‘Fermentation revivalist’
Microbes have enduring transformative power
Under a scanning electron microscope, doubanjiang appears to be more of a topographic map than fermented chili bean paste.
“Every structure is supporting smaller structures,” says author Sandor Katz, “and so the edges are all fuzzy.”
Whether you’re aware of them or not, fermented foods — those transformed by time and micro-organisms — likely fill your fridge and kitchen cupboards. Cheese, chocolate, yogurt, miso, soy sauce, sourdough bread, kimchi, sauerkraut, wine, beer, tea and coffee are all ubiquitous products of fermentation.
Originally a method of preservation, people around the world have been making fermented foods for millennia. But over the past decades, interest in the craft has grown, which Katz credits in part to increased awareness of the human microbiome and a desire to reconnect with food production.
If you don’t eat fermented foods each day, you’re the exception rather than the rule, says Katz, calling the process a culinary constant.
As Katz writes in his latest book, Fermentation as Metaphor — interweaving his photography with ruminations — it can be compelling to view the world in absolutes, like good and bad. Rather than existing in extremes, though, most of life is betwixt and between.
Katz references a book about fungi he’s reading, Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life. In his chapter on lichens, Sheldrake presents the organism as a fusion of a fungus and photosynthesizing bacteria and extends the idea that no form of life is singular. We may need categories in order to make sense of our world, Katz emphasizes, but we should also be aware of their imperfections and overlaps.
“Lichens were obvious to early researchers as being a fusion, but it turns out — (whether) our human bodies, a carrot or an oak tree — all forms of life require these symbiotic relationships,” says Katz. “We are not just Homo sapiens. We are Homo sapiens in association with a trillion micro-organisms that are within and upon us, and which confer upon us all sorts of functionality that we wouldn’t possess without them.”
INCREASED INTEREST
Having helped kickstart a renewed interest in fermentation around the world in the early 2000s with his second book on the practice, Wild Fermentation (2003), Katz has since carved out a unique role as a “fermentation revivalist.”
While his influential previous works, including most recently The Art of Fermentation (2012), present the practical how-tos, Fermentation as Metaphor is reflective and covers topics as far-reaching as the rebellious spirit, clean food and body odour.
For centuries, Katz explains, English speakers have used the word fermentation to depict more than the metabolic processes of yeast and bacteria — “but also much more broadly to indicate a state of agitation, excitement and bubbliness.” The effervescence that accompanies the making of fermented foods and beverages extends past physical vessels, says Katz. Fermentation is an inevitable transformative force touching any aspect of human life and culture.
He first started contemplating the metaphorical implications of fermentation in the early 1990s, when he became immersed in the craft. Katz took note of references to times or places where there had been great artistic, musical, spiritual or political fermentation in books and magazines. As a teacher, this exploration of figurative fermentation plays into one of his key objectives, which is to encourage people to consider the practice more broadly.
“Fermentation isn’t just a way to create delicious flavours and preserve food, and get probiotics, but it’s also this engine driving social change,” says Katz.
“I’m always trying to challenge myself and challenge other people to think in more expansive ways about food. And sure, food can look beautiful, food can taste wonderful, food can make you feel really good. But we also need to tune into it in terms of relationships with plants and animals, and micro-organisms, and economic relationships, and the structure of communities.”
For those who are drawn to fermentation because of the health benefits, this often means inspiring them to think about the deep flavours of fermented foods and beverages. Conversely, when teaching people who are primarily focused on flavour, he emphasizes the improved nutrition entwined with the taste experience.
Katz also uses fermented foods to teach people about food systems: where our food comes from, and how fermentation fits into the bigger picture of making effective use of resources.
This aspect of eating has only become more apparent as the pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of the food supply chain. As a result, Katz says, efforts to localize food production and distribution have gotten stronger.
“Expanding local and regional food production, and in the process transforming the economy that goes along with it,” he writes, “is the only real food security.”
COVID-19 IMPACT
He submitted his manuscript for the book as COVID-19 hit, and realizing how relevant the pandemic was to his work, decided to revise it.
“It felt scary writing about COVID so early in it,” says Katz, laughing. “But honestly, I think it would be no less scary to write about COVID now, because we’re right in the middle of it and nobody really knows where it’s headed.”
One of the most common questions people have asked him over the years is: ‘How can I tell if the bacteria growing in my ferments are good or bad?’ For people who were raised to be fearful of bacteria, this trepidation can be difficult to overcome, Katz says. The idea of deliberately cultivating micro-organisms in foods and beverages through time-tested processes is too much to bear.
Katz draws parallels between the “War on Bacteria,” which thrived in the 20th century, and a burgeoning “War on Viruses,” spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic. With disinfecting wipes disappearing from shelves, people are putting faith in elimination as part of the cure. But chemical sanitization can only slow a virus’s spread, Katz writes, “and, in fact, eradicating microorganisms would be suicide, for ‘we’ cannot exist without ‘them.’”
During the pandemic, instead of travelling as planned, Katz has been sheltering in his rural Tennessee farmhouse, tending to his garden, which has flourished under the increased attention. In a typical year, he might have had just five days at home in between trips, and appreciates how much circumstances have slowed the pace of his life.
As the pandemic continues, he sees hope in metaphorical fermentation and its boundless promise of renewal. Everybody should have the opportunity to get caught up in some kind of fermentation of ideas, he says, simply because it’s so exhilarating.
“It’s an important part of our range of human experiences, and it can be very elusive,” adds Katz. “I think about my dad growing up in the 1950s — or all of these times and places where there wasn’t necessarily that much social fermentation; where there was a lot of conformity — and how exciting it is when there are times when society is buzzing with lots of change. It’s vibrant.”