has been echoing
00:13:06.020ever since. And I've been thinking about you. So the quote is something like that Vodou was
00:13:10.920the leavening agent for the people's liberation from chains. So yeah, obviously leavening and
00:13:17.380fermenting and like how we had these relationships to change that maybe we understood differently
00:13:23.680when we had a closer relationship to food. I wondered if you would just like think out loud
00:13:28.560for us about leavening and fermenting and how those processes work maybe in food and maybe in
00:13:34.300us as well yeah so it's you know it's interesting because we do see a lot of you know like you said
00:13:40.480these mentions of fermentation kind of as an explicitly magical you know like represented
00:13:48.200as a magical thing you know or as transformation um and so indeed like sander katz talks about
00:13:55.760fermentation as the transformative action of microbes and so there's inherent transformation
00:14:02.680change a lack of you know a lack of stillness within these sorts of spaces and i think that
00:14:09.600you know that that's so important to our understanding of these um as as magical
00:14:15.620things as you know as leavening i mean literally to rise you know but with that it's like to rise
00:14:23.300but there's an understanding that like there's kind of a structure within that like if you look
00:14:27.320at leavening dough it's not you know there's actually kind of a structure of bubbles of
00:14:32.440course holding that up it's got kind of this interconnected structure along with the bubbles
00:14:38.820of carbon dioxide and so it's um i've been thinking a lot about magic and fermentation
00:14:44.780and change and all of these you know transformation and all of this um in part i'm for fun i'm making
00:14:52.440a oracle deck right now um that is fermentation based and so it's oracle cards that deal with
00:15:00.820different ferments and it talks about how we can we can use these as interpretive lenses for
00:15:07.400thinking about um ourselves and our magical lives and so for example um shio koji which is like this
00:15:16.000salt koji water blend it's you know it has a very simple flavor but it makes you know it makes the
00:15:23.320flavors of everything else shine you can use it you know as a marinade you can use it in soups
00:15:28.200you can use it all over the place and so you know but thinking about it through that personal
00:15:32.960interpretive lens you know it's like what can I do to kind of perform that you know in the lives
00:15:39.060of others how can i help those around me you know shine in that way and yeah i've been i've been
00:15:46.120really wanting to write at some point about you know more deeply about fermentation mythology and
00:15:51.940folklore and all you know all of this stuff um but i'm i'm right now doing the oracle deck and
00:15:57.240kind of you know trying to explore that space of magic and play along with like my work and with
00:16:06.760my creative uh self and so I'm kind of sitting more with that right now but I do at some point
00:16:13.580want to do more of kind of a academic-ish dive into into a lot of this stuff that we're talking
00:16:20.160about you know about how how fermentation is represented right yeah because there's two sides
00:16:28.540to that like or many infinite sides but two that jump to mind that like there's how writers and
00:16:34.920thinkers have used metaphors of fermentation to describe what they're understanding about
00:16:40.720how their own spirit changes through either ritual or magic or through you know spiritual
00:16:48.360death or through those processes like you that language of fermentation um gets used a lot
00:16:54.980and then sort of like how you know um like metaphysical writers or spiritual writers like
00:17:00.680to use you know quantum physics as a metaphor a lot like and sometimes inappropriately probably
00:17:06.280yeah we're probably doing probably doing the same thing with fermentation but then on the flip side
00:17:12.880there's like you know that your understanding and sort of the understanding of microbiologists and
00:17:18.020people like white feather hunter we've had on the podcast before who are looking at the actual
00:17:22.680process that happens to the yeast for example or to the cell and really how do we understand
00:17:30.740the life of that life and what does that teach us about life yeah yeah and there's like so many
00:17:39.860directions it can it can go in because of course you know unlike us bacteria and some other microbes
00:17:47.560are able to you know adapt in a like genetically adapt quickly to new environments they're they're
00:17:55.680informed by the beings around them um i mean we're all inherently interconnected and we're you know
00:18:02.740we too are informed by these beings we have multiple pounds of you know microbes living
00:18:10.320within our bodies that you know help us with digestion mood and like a million other things
00:18:15.160like we have you know we have these like friends that are always with us and around us like every
00:18:22.360surface has you know lactobacillus for example fermentation microbes they're used in making
00:18:28.920sauerkraut just are kind of all around wild yeasts all these other things that are assistive to us
00:18:34.840that we've partnered with for thousands of years and you know like kind of how we talked about
00:18:39.500when we first started talking that sense of wonder and like the science kind of becoming
00:18:46.760an informative lens through which you practice you know the sense of wonder that's so central
