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Over the past few years, there has been a surge in the publication of books on fermentation. Back in 2002, when I first learned to make sauerkraut, my only reference was Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. No YouTube videos, no fermentation websites, podcasts or forums. Today, there are dozens of books available. And, there’s even a website devoted solely to making sauerkraut! Who knew? I could have used that 10 years ago.
I delight in all the information available and appreciate the hard work individuals have gone through to develop delicious recipes and fine tune the fermentation process, making it easier for more of us to successfully ferment delicious foods as our ancestors did, making it easier to incorporate them into our diet.
Just last month, fermented foods were designated as one of the food trends for 2015. Look for my post in January 2015, where I explore a variety of fermented foods to start the new year off with.
But for now, enjoy learning about some of my favorite fermentation books that I turn to time and time again:
Real Food Fermentation: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen, by Alex Lewin
Fermented: A Four Season Approach to Paleo Probiotic Foods, by Jill Ciciarelli
The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World, by Sandor Katz
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, by Michael Pollan
And remember, no book is perfect. On Amazon, I perused the 1-star and 2-star ratings for each of these books and almost tossed the entire list. But, as my mom always said about a cookbook: “If you find one good recipe that you’ll use again and again, it was worth the price of the book.”
So enjoy my discussion on each book, complete with quotes, podcasts, video clips and my favorite features of each book.
Real Food Fermentation, by Alex Lewin
Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen
Publisher: Quarry Books, 2012
Paperback: 176 pages, color; extensive photos, call-out boxes, Lab-Notes
Number of Recipes: About 20 (sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, yogurt, kefir, hard apple cider, creme fraiche, and more)
About the author: Alex Lewin, a graduate of Harvard, the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, seeks to create a healthier and tastier world by spreading the word about fermentation and real food. He teaches fermentation classes and workshops and serves on the board of the Boston Public Market Association, working to create a year-round indoor market selling local food. He lives in Boston and San Francisco.
Website: Feed Me Like You Mean It: Cultivating Health Through Food and Action ~ One Part Perspiration, One Part Fermentation (Author’s Blog)
Recommend for those wanting to learn fermentation with detailed and fully illustrated step-by-step recipes. The book covers a variety of kitchen staples: sauerkraut, yogurt, kefir, butter and buttermilk, wine, beer, vinegar and more. Learn practical food-preparation skills you’ll use again and again.
Following image from Real Food Fermentation, photo by Glenn Scott Photography.
Though Real Food Fermentation was published a few years ago, I still highly recommend it. I buy just about every new fermentation book the moment it comes out, and I’ve yet to come across one that so clearly, simply and practically teaches the basic ferments.
When we make our own food, we gain some control over our lives – especially at a time in history when many of us feel at the mercy of events, governments, corporations, and industrial food processors.
– Alex Lewin, Real Food Fermentation
In Real Food Fermentation, you’ll learn how to culture Crème Fraiche that I enjoy stirred into hearty winter soups. How about Honey Mead or Hard Apple Cider to go along with the meal?
Or, learn to make some preserved lemons or limes to have on hand for cooking. They’re great in lamb shoulder stew.
You can also use the preserved lemons to make a quick sports drink, as author Alex Lewin suggests: “Squeezing a wedge or two of preserved citrus into a glass with some ice and a little sugar (I would also add a little salt.) gives you a fantastic summer drink – Nature’s own sports drink, with electrolytes and quick carbohydrates but none of the preservatives or colorings of commercial sports drinks: the ultimate lemonade.”
A few of my favorite things about Real Food Fermentation:
The beautiful step-by-step photos that inspire and instill confidence.
Photos showing Containers for Fermenting, Fermentation Equipment, The Evolution of Sauerkraut: Day 5 and Day 10 and Strained Yogurt and Whey are a few that stand out.
The helpful tables and “Lab Notes.”
Archetypes of Fermentation, Some Signature Fermented Foods and Fermentation Time and Temperature are just a few of the tables.
Lab Notes accompany most recipes and answer questions and address concerns: Kimchi, Citrus Ferments and Hard Apple Cider to name a few.
The Carolina Coleslaw recipe.
Cabbage, onion, bell pepper, carrot, apple and celery root are first fermented as a sauerkraut and then used to make a salad with a simple oil, honey, mustard and ginger dressing. Yumm!
Real Food Fermentation Podcast Interview (20:56 minutes)
Here’s a December 1, 2012 interview with Alex Lewin by Sierra Club Radio
Recipe Video Demo: How to Pickle Cucumbers, by Healthy Home Economist (7:45)
In this video, Sarah Pope of the Healthy Home Economist demonstrates how to make pickled cucumbers, a recipe in Real Food Fermentation. Great tips on how to keep them crisp.
Where to Find Real Food Fermenation
Check your local library, independent bookstore or Amazon (Affliate Link) for:
Real Food Fermentation: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen by Alex Lewin.
Fermented, by Jill Ciciarelli
A Four-Season Approach to Paleo Probiotic Foods
Publisher: Victory Belt Publishing, 2013
Paperback: 256 pages, color; troubleshooting, glossary, resources (books, websites, supplies)
Number of Recipes: About 15 covering the basic ferments; 40+ seasonal that add flavor twists to the basic ferments
About the author: Jill Ciciarelli is a food lover, kitchen adventurer and board-certified holistic-health coach. You can find her fermenting and experimenting in her urban high-rise kitchen.
