Hello, Happy New Year. Welcome to Cooking. Cooking. She's coming to you live on newsstands Studios in New York City for show 2022 Happy to be back here with of course with Anastasia hammer Lopez. How're you doing? feeling? Feeling feeling good feeling and feeling ready for the new year? Yeah, can't be worse. Gonna be Oh, wow. Wow. All right, stop me from a business perspective. from all perspectives. Yeah. All right. All right, good. And we got John over here. How you doing John? Doing great. Thanks. Yeah, yeah,

not gonna complain at least so nice.

I like that. That's my new that's my new thing when people say I'm not gonna say can't complain anymore. I'm gonna say won't won't complain. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, won't complain. Leads. We're thinking a little bit just a little bit. We got Hassan and booth in the booth again. Who saw more how you doing? Very good. Very good. How are you doing? Well, doing well. How is your New Year's? New Year's is good. I stayed at home and watch the ball drop. Oh, yeah. They still do that. On TV. Yes. Who doesn't? Who but who does that now that declerck is dead. Um, I was watching Miley Cyrus and Pete Davidson. So I'm not really sure. So wait. So Pete Davidson is a new declare doesn't check out though. He's more like a secrecy kind of guy. Right? He was funny. Yeah. Staten Island zone. Gotta love it. The only Democrat and all Staten Island. Is that true? Is he the only Democrat in Staten Island? Probably. Yeah. And we got Jackie molecules. Where are you Jackie?

Back home in La La how

you love LA you love it. Have you ever met live here? I mean, have you met Randy Newman ever? He's still there, right. I thought when you move to LA, you got to meet Randy Newman. I thought that was part of the deal.

I didn't get that coupon in hell. No.

I love Reno, who doesn't love Randy Newman. Any new ones the best. But enough of that. I'm super excited. We have today a guest that we were supposed to have on prior to the new year we had technical difficulties in the studio had to had to shut it down. We have had I just keep telling you it is I call him first of all, I'm gonna tell you the telephone number. Get ready to write this down. If you're a Patreon listener, calling your questions 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507 And if you're listening to this and wish you could call him join our Patreon. Very easy, very simple, but we have today longtime waiting. I'm a huge fan Sandor Katz How you doing? Hi. Hi, I'd say it's a pleasure. I wish we I wish we'd had you on when you were in New York City so that we could have you like a live in the studio because I've always wanted to meet you. For those of you for the three people hearing this who don't already know who you are. You are kind of like the I don't know you're the you're the Papazian of fermentation the Harold McGee of fermentation. In other words, like what Harold Papazian wants to home brewing. Although I don't know that people read his book as much anymore. You are the fermentation or what you know Harold was the food or is the food science you are to fermentation you're like the person that everyone goes back to we've have had really good friends with Ariel Johnson and Richie who written great books on fermentation with rich with Jeremy Umansky and with have had David Zilber on the show, but we've never had you and I'm super psyched to have you with it. It's a huge honor. Well, I'm

so happy to be with you. And, you know, I'm flattered by the analogies, but I would just point out that home brewing is fermentation.

That's true. That's true, but very specific. So your first book on ferment, not your first book, your first book on fermentation was wild fermentation. Right? I haven't read your first first book, the one that that punk group, I think wrote a song for you about called the revolution was the revolution that will not be microwave and not read that.

Okay, actually, you've got my secrets a little bit wrong. Wild fermentation was my first book that came out in 2003. And the revolution will not be microwave came out in 2006. It really was, you know, it's a book about grassroots food movements, you know, largely that I became aware of, as a result of my wild fermentation book tour of, you know, talking about fermentation with so many people in so many different kinds of venues. You know, and then the art of fermentation came out in 2012. That's when I first started reading, fermentation in 2016. Then fermentation is metaphor came out last year. And then I have a brand new book that's been out for about two months. That's called fermentation journeys. That's about fermented foods and beverages that I've learned about mostly in my travels.