00:18:52.680to a lot of our magic you know as you said like being in awe of the natural world like
00:18:57.780I get so excited about the microbes like I'm I'm working on a class right now on um using
00:19:04.140fermentation for meditation and building you know building a fermentation uh practice as a
00:19:11.420meditative practice because that's uh chef jenny dorsey who um i really really love um at one point
00:19:19.640was talking about how meditation for many people through history you know think about for example
00:19:26.560women the women brewing those beers for example um they are doing you know the lion's share of
00:19:33.640domestic work, child care, if not all of it, you know, when are you going to have time to sit
00:19:38.980and meditate and like, you know, sit still? Like there's, she mentioned kind of an inherent
00:19:45.460privilege in the ability to quietly sit and meditate that many people for any number of
00:19:52.820reasons have not had that ability or had access to that. And so I was thinking a lot about that
00:20:01.600and I was thinking about how then I you know then I have often trouble sitting and meditating
00:20:07.820but don't have time to or whatever and I was like I was like well in what ways do I build this into
00:20:13.560my life because many people would have and like in the kitchen is kind of a main way that you know
00:20:20.400people have done that and I was like oh yeah my fermentation I've got like this big baker's rack
00:20:25.640that's full of hundreds of fermenting things at any point and it's it's kind of getting out of
00:20:32.020hand and but I love it and and I start my mornings going and saying good morning to all of these
00:20:39.200these partner microbes that I'm working with my you know my friends my helpers my collaborators
00:20:45.500and I go and stir things and check things and smell things and taste things and kind of like
00:20:51.640that has become a meditative practice for me and so um I was I was thinking a lot about that and
00:20:59.220talking with some friends and they were like this would like you should teach a class on like this
00:21:03.260like so like so many people could benefit from that I was just like that was also kind of a
00:21:09.520tangent I'm kind of going on a lot of tangents today oh my gosh my brain is just lit up I mean
00:21:17.000for when my my partner and I think a lot about like because he's an artisan he's a leather
00:21:22.380worker and he he sort of has said before that his like his mind is kind of only in a meditative state
00:21:29.840when he's working when he's when he's when he's working with his hands and he's figuring out
00:21:35.720how things fold and bend and move in in space and and going from the sewing machine to the hand
00:21:42.480sewing and um and i i i'm so intrigued by this idea that for all of us our natural experience
00:21:52.160our relationship to meditation was or to you know that kind of brain space that where where we can
00:21:58.400be more connected to the planet and the universe was tied to our labor in our hands was tied to
00:22:03.580our craft was tied to like cooking and then and the time we spent and then when you add that level
00:22:09.900of you know the fermentation that that the natural world and the sort of invisible livingness of it
00:22:16.300was all talking back to us while we were working in the kitchen yeah and that we were kind of
00:22:21.220broken from that by industrialization and and that sort of this sort of mix of capitalism
00:22:28.280patriarchy racism what we might call curiarchy that that broke all of us that broke all of us
00:22:34.760Yeah. My friend, um, Narendra Basin, who's, um, my friends here in Atlanta, I remember her telling
00:22:43.640me something that's really stuck with me in the last year, which is that like, you know, play is
00:22:50.600sacred. Like this playing in the kitchen, you know, as you just talked about this, like working
00:22:55.960with your hands, I mean, it's like, this is a sacred act to create space for play and for like
00:23:01.980just undirected whatever frolicking creating kind of whatever just gives you that sort of free um
00:23:10.660free space and so as you were saying that I was like that phrase kept rolling around in my mind
00:23:15.380too yes we talk about play a little bit in our book which is arriving at people's doors now
00:23:23.720missing so that's my little plug julia do you want to tell us a little bit about your existing
00:23:31.300books and your forthcoming book and how else people can find you and get connected. I think
00:23:37.980by the time this episode has come out, we will already have launched the giveaway that we're
00:23:42.480doing for Julia's incredible, incredible, incredible online class. Um, is it called
00:23:48.900preserving abundance? Yeah. No, you, you, you, you talk about it. I want to talk excitedly about it
00:23:55.660okay um so that um that class is all about it's it's very fermentation heavy but it's not
00:24:06.440exclusively exclusively fermentation um it also has home crafts and you know other you know
00:24:14.700non-fermented foods you can make and then of course a lot of fermented food too
00:24:19.100um but it's very much focused on reducing food waste and so using up your food scraps the
00:24:26.200different ways you can do that um which is a lot of fun and that class you know that class I really
00:24:34.660um I I find very rewarding because it's it's helpful for getting people kind of in this
00:24:40.980different headspace of thinking about their food but like all of my classes it has a historical
