Fermentation 05/06/2009
 

This Friday and Saturday I'll be attending at Transatlantic Perspectives Conference at BU.  Friday I'm taking a class about fermentation, which I'm really excited about.  I grew up helping my Grannie make saurkraut in her basement but I'm excited about learning about yogurt, kimchi and beer.

The instructor wrote a book called Wild Fermentation and I'm going to get a copy of for taking his class.  I have minimal experience with food preserving outside of my family experience.  I have watched my Mum and Grannie make pickles, but participated minimally and I have not made pickles or jam or anything in a jar since I moved from Canada.

I have a starter in my fridge I use for bread, named Inga.  I understand that Inga is made up of live bacteria and if I don't want her to die I need to feed her.  Fermentation as far as I understand it is similar to Inga, but you are using the food that you are trying to preserve to feed the bacteria.  Somehow through this process the food is preserved.  Or maybe it's closer to marinated.  I should have all the answers by Friday night.

 


Comments

Jules
05/19/2009 20:35

So.... any answers?

Does fermentation mean a preserve (or preservation- I don't know the correct word) automatically? Are all preserves fermented? E.g. jam- it doesn't seem fermented, it seems sterilized and oh so sweet.

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Sydney
05/20/2009 06:35

I do have some answers.

Not all preserves are fermented, jams for example and anything canned (unless you can something like saurkraut that's already fermented, but once it's canned the fermentation stops)are nor ferments.

Fermentation is more of a controlled rot. The microbes naturally present on food begin to break it down, but if you use certain techniques you can direct those microbes to turn those foods into a fermented food and not a rotten food. Does that make sense?

Here's a link to a post I wrote about the class for goodeater.org

http://www.goodeater.org/2/post/2009/05/sandor-katz-a-fetish-for-fermentation.html

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