So before we get into the new book, I want to because I'm super, I only have the original edition of wild fermentation, which I actually bought after I read the art of fermentation. My first book of yours that I read was The Art of fermentation. And that's the one you know for, since it came out fundamentally whenever anyone asked me a question on fermentation on this Go, because we've been doing this show for God knows how many years. I just say, why don't you just go read the art of fermentation? Because they, you know, you know, cats has a section on it. And everyone's like, oh, you should have won the show. So anyway, so here, here we go. But what's I don't have your your revision, but I read the, the intro to the new edition of wild fermentation. Online. And why don't you talk about that idea of revising? Because I think revising something like that, right, which is kind of a seminal book has got to be really, really interesting. You said you updated a lot, but what did you change? More importantly, what about your, your mental attitude? Because you learned so much between the two revisions? What about the your mental attitude change? Like, how did you approach the revision?

Well, I mean, that's, that's an interesting question. I mean, I mean, I, I tried to really leave this spirit of the book, you know, you know, as it was, but, you know, I would say that the main thing is that, you know, as a result of what began as a book tour for wild fermentation, and sort of has evolved into a lifestyle as an itinerant fermentation educator, you know, I just got a lot more experienced at, you know, talking about fermentation to people and, and sort of developed a clearer sense of conceptual progressions, and, you know, what common misunderstandings were. And so, you know, really, I feel like I was able to bring to bear on the revised edition of wild fermentation, you know, just sort of my, you know, experience as a fermentation educator, even more than my experience as a fermenter. Although, you know, certainly, certainly, you know, that, that, that played into it, as well, but let me, let me address this question of revival. And, you know, really the perspective I have come to have is that, you know, fermented foods and beverages are an essential aspect of how people, you know, everywhere, make effective use of whatever food resources are available to them. And, you know, fermentation is practiced everywhere has been practiced everywhere. And, you know, prior to the, you know, centralization of food production, you know, which really is mostly a phenomenon of the 20th century, you know, fermentation was, you know, sort of enmeshed in people's lives, if not in the life of every single household, you know, in the life of every community. So people at least would be aware of the process and what went into it. And, you know, part of food centralization is you know, we just become less aware of the processes by which, you know, our food comes into being and so, you know, fermentation has become increasingly mysterious to people, over the same period of time that, you know, the field of microbiology emerged, we became aware of bacteria, initially, we were afraid of bacteria, because we thought of them primarily as agents of disease. But increasingly, really, since the new millennium, we've been hearing the flip side of the story, how important bacteria and other micro organisms to our effective functioning, to the effective functioning of the soil, to the health of plants and all kinds of organisms. You know, the revival of fermentation is really people reclaiming this important process that is meant of, you know, all of our culinary traditions, you know, the cultures that all of us come from, you know, and just, you know, how to make effective use of food resources,

don't you think? It's kind of like a it's interesting because it's a there's a double whammy, right? If you read certainly industrialization, the kind of pablum modification of food you know, isn't was a real phenomenon especially you know, in this country in parts of Europe for sure. But the assault on that kind of stuff started much earlier as you say with the kind of with the discovery of bacteria you read all of the books from the you know, mid to early mid mid 1800s, Sylvester Graham even all of these people were petrified of fermentation right you right you read this is like the era when baking baking powder was considered a more healthy thing to make bread with than yeast because of the the the nasty bugs that might be involved in the god forbid salt rice and bread, which is also written about so what do you think about that double whammy like the the fear of science and microbiology, and then the industrialization you think they're both to blame? Or do you blame one more than the other?

Well, I mean, I would just say, I mean, I would say I would say both of them. I mean, the thing is that the products of fermentation have never, you know, gone On out of popularity, the products of fermentation have enjoyed enduring popularity, you know, think about bread, cheese, chocolate, coffee, beer wine, you know, vinegar, soy sauce, fish sauce, the products of fermentation have really just enjoyed enduring popularity. So, you know, it's not as if, you know, people stopped enjoying the products of fermentation because they became afraid of bacteria. You know, it's more that people got squeamish about the process, people started sort of projecting onto it, people started imagining that you need a laboratory with controlled conditions and, you know, a microbiologist with a microscope in order to do it safely. So, I mean, I don't think people ever became afraid of the products of fermentation. I mean, it's more that people began to imagine that there was some, you know, sort of, you know, science or something beyond their capabilities involved in the process. Right. Well,

it's, you know, in that in that last bit, you were just saying, I think one of the nice things about your book is kind of a, go try it attitude, you know, what I mean? It's, uh, without being unsafe without giving kind of unsafe advice, right. Otherwise, I wouldn't recommend if I thought you were giving unsafe advice, I wouldn't recommend your book to people. But you know, it's like the kind of go try it attitude, I think, is one of the reasons why especially the art of fermentation so successful, because that was that a stated? Was that it was at a goal before you wrote it. Was that just a byproduct of who you are?

