Fermentation expert Sandor Katz to speak at UNCA

Fermentation expert Sandor Katz will be speaking at UNC Asheville on Sunday, May 24. The lecture is free and open to the public. Katz is the author of Wild Fermentation, sometimes called the “the fermenting bible” by food critics.

From the University of North Carolina Asheville

Press release

Sandor Katz, author of the James Beard Award-winning book, The Art of Fermentation (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012), will present a lecture on his work at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 24 in UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall. His lecture is free and open to the public.

Katz’ fermentation workshops and his first book, Wild Fermentation (Chelsea Green Publishing; 2003), which Newsweek called “the fermenting bible,” have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts. The New York Times calls Katz “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” “Ferments are huge sources of flavor complexity,” Katz told the Times in a 2012 interview. “That’s why people find cheese so compelling. That’s why soy sauce has become a universally loved condiment.”

A New York City native and graduate of Brown University, Katz moved two decades ago to a communal farm in Tennessee, where a bumper crop of cabbage led him to begin his experiments with fermentation. Katz is a recipient of the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance. His free public lecture at UNC Asheville will provide the opening keynote talk of a weeklong fermentation workshop sponsored by the Ashevillage Sanctuary.

Katz’ lecture is cosponsored by UNC Asheville’s Office of Sustainability and Ashevillage. For more information, contact Sonia Marcus at smarcus@unca.edu or 828.251.6627.