Wild
Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz
The book covers
vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, kimchi, and sour pickles; bean ferments
including miso, tempeh, dosas, and idli; dairy ferments including yogurt, kefir,
and basic cheesemaking (as well as vegan alternatives); sourdough bread-making;
other grain fermentations from Cherokee, African, Japanese, and Russian
traditions; extremely simple wine- and beer-making (as well as cider-, mead-,
and champagne-making) techniques; and vinegar-making. With nearly 100 recipes,
this is the most comprehensive and wide-ranging fermentation cookbook ever
published.
In the spirit of
the great reformers and artists, Sandor Katz has labored mightily to deliver
this opus magnum to a population hungry for a reconnection to real food, and to
the process of life itself. —Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing
Traditions, from the Foreword
Wild Fermentation takes readers on a tour
of fermented foods from around the globe—many of them delicacies available at
Zabar’s—and describes techniques for making them at home. For me the book was a
nostalgic journey, reminding me of traditional foods I knew in my childhood,
which are rarely found today. This is a book that will fascinate and inspire
food lovers. —Saul Zabar, owner of Zabar's, New York City's famous food
market
Groundbreaking new book celebrates the pleasures and benefits of
fermented foods;
Wild Fermentation demystifies ancient food
transformation processes and explains simple techniques for creating delicious
and nutritious ferments at home.
Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee.
Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For
thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition
resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild
Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the
first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of
fermentation.
Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for
me, writes author Sandor Ellix Katz. I invite you to join me along this
effervescent path, well trodden for thousands of years yet largely forgotten in
our time and place, bypassed by the superhighway of industrial food
production.
The flavors of fermentation are compelling and complex, quite
literally alive. This book takes readers on a whirlwind trip through the wide
world of fermentation, providing readers with basic and delicious recipes—some
familiar, others exotic—that are easy to make at home.
The author, a
long-term HIV/AIDS survivor, also reflects upon the importance of fermentation
in the cycles of life, and as a phenomenon in the spread of ideas and social
change. Much more than a cookbook, this book touches on issues as varied as
globalization, genetic engineering, and gender politics. “For me, fermentation
is a health regimen, a gourmet art, a multicultural adventure, a form of
activism, and a spiritual path, all rolled into one,” writes the
author.
Wild Fermentation is a revolutionary and unique book, exploring
cultural theory and the history of human nutrition. From raw foodists to slow
foodists, from vegans to insatiable carnivores, this book will appeal to anyone
interested in world food traditions and the whys of good food and good
health.
Facts and
Statistics About Fermentation
Most people consume fermented foods or
drinks daily: bread, cheese, wine, beer, even coffee and
chocolate.
Captain James Cook, the 18th century English explorer, is
credited with having conquered scurvy (vitamin c deficiency) among his crews by
serving them sauerkraut every day.
Fermentation pre-digests foods and
improves the bioavailability of the nutrients present in them.
The
process of fermentation also creates new nutrients, most notably B
vitamins.
Live-culture ferments feed microorganisms essential to human
digestion into your digestive tract.
Fermentation organisms also help
prevent disease by competing with potential pathogens.
African infants
weaned on fermented gruels had half as much diarrhea as counterparts weaned on
unfermented gruels.
Literally hundreds of studies have been published in
scientific and medical journals documenting the health-promoting and
disease-fighting properties of different fermented foods and probiotic
organisms.
Recent research in Finland concluded that fermentation of
cabbage creates cancer-fighting compounds called isothiocyanates.
Humans
started fermenting long before we began cultivating food crops. mead (alcohol
fermented from honey) is generally regarded as the oldest fermented pleasure.
The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss suggests that mead-making marks the
passage of humanity from nature to culture.
During the two 20th century
wars with Germany, Americans redubbed sauerkraut "liberty cabbage." (it goes
great with freedom fries.)
Kimchi is such a basic staple in Korea that
the average adult consumes more than 1/4 pound each day, and employees are
customarily given "kimchi bonuses" in the fall so they can purchase ingredients
to make their annual supply.
It was observed following the nuclear
bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that miso protected people from radiation
sickness; later research identified a compound in miso called dipicolinic acid,
which binds with radioactive elements and carries them out of the
body.
FOREWORD
by
Sally Fallon
The process of fermenting foods—to preserve them and to make
them more digestible and more nutritious—is as old as humanity. From the
Tropics—where cassava is thrown into a hole in the ground to allow it to soften
and sweeten—to the Arctic—where fish are customarily eaten “rotten” to the
consistency of ice cream—fermented foods are valued for their health-giving
properties and for their complex tastes.