Oh, I mean, you know, my goal from the very beginning from you know, you know, my initial experiences teaching about fermentation, which was small, grassroots events in 1998. The zine that I wrote prior to the book, wild fermentation, all of my books, all the teaching, I do, I mean, my objective is to demystify fermentation and, and, you know, help people who are interested feel confident in doing it themselves at home. And, you know, fermentation is very, very much a strategy for safety, fermentation is not dangerous, foods that are fermented are safer than the equivalent food not fermented. You know, the process is very much a strategy for safety, there's nothing to be afraid of, you know, that's not to say that it's not impossible in any ferment, that anything could go wrong. But you know, what the practice of fermentation is all about is, is manipulating environmental conditions, which has the result of encouraging the growth of certain organisms, and simultaneously discouraging the growth of other organisms. And, you know, really, what you need to know, in order to ferment successfully and safely is what are the conditions you're trying to create? If you're fermenting sauerkraut, you're trying to get the vegetables submerged, that's the environmental manipulation. If they're all, if all the surfaces are exposed to air, it's going to become a big cloud of hairy molds. You, you prevent the aerobic mold spores that are always there from developing by getting them submerged and depriving them from a flow of oxygen. And in that condition, lactic acid bacteria will dominate every single time and every fermented food or beverage is something like that. It's creating the conditions where the organisms that you want will be able to thrive

on that creating conditions. By the way, you can't know this, but you just hyper triggered Anastasia with spores and mold. How you doing stuff? I'm doing? Okay, you're doing around? Yeah, I used to as a, just to be mean, send her text images of mold spores, and in this color and say, Spore, just to mess with her. But I'll stop. on that. What? So one of the interesting things I think is like, and I'll go back to the McGee analogy, Harold McGee, so you know, when he wrote his book, on food and cooking, he was interested in kind of showing the breadth of science, but there wasn't yet this kind of movement in kitchens to do all of these new things using scientific techniques, right? So then, but then he became kind of the, you know, a totemic figure for that group of people. You write this, you know, a series of books, and then a couple years after that, maybe as a result, I don't know, I don't know whether you want to take credit for it or not. But there's a huge wave of new styles of fermentation, some that have never been seen before. So firstly, an explosion of traditional fermentation in the restaurant scene. I'm talking about a lot of our listeners or restaurant people in the restaurant scene, but then also an explosion of trying old techniques on new ingredients, kind of new environments. Right. So what are your thoughts on that kind of explosion? I'm sure it's gratifying in some way that you know, because I know that a lot of these people are looking up to you or looking at your at your work, but what are your thoughts about some of the products that are coming out of it? And then as if Follow up. You know, some of these aren't traditional techniques. So traditional techniques, obviously, the safety is built into the fact that we've been doing it for zillions of years and nobody died. Right? The new techniques, though, are applying it to a new situation. Do you ever worry about that stuff?

Well, I mean, first of all, let me say, first of all, it is, you know, it's extremely gratifying. You know, that, that that, you know, my work has resonated, and, you know, that it has been, you know, kind of part of this, you know, broad revival of the fermentation arts, and that's really thrilling to me. You know, I don't think I can, you know, take any credit for it, really, I mean, I think I had, I had like, supremely Good luck in the timing of, you know, sort of my burgeoning interest and writing a book, because, you know, I think that the the single factor that has made people so receptive to fermentation, and as I said earlier, the products of fermentation have never ever waned in popularity. It's just that like, people weren't doing it, and people weren't thinking about the process. But, you know, once we started reading about the human microbiome, and you know, the complexity of the bacterial populations upon which we are dependent for our well being, you know, people started seeking out probiotic foods, bacteria, rich foods, you know, really with the objective of restoring biodiversity in the gut, because that's related to our digestion or immune function, our mental health and almost every other system in our bodies. And I think that, you know, once there was news about the microbiome, that was a natural progression for more and more people to get interested again, in, in fermented foods, and in practicing fermentation in their kitchens, whether they're, you know, just cooking for themselves and their families, or they're in a restaurant context. I mean, in terms of the innovation, I mean, you know, I mean, it's exciting to me to see so much experimentation, but I would say, like, nobody has invented any completely new fermented foods and beverages for hundreds and possibly 1000s of years. So all we're doing is re mixing.

