The Fermentation fetishist

I was wary of kimchi, a traditional Korean food that is prepared by fermenting chopped vegetables in brine for several weeks, the first time I tried it. I was surrounded by vegans, vegetarians, a cook whose affinity for garlic was so strong that he’d tattooed an image of it on his elbow, and a grad student who was forever extolling the nutritional virtues of kombucha, a kind of fermented drink. 

This open-minded crowd eagerly inhaled the pungent mixture of cabbage, ginger, garlic and spicy peppers the moment my Korean-born friend, who had prepared it from scratch, offered it up. Despite the praises of its spicy flavor and chatter about the food’s nutritious properties floating around the room, I held back and sampled only a miniscule portion: Could it really be safe, I wondered, after fermenting for several weeks at room temperature?

Yet my reservations about fermented food vanished after moving to Asheville, where I encountered circles of live-culture-food aficionados who regularly concoct their own sauerkraut, kimchi, mead, miso, tempeh and other batches and brews. There seem to be a number of reasons for the local appeal of fermentation, not the least of which is the bonding experience that results from venturing into this realm of edible experimentation. Live-culture enthusiasts generally get together and split the cost of the ingredients (or simply harvest them from the garden), then go to work dicing and salting and mashing down the fresh veggies, tasting the mixtures as they go. Weeks later, they rejoin and host dinner parties with their fermented fare and honey wine.

Sandor Katz describes the experience as “community-building” and says he’s seen it happen a lot around Asheville, where he’ll put in several upcoming appearances. Known affectionately as “Sandorkraut,” Katz is a self-proclaimed “fermentation fetishist” and the author of Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-culture Foods (Chelsea Green, 2003)—a work considered a sort of gospel of fermentation by do-it-yourself enthusiasts. Over the years, he’s led sauerkraut workshops, mead-tasting parties and other events in this area; he’s also traveled internationally to teach about live-culture foods. Katz has lived with HIV since the 1980s, and credits fermented foods with playing a key role in maintaining his overall sense of wellbeing. The lactic acid bacteria that naturally forms during fermentation is known to have health benefits once it’s in the gut; it’s been found to aid digestion, inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria and even form some potent anticarcinogenic compounds.

Despite the zeal that often surrounds foods like sauerkraut and kimchi, it’s still common to encounter squeamishness and skepticism at first, notes Katz. “There is so much emphasis in our culture on food safety, and keeping everything refrigerated or heated up to a pasteurization level,” he says. “We just have a lot of fear about food that has been aged outside of refrigeration and outside of extreme heat. But in fact, the fermentation of most foods is incredibly safe.”

His claim is backed not just by his own 13 years of experience, but practically the entire history of civilization. Fermentation is a tradition that goes back thousands of years, since the first appearance of wine—that is, way before refrigerators came onto the scene. “I have yet to encounter a culinary tradition that does not incorporate some aspect of fermentation,” says Katz. “In a prerefrigeration context, fermentation was critical for people to have access to food, particularly vegetables, during the seasons of relative scarcity. … What I feel like I’m doing is demystifying these things, and helping people reclaim what are essentially ancient rituals.”

The act of reclaiming something that has been lost is a running theme in Katz’ latest work, The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements (Chelsea Green, 2006). The book goes beyond the scope of fermentation techniques to touch on more politically charged topics: seed-saving to resist against corporate control of the food supply, supporting organic farmers while shunning genetically modified crops, land struggles of subsistence farmers in developing countries, and do-it-yourself preventative health care that favors wild medicinal herbs in lieu of mass-produced pharmaceuticals.

In short, Katz’ work is a call for a food revolution, rejecing the high-intensity food production system and fostering relocalization of nourishing sustenance. “This revolution will not be genetically engineered, pumped up with hormones, covered in pesticides, individually wrapped, or microwaved,” Katz writes in the introduction. “This revolution is wholesome, nurturing, and sensual. This revolution reinvigorates local economies. This revolution rescues traditional foods that are in danger of extinction and revives skills that will enable people to survive the inevitable collapse of the unsustainable, globalized, industrial food system.”

Even for readers who don’t tend to fret about things like inevitable collapse, The Revolution Will Not be Microwaved may shake up a few firmly held convictions about food. While Katz’ advocacy of unconventional practices like eating “dumpstered” produce, dining on fermented meat or tasting a pinch of dirt from the yard may cause some to cringe, the really appalling content may lie in his critique of the mainstream-food supply. Horror stories involving toxic pesticides, a surge in diseases linked to processed foods, and regulations protecting the companies that market genetically modified crops all serve to underscore his case.

“People come at this from a lot of different starting points and perspectives,” says Katz. “A lot of people get interested in it because they’re having chronic health problems. I hear a lot from people who are interested in taking steps toward improving their health.  … For some, there’s a real political basis for their interest, and for some, they’re conceptualizing getting more connected to the earth.”

Katz says that if we was trapped on a desert island and given the choice of just one food to eat for the rest of his life, he’s certain it would be sauerkraut. “There’s no other food that feels it will just so independently make me feel good,” he says.  “I keep coming back to the basics, and that’s what I keep stressing for people just wanting to get into it a little bit.”

Sandor Katz in Asheville

Free talk and discussion at Malaprop’s Bookstore
Thursday, March 8; 7 p.m.

Organic Growers School Workshop: Fermenting Garden Vegetables
Saturday, March 10; 2 to 5:30 p.m.
Pre-registration required before March 1
Visit www.organicgrowersschool.org for more info

Miso-Making Workshop
Sunday, March 11; 2 to 5 p.m., at a private home in Asheville
$20 suggested donation
For info or to register, call Joe at (805) 450-5252 or e-mail joe@democracyuprising.org