00:24:45.940emphasis as well. So it has, um, I talk a lot about, you know, turning to the ways that people
00:24:54.480have made, uh, have made their food in the past. I mean, of course, people were not always able to,
00:25:01.580like, they didn't have the kind of abundance that we have now. They couldn't just walk into
00:25:06.520a grocery store and be like, oh, look, it's, you know, whatever way out of season for strawberries,
00:25:12.200yet here they are people had to you know had to make do with what they had and they had to
00:25:16.600save it and you know preserve it and so thinking through things with that lens I think has been
00:25:24.620really helpful for people it gives them a framework for doing reducing food waste and I
00:25:29.680kind of I build in that sort of historical framework around all of my classes those are
00:25:35.860all available at rootkitchens.shop. And then from there, people can navigate around the whole rest
00:25:42.940of my website that has all the other, you know, consulting and the membership and all the other
00:25:47.840stuff on it. I also have recently launched a class with my partner who is a, he's a Senegalese
00:25:57.240artist. He's been making art for many, many, many years. His name is Abdalafai. We have launched a
00:26:04.820class teaching of mud cloth dye which is which is also fermented um and so that's over at
00:26:11.640fermentation school.com and there at fermentation school um that's kind of a collective of
00:26:18.960fermentation teachers and there's a bunch of other cool stuff there so there's our class
00:26:22.600and then we uh let's see what else my books so i have a couple a couple other books um out right
00:26:32.300now um one on afternoon tea and then one i published years and years ago that was on
00:26:37.620this one 1615 cookbook um and that one is called modernizing markham the afternoon tea one is
00:26:45.480called afternoon tea a history pretty easy to remember um and the next one is coming out
00:26:52.380in 2022 so it's coming out um through story publishing and it's called culture begins here
00:26:58.820fermentation and the history of how we eat so if people follow follow me on social media they can
00:27:06.580you know sign up for newsletters whatever whatever they want they have a lot of ways to get in touch
00:27:10.540with me so at root kitchens and at brookish julia are the two handles i use on instagram and twitter
00:27:17.060for folks to follow if they want and get updates about you know that book the oracle deck all the
00:27:25.040other you know my crazy fermentation experiments my cats just all the important stuff I wonder
00:27:34.280if you would uh if you would leave us with maybe a simple ritual you do maybe it's fermentation
00:27:42.980or meditation related or maybe it's just like a little starting point or just something that
00:27:48.140is working for you right now that listeners can carry into their practice and feel sort of a
00:27:56.740connection to you and and to the coven when they do it does anything like that come to mind that
00:28:01.220you'd be willing to share yeah I mean I think you know the thing that's so special to me about
00:28:06.040fermented food is that it's it's both you know ubiquitous it's you know we have so much of it
00:28:11.220around us but it's also so simple so you know it's I really like to get people to think about
00:28:18.840doing wild fermentation using that to connect to the place around them and it doesn't have to be
00:28:24.140complex you know it can be like I grew these carrots in my garden and now I'm gonna you know
00:28:30.080put them in brine and ferment them and kind of see you know what happens with that but not just
00:28:36.220making it being like great I've got pickled carrots now but like really connecting to
00:28:41.120recognizing that these are of this place like even if you buy the carrots the microbes in your home
00:28:48.220are different than the microbes in my home so it becomes your very own ritual
00:28:54.320that speaks to place and then you share that with other people you are literally sharing a part of
00:29:00.540yourself and your home um with them so that's kind of the you know a good starting point i think for
00:29:08.980people to just start to get this sense of wonder and exploration about a place um you know i can
00:29:16.140think of like a thousand others too but i think that's that's a that's a good kind of you know
00:29:21.440just get something and just you know start like make a brine literally all you need is you know
00:29:28.080natural salt salt that doesn't have additives taking agents and stuff in it and water and
00:29:33.660whatever fruit or vegetable and you just you know experiment with it you just do that you know that
00:29:39.540play that sacred play but with um with food and then you know then you're starting to collaborate
00:29:47.400with these these beings that have been you know been there waiting to support you and are that
00:29:52.700are supporting you all the time you must be a witch hey friends if after listening you find
00:30:04.680you want a little coven loving in your life check out our sponsor foxglove farm use offer code
00:30:09.940missing witches to get some of that handmade ethical awesome witchy goodness in your life
00:30:14.720um we always love uh hearing from you so send us your reviews on whatever podcast service you
00:30:22.560use um and if you want to read the book gosh we'd love to send it to you so find it tell us what you
00:30:27.820think um and share your thoughts on amazon or goodreads and and yeah see you out there we love