Right? I mean, like thinking of like, for instance,

or, you know, personally, I mean, I'm not especially, you know, I'm not especially worried about the RE mixing that that people are doing I you know, I hope that they're doing in thoughtful ways. But I you know, I haven't heard any stories of disasters, the biggest disasters I've heard of are, you know, pupils exploding bottles of kombucha and other homemade carbonated sugary beverages.

Yeah, you know, what my issue with Kombucha is, is that when people label kombucha they they label the kombucha, but they like, okay, so someone gives you a kombucha, and they say it has X percent alcohol content, right? And you taste it, and you're like, Okay, clearly, a large percentage of this out of the alcohol has been converted to acetic acid, right? But they haven't really measured that. And I'm fine with it either way, by the way, as long as so like, I'm, I'm on kind of the opposite spectrum of from you and like, in the sense that I only care about taste, and Lenna. Like, that's just a taste, taste. That's all I care about is how does it taste? Okay. And culture tasting?

I'm glad you have a singular focus. Yeah, tasting culture isn't going to play faceted. Think about multiple things. Yeah. And then I can't

mentally don't have the bandwidth for it. But you know, how, like, you know, you take it on, and you write it in the introduction to well, fermentation and then again, in the art of fermentation, kind of you started coming to it from, you know, as you said, today, from a more apt health, not health, but like a more holistic, like whole body whole world microbiome kind of viewpoint. But what do you you know, how much of it for you is just

to clarify that a little bit. Yeah. Because, I mean, really, like, you know, I mean, my drawl to fermentation started as a kid, because I loved pickles. So I mean, I actually would say that as much as I've written about the other things you'll flavor is the first thing that sort of drew my attention to fermentation. You know, then we, you know, when I was experimenting with macrobiotics in my 20s You know, I started reading a little bit about probiotics and the health benefits and that, you know, and that made me think, Oh, these foods that I already love are good for me too. I'm gonna really try to make sure I eat them every day, but I was still buying them in the store. thing that motivated me to learn how to make sauerkraut to open up the joy of cooking and find a recipe for how to make my own sauerkraut was that in 1993, I moved from New York to rural Tennessee and I started keeping a garden And, you know, I was such a naive city kid that it had never occurred to me that in a garden, all of the cabbage would be ready at about the same time. But that's what I encountered is this obvious reality of agricultural production. And I had a nice row of cabbage. And I knew that sauerkraut had something to do with with preserving cabbage. So, you know, so So I made some sauerkraut, and it was delicious. And I kept on making more and experimenting and trying other ferments. And, you know, that was really my gateway into fermentation. But I would say that, you know, it was the practical value of preservation was what made me actually do it. I was definitely thinking about, you know, health and probiotics and digestion. But ultimately, you know, I love food, and I was motivated by the flavors. And I think that, you know, all of these things, and more are true of fermented foods and beverages. And, you know, these are the three of the main reasons that I hear from people about what what got them interested. The fourth is culture, you know, people who, you know, have some memory of some practice that their grandparents used to do an annual fermentation that, you know, fell by the wayside, that they're trying to recapture. So, you know, I've talked to so many people who migrated from some other part of the world and, you know, miss some, you know, fermented food or beverage from home and are and are, and are interested in trying to figure out how to create recreate it. So, you know, I mean, for me, one of the exciting things about fermentation is how multifaceted it is. And it's not reductionistic it's not just about umami flavors. It's not just about probiotics. It's not just about preservation. I mean, you know, there's just so many practical benefits to fermentation.

Cabbage made me think of cabbage. Do you have any tips for doing whole heads of cabbage so that I can have the whole leaf if I'm not going to do like, giant buckets of so that I can bury them in other in other chopped up leaves? I can't bury the whole heads. What do you do for that? Do you break the leaves off and then ferment them in a pile? Or what do you have any tips for that?