Unfortunately, fermented foods
have largely disappeared from the Western diet, much to the detriment of our
health and economy. Fermented foods are a powerful aid to digestion and a
protection against disease. And because fermentation is, by nature, an artisanal
process, the disappearance of fermented foods has hastened the centralization
and industrialization of our food supply, to the detriment of small farms and
local economies.
The taste for fermented foods is usually an acquired
taste. Few of us can imagine eating fermented tofu crawling with worms, which is
relished in parts of Japan; or bubbly sorghum beer, smelling like the contents
of your stomach, which is downed by the gallons in parts of Africa. But then,
few Africans or Asians can enjoy the odiferous chunks of rotten milk (called
cheese) that are so pleasing to Western palates. To those who have grown up with
fermented foods, they offer the most sublime of eating experiences—and there are
many that will appeal to Western tastes even without a long period of
accustomization.
In the spirit of the great reformers and artists, Sandor
Katz has labored mightily to deliver this magnum opus to a population hungry for
a reconnection to real food and to the process of life itself. For fermented
foods are not only satisfying to eat, they are also immensely satisfying to
prepare. From the first successful batch of kombucha to that thrilling taste of
homemade sauerkraut, the practice of fermentation is one of partnership with
microscopic life. This partnership leads to a reverence for all the processes
that contribute to the wellbeing of the human race, from the production of
enzymes by invisible bacteria to the gift of milk and meat from the sacred
cow.
The science and art of fermentation is, in fact, the basis of human
culture: without culturing, there is no culture. Nations that still consume
cultured foods, such as France with its wine and cheese, and Japan with its
pickles and miso, are recognized as nations that have culture. Culture begins at
the farm, not in the opera house, and binds a people to a land and its artisans.
Many commentators have observed that America is a nation lacking culture—how can
we be cultured when we eat only food that has been canned, pasteurized, and
embalmed? How ironic that the road to culture in our germophobic technological
society requires, first and foremost, that we enter into an alchemical
relationship with bacteria and fungi, and that we bring to our tables foods and
beverages prepared by the magicians, not machines.
Wild Fermentation
represents not only an effort to bring back from oblivion these treasured
processes but also a road map to a better world, a world of healthy people and
equitable economies, a world that especially values those iconoclastic,
free-thinking individuals—so often labeled misfits—uniquely qualified to perform
the alchemy of fermented foods.
| Edition: |
Paperback |
| Format: |
25
b&w illustrations, more than 90 recipes |
| Pages: |
7 x 10,
208 pages |
| ISBN: |
1-931498-23-7 |
| Publisher: |
Chelsea
Green Publishing |
| Release Date: |
2003-09-15 |
|
Table of Contents
| |
List of
Recipes |
ix |
| |
Foreword by
Sally Fallon |
xi |
| |
Acknowledgments |
xiii |
| Introduction |
Cultural Context: The Making of a Fermentation Fetish |
1 |
|
Chapter
1. |
Cultural
Rehabilitation: The Health Benefits of Fermented Foods |
5 |
|
Chapter
2. |
Cultural
Theory: Human Beings and the Phenomenon of Fermentation |
13 |
|
Chapter
3. |
Cultural
Homogenization: Standardization, Uniformity, and Mass Production |
20 |
|
Chapter
4. |
Cultural Manipulation: A Do-It-Yourself Guide |
28 |
|
Chapter
5. |
Vegetable
Ferments |
38 |
|
Chapter
6. |
Bean
Ferments |
57 |
|
Chapter
7. |
Dairy Ferments
(and Vegan Alternatives) |
73 |
|
Chapter
8. |
Breads (and
Pancakes) |
92 |
|
Chapter
9. |
Fermented-Grain
Porridges and Beverages |
110 |
|
Chapter
10. |
Wines
(Including Mead, Cider, and Ginger Beer) |
124 |
|
Chapter
11. |
Beers |
141 |
|
Chapter
12. |
Vinegars |
152 |
|
Chapter
13. |
Cultural
Reincarnation: Fermentation in the Cycles of Life, Soil Fertility, and Social
Change |
158 |
| |
Appendix:
Cultural Resources |
167 |
| |
Notes |
169 |
| |
Bibliography |
175 |
| |
Index |
181 |
|
| |
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