Well, you know, okay, so one, one hybrid method. So I do just to just add a little bit of context in fermentation journeys. You know, I have some stories and some recipes from my time in Croatia, including the idea of, you know, fermenting a bunch of whole heads of cabbage with the Corps cut out in a brine. And using the leaves of the cabbage of the whole soured leaves, as the stuffing for making stuffed cabbage is the best ever, by the way, you know, a hybrid methods that I've done a fair amount in a modest sized crock, you know, let's say, you know, two three gallon sized crock, you can't really do it, anything smaller than that, is, you know, shred half of your cabbage and then leave, you know, one large or two very small heads hole with the quarters cut out and just bury the whole heads of cabbage in the shredded cabbage.

Yeah, for those of you that have never made stuffed cabbage leaves with fully fermented leaves, you are missing out, you are missing out, is the best, but right around by far and away, the best way to make stuffed cabbage. Like without question, like,

and in southeastern Europe, you know, former Yugoslavia states, you know, Croatia and its neighbors. You know, that's the typical way of fermenting cabbages, whole heads of cabbage. And then, you know, if they want to serve you sauerkraut, they'll take one of those fermented whole heads and shred it. But as you say, I mean, they're used for these just extraordinarily delicious. Cabbage Rolls, Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.

And if you live in New York City, you can go to the Ridgewood pork store and they sell whole like fermented leaves, but they're pasteurized is not the same. It's not that they don't they no longer ferment their own the pasteurized stuff. It's sour patch why sauerkraut is so sad. Isn't it? Sad? Isn't it a sad thing? taste wise?

Well, I don't know. I mean, personally, I would say I have never met a sauerkraut I didn't like and you know, my early experiences of sauerkraut as a kid where you know what the hot dog vendors in New York are using which you know, I would say now is not the highest quality sauerkraut it's certainly not live sauerkraut. But you know, I have never met a crowd I didn't like and I love to cook with sauerkraut. I mean, sometimes I talk to people who are scandalous that I would ever cook sauerkraut because you know because of the probiotics but I don't know I mean, it's it's it's it's the basis of so many wonderful dishes. Oh my god, I love to make Hungarian sauerkraut soup. Sometimes I make sauerkraut perogies I love to make a bigos which is this polish stew where you marinate the vegetables in crowded I'm sorry the meat and crowd and then you you know and then you sue them right in the in the sand. Our crowd you know, incredibly delicious. You want to make sure you eat a little bit of it raw to get the probiotics. But you know, it's fun to cook with sour.

Oh no, I don't mind cooking it. It's just the stuff that they sell in the packages. They don't just pasteurize it, they jacket with benzoate. And it tastes bad. The texture is terrible. Like, it's just, you should come back to New York and try to get the sauerkraut that comes in the plastic bag. You're gonna be sad, don't John, it's sad, right? You've had it as Yeah, it's not very good. It's a sad crowd. It's a sad,

but you know, I mean, I mean, I get it, you know, these people are used to paying nothing for their food and to get, you know, good quality crowd from, you know, organic vegetables. You know, I mean, there's a lot of small regional brands out there now, but none of them are cheap. And, you know, we're all we're all trained to just buy the cheapest thing we can. But what I will say is that the largest traditional sauerkraut are manufactured in the United States, Great Lakes crowd. You know, in the last couple of years, they've introduced a lot of raw crowd, because that's what people want.

So let me get to your new book, because I had to get your new book and then got it. We have questions from from our listeners, I want to get to before we go. So on fermentation journeys, first of all, I have to say, when I was reading the introduction, like very early, you say that a paraphrase, you're not going to yuck anybody's yum. And so for those of you that haven't been what we say in my family don't Yuck, don't Yuck, somebody else's yum. In other words, you're not, you're not out to poopoo. anybody else's food, right? So you're not going to you're never going to come down negatively on a foodstuff, right, because that's just not your bag. That's just not how you say, oh,

yeah, no, no, I mean, I would definitely I would definitely never put anybody down for the, you know, for the food that they for the food that they'd like to eat, even if I don't, you know, even if I tasted it, and it doesn't appeal to me, then I would, you know, I would just, I would just think to myself, like, Oh, I haven't learned to like that yet.

So for those of you that don't know, the theory of the book, right is is that you're, it's you're writing it during the pandemic, but it's about all of these places that you visited, over the years, all over the world, meeting people doing doing fermentation, courses, and lectures and going to events, and just all of the great fermented things you've tasted all over the world as a result of this journey that, that you know, being a fermentation guru has put you on, and you're kind of putting them in a book. So it's not a how to in the way, it's not a direct how to in the way that, you know, the art of fermentation is it's more as it says fermentation journeys. So you have all these around the world,

this recipe, it is practical oriented, I mean, it's recipes and you know how to make a lot of foods,

right, but the tenor of it is different. It's more like, here's who I hung out with. And here's the palm line, we make

lots of stories. Yeah. And context, right?

And so, so instantly, though, when you said you weren't gonna poopoo anything, I was like, oh, man, there go half my questions, because I want to know this stuff that we've never had. So for instance, I will tell the listeners that you have tasted, you are the only living human I've ever spoken to. Who has tasted kiviat? I don't even know whether I'm pronouncing it right. Because I've never met anyone who has ever had it. Am I pronouncing it correctly? Give you it?

None of that section was by a Greenland or my friend of mine. Oh, you didn't

write that section? You didn't taste? Oh, I miss read.

Sorry. I've not been to Greenland. Together sometimes,

I just I just

think I will because I become friendly with this with this young Greenland or woman who is a microbiologist. So and, you know, she's studying the traditional fermented foods of her homelands.

And she's you know, she's

she's writing about so I invited her to, to to write about Kislyak in my book, but I have not tried it myself.

You want to describe the product describe the product to people so that they know what we're talking about? Because it's like a fascinating ferment. Like, it's crazy for me.

Sure, so. So, you know, Kislyak is a traditional ferment from the northern part of Greenland. You know, like, you know, literally among the most northern, permanent human settlements that there are. And, you know, in, in, in the far northern places all around the world, I mean, people are utterly dependent on fermentation. People never could have settled those regions, if they didn't have some effective methods to preserve food resources from the summertime to get them through the wintertime. And the winter is long, and so Kislyak is basically these little birds. Generally they're birds called ox, which are very easy to catch at a certain point of the year. I mean, they they have these nets on long polls and they can catch dozens of them in each net for, they just sort of squeezed the birds with their fingers, you know, which stops their heart. And then they collect hundreds of these birds and stuffed them in the skin of a seal. And then they sew it up and seal it with some of the seal fats. And then they just put it under rocks, protecting it from the sun. And, you know, sort of leave it in the, like, you know, near near the coast. You know, and really evaluate by smell when it's ready to eat

some I list, it's definitely on my list. I got it for some day. I don't actually know what I will die without trying it. I know I'm gonna die without trying it. But it's on my list. I've tried. I've tried many of the other ones. I I've done the SIR strumming Do you like that?

You know, it's not exactly, you know, it's not exactly an export food. It's a survival food that you know, you know, people, you know, people who live in the northern communities in Greenland, eat and, you know, a lot of a lot of the ferments in the world, but just, you know, just do not get shipped around the world. You know, they're just to sustain the people who are doing them.

I know, but it's like, I, again, I don't get to travel that much to places, but either there are things that you read about that you just have no idea what they're gonna taste like. And so you just Jones to taste them. You know what I mean? So like, that's one.

Yeah, no, no, I understand that.

Yeah. The other one for me that I know, I'm never gonna get to do is in the 90s. I think it was the FAO came out with a book called traditional fermented foods of Sudan, or something. The title is very close.

Yeah, that's not the FAO. That's Hamid Gerards, Sudanese anthropologist wrote that,

and amazing, I read that and I was like, Oh, my God, I'm never gonna get to taste these, like 8 billion different. Awesome ferments, like, produced from, you know, the products they're never gonna get. I have no, I have no reference, even to what that kind of tastes like. And so, you know, I guess it's good that you die with wanting more, right?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, one of the brilliant things about that book, and I mean, I really, I love that book. You know, to me, that is just one of the best books about fermentation that's ever been written. But I mean, it's very, very detailed. I mean, I have made things based on descriptions in that book. Now, I've only made things out like I made, I made a style of sorghum beer from Sudan using his description, and it worked really well. And it was, it was incredibly delicious. I wrote about it in art of fermentation. But you know, I mean, certain of the foods just require specific plants that are from that region that you're not going to be able to find in New York, where you are in Tennessee, where I am, we're, you know, in most places that aren't Sudan.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, again, it's fine to die wanting to try more things. But what, what what to you is the most challenging style of ferment like, for, because I think one of the things about, you know, here, you know, standard like American western Western palate, we do a lot of we're fine with most lactose stuff, right. You know, over the past couple of, you know, years, we've all become, you know, more accustomed to, you know, to other styles of ferment, but we don't do that. Well, a lot of us with with perfringens bass stuff, like some people can't do the salt risen bread or like red cassava. Some people here have issues with things like stinky tofu, although I like it, you know what I mean? So like, what do you find for kind of, like, standard, you know, Mid American western palettes is more of the more challenging styles notto

Yeah, no, I was I was I was thinking I was thinking about notto that was the first thing that came to my mind and you know not to is this Japanese soybean ferment? I have a big section about notto in fermentation journeys, and actually more than about not to itself about knothole like foods found in other places. And, you know, really in many places across Asia, let's see in China and Burma, I've encountered them. I met a woman from Naga land in the far eastern part of India. And they use something like not so they're all across West Africa, people use condiments that microbiologically are just like Naco, except they're made with different kinds of beans like African locust beans. Yeah, that's I mean that's that's a food that like I actually have come to find incredibly delicious and flavorful. But you know my observation about how outside of Japan almost everybody is using it is instead of eating it wet, sticky, slimy and I do you think it's the texture more than the flavor that you know so many Westerners are squeamish about with not though. But in most of the other traditions, it's dried. Yeah. And then it's ground up or pulverized and used as a seasoning that way. And I've been doing that at home and, you know, I have yet to meet anybody who doesn't like it. You know, even people who are very squeamish about food, who I'm absolutely certain would not go for fresh, sticky. notto love the condiments that I've been making based on Dr. notto. So I think for a lot of people, it's really the texture more than the flavor that they find kind of scary. So if

I try not to you think it's going to taste or you're telling me it's going to taste similar to like Netta to what's the Nigerian word for Netta to just went out of my head?

I got Dolla dolla.

Yeah, yeah, like parchi like fermented parchi. A big loboc. Yes. Like, yeah, so the,

I'm gonna tell you that there's very similar I mean, they're made from different beans. So there's a different flavor, but the flavor of the fermentation the alkaline byproducts, the the whiff of ammonia is the same.

Because Because net it is delicious. Delicious. Alright, I have to ask these questions that are specifically for you or I will get my head taken off by my crew. All right, from shocking. This is Prashant from Florida, I've been making yogurt at home for the past 18 months courses came in a while ago. So it's been a lot longer than 18 months now, Prashant story. Using yogurt culture from my family, I was unable to make yogurt for two months and would like to know how to restart making it when I started making it again, the taste seems off in all four attempts. One, it was extremely sour to it had a weird taste that he doesn't know how to describe. And he was wondering if he had any suggestions for how to revive his family's yogurt starter and make it taste better. And I was also wondering if you had suggestions on how to best preserve the culture when I'm not able to make it for an extended period of time. So that's from Prashant?

Yeah, I mean, I would tell say that I regularly go two months between batches of yogurt, that's about how frequently I make yogurt, sometimes I'll go three or four months. The key is to always leave a foal fresh jar, to use as your starter, if you're using a jar that you've been slowly eating, and you know, it's 90% empty. What that empty space becomes occupied with is air, air has oxygen that supports a whole other set of organisms being able to grow, that will thrive in the presence of oxygen. So, you know, my observation is that, you know, half empty jar of yogurt that sits around for several weeks, gets this yeasty flavor, its flavor is transformed by this sort of new group of organisms that are able to flourish as a result of the abundance of oxygen in the environment. So you know, the way I've dealt with this as I just always keep, you know, an unopened jar. I mean, wherever every batch that I do, I generally do it in pint sized mason jars. And one jar I'll just pick out and I'll almost mummify it in masking tape, alright, starter do not eat or bury it in the back of my fridge and use that as the starter. So it's an unopened batch that hasn't developed that, that that kind of uses. So that's my, you know, that's my suggestion for how to avoid this problem. I wonder if the vacuum for how to bring back the you know, the starter that's gotten, you know, excessively sour and yeasty. I mean, I don't even know that you can. But you know, what I would do is try doing a couple of generations and see if it comes back. And you know, this is you know, this is one of the reasons I mean just just because fermentations can go bad when you have a starter that's important to you. You know it's really good to not be the only guardian of the starter it's that's why it's that's one reason why it's really good to share these things and make sure you know other members of the family and you know and friends of yours use it so that you know if you have a problem with yours, you know, there It's decentralized there were there are backups around.

And this infant Tark Rushdie I had some trouble with fermenting a hot sauce in my hot, humid New York apartment this past summer, basically keeping my jar outside the fridge made it ferment too fast. But inside the fridge, it was too slow. Are there any hacks to achieving a happy medium in terms of temperature when I can't really control the ambient temperature in my kitchen very well, thanks.

Well, I mean, I definitely have the same issue. I mean, I would just never make hot sauce in the middle of the summer. You know, I would always wait until you know, I mean, pepper plants start producing in the heat of the summer, but they keep on producing until it cools down. And when it's cooling down is the time to ferment them, if you want to ferment them for any length of time. You know, definitely, you know, if it's in the, you know, if it's in the, you know, high 80s and 90s. You know, if you try to ferment things, you know, at ambient temperature, they're going to ferment super, super fast. I mean, I would say the better option would put it in the fridge where it's going to slowly wait for ambient temperatures to cool down and then fermented at ambient temperatures.

Yeah, also your kitchen is going to be the hottest place and also in your kitchen up high is going to be the hottest place and also anywhere near above your fridge because your fridge is putting out heat is going to be your hottest place. So the worst place in the world to keep that ferment is up high on a shelf somewhere near your fridge in the kitchen. absolute worst place in your entire house to keep something if you want to keep it. Yeah. From Montes kowski. Are there any ferments involving oil? I remember a Chicago pizza place with pickled vegetables and olive oil as a condiment and it was oh so good. I assume they brine the veggies first, then packed in oil, always wondering what other fermented products involve oils? Thanks, Monty from Jacksonville, Oregon.

Well, I mean, there are lots of fermented products that involve oil. But the oil becomes a limiting factor in them. So sure, I mean, there's a lot of Oh, my God, I made this wonderful like eggplant Escovitch, and Argentinian recipe. And it was all in all, it was so delicious. So delicious. But you know, it's not something that's designed to be preserved for, you know, for six months or a year. It's something that like something, you're counting for two weeks, and then you want to eat it. So, you know, oil just becomes a bit of a limiting factor because of its potential for rancidity. Like when I visited the Momofuku Test Kitchen years ago, and Dan filter was was running it and he was showing me their process for making pistachio miso. You know, they had to run the pistachio mash through a centrifuge to remove the bulk of the oil in order to prevent it. You know, getting going rancid. So you know, there's a lot of fermentation traditions that use either a little bit or a lot of oil, but generally they're for, you know, shorter term preservation as a result of the oil.

Yeah, they used my centrifuge to do that. Pistachio oil, intensely delicious, by the way, but I'll tell you what, making oil with a centrifuge pain in the behind pain in the behind. Well, what about the people who use a very kind of rancidity resistant oil, right, like so like it mustard oil and Indian oil based pickles. But what is the function of the oil? Yeah.

And also generally those are using very small proportions of oil, right? What's

the function of an oil of the oil, Indian Oil pickle?

That's interesting. I'm actually not, I'm I'm actually not certain. You know, I mean, I've always imagined that it was primarily, you know, about flavor. But I couldn't say,

Yeah, me neither, I love them. And yet, I have no idea why they're made the way they are. But they're so delicious. Right? Well, you know,

you know, one of the things that I've just been learning over time is, you know, these things don't always have a totally rationalistic explanation. You know, sometimes people just do them, because that's how they were shown to do them. You know, people don't always understand like, why they're doing what they're doing. And I mean, I think that's just a reality. And there's there's a lot of, you know, interesting folklore around, you know, fermentations that you know, I'm, you know, I, I don't think you need to do, Sara Lee.

Will Robinson writes in, I have a batch of soy sauce fermenting at the moment. It's approximately seven months old soy bean. I'm sorry, soy sauce. It's approximately seven months old soybean and roasted barley. I'm wondering what I should do with the leaves when I strain and bottle it. Are there any culinary uses aside from back slapping into a new batch or using it to kickstart some miso? I'm having a surprisingly hard time finding any applications. I'm assuming it's too high and salt for the compost pile and I'd hate to waste Thanks well from Chicago.