Website: First Comes Health. (Author’s holistic health coach practice)
Recommend not only for those new to fermentation, but for experienced fermenters wanting inspiration or new flavors for the stand-by ferments. Part I of the book starts off with the history, health benefits and chemistry of fermentation. In addition, Ciciarelli covers equipment and starters. With all this hand holding, you’re ready for Ciciarelli’s first recipe: Basic Sauerkraut Recipe.
Part II has seasonally grouped recipes using the ferments you learned in Part I. I plan to try the fermented Cranberry Orange Relish for my Christmas turkey dinner.
Adding fermented foods is a great way to experiment with some of your favorite foods, combine flavors and textures, and get all those fantastic vitamins and minerals in a even more bio-available way than ever before. Your gut will thank you mightly.
– Jil Ciciarelli, Fermented
My husband will be most happy if I make the Fermented Hot Sauce and Fermented Jalapeno Peppers for him next summer. I’m making Yogurt Cream Cheese on a weekly basis, so I’m anxious to try a new flavor twist on it with her Yogurt Cheese Ranch Dip using parsley, dill, garlic and onion powders, basil and black pepper. During summer camping trips, a favorite for my family is to thin our flavored Yogurt Cream Cheese with cream and use it for a chip dip.
Following image from Fermented, by Jill Ciciarelli. Photo by Bill Staley.
I find her index frustrating. If I look up “Kombucha,” for example, I want to find the actual names of the recipes listed; she just gives page numbers. The seasonal order of recipes has me continually flipping through the sections looking for a recipe. My brain would prefer recipes ordered by type. These negatives however, don’t stop me from enjoying and making good use of this book.
A few of my favorite things about Fermented:
The numerous photos throughout the book.
These are not step-by-step recipe photos as in Real Food Fermentation but the classic – and gorgeous – food photography images.
The helpful section on equipment and recommended teas for making Kombucha.
As I expand my Kombucha making into second bottling and flavoring, I found the rules and outright no-nos for tea selection quite helpful.
And, if your home is on the cool side, you may appreciate her suggestion of wrapping your Kombucha ferment in white holiday lights.
The Ginger Grapefruit Kombucha recipe.
A syrup is made with one cup of Kombucha, sugar and ginger to which grapefruit juice is added and put in bottles for a second ferment. Refreshing!
The extensive yogurt section.
I want to expand my yogurt making beyond the lightly-pasteurized version I’ve been making for years. The author discusses various strains of Mesophilic yogurts which can be cultured at room temperature and don’t require heating of your milk.
Fermented Kombucha Recipe Series
A common hurdle for many new to fermentation is obtaining the necessary cultures. If you don’t know someone who is making Kombucha and can share their starter culture, you have to resort to mail ordering one. Save that cost!
You can grow your own using a bottle of store-bought Kombucha as the author, Ciciarelli teaches on her website, First Comes Health, where she has a series of articles on how to make Kombucha. Here`s a link to Kombucha Series Part 1: Make Your Own Scoby. Then, once you have the necessary Kombucha culture, you can use her book to make your own Kombucha.
Fermented Podcast Interview (58:04)
Here’s a August 5, 013 interview with Jill Ciciarelli by Branden Byers of FermUp!, a podcast devoted entirely to fermentation:
Where to Find Fermented
Check your local library, independent bookstore or Amazon (Affliate Link) for:
Fermented: A Four Season Approach to Paleo Probiotic Foods by Jill Ciciarelli.
The Art of Fermentation, by Sandor Katz
An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2012
Hardcover: 528 pages, 2 16-page color inserts; illustrations interspersed throughout, extensive resource section, glossary, endnotes
Number of Recipes: Way too many to count. 14 chapters covering everything you could imagine fermenting.
About the author: Sandor Ellix Katz is a fermentation revivalist. His books Wild Fermentation (2003) and The Art of Fermentation (2012), along with the hundreds of fermentation workshops he has taught across North America and beyond, have helped to catalyze a broad revival of the fermentation arts. A self-taught experimentalist who lives in rural Tennessee, The New York Times calls him “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene.” The Art of Fermentation received a James Beard award, and, in 2014, Sandor was honored with the Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Foodways Alliance. Sandor teaches fermentation workshops in Tennessee and many other places.
Website: Wild Fermentation
The Art of Fermentation is an extensive encyclopedia of fermented foods and beverages. In 12 thoroughly detailed chapters, Katz covers not only fermentation basics but, about various ferments and how to ferment anything: alcohols, vegetables, fruits, sour tonic beverages, milk, grains and tubers, beers, beans, meats and more.
The Art of Fermentation is not a book with clear, straight-forward, step-by-step recipes but instead a discussion of each ferment with guidelines, some detailed, some general. Katz has a relaxed attitude about how to deal with mold in ferments and quantities of salt to use in vegetable and fruit ferments. This is not necessarily bad; he’s giving you the foundation to develop an intuition on how to work with various ferments and cultures and getting you to think about what your fermenting.
Who exactly is the servant of whom? Are the acidifying bacteria in milk or the yeasts in grape juice our servants, or are we doing their bidding by creating the specialized environments in which they can proliferate so wildly? We must stop thinking in such hierarchical terms and recognize that we, like all creation, are participants in infinite interrelated biological feedback loops, simultaneously unfolding a vast multiplicity of interdependent evolutionary narratives.
– Sandor Katz, The Art of Fermentation
I constantly refer to the comprehensive 16-page resource section, organized by chapter. Looking for sources of natto starter, sourdough FAQs or cheese-making supplies? They`re listed.
Following image from The Art of Fermentation, by Sandor Katz. Illustration by Elara Tanguy.
Want to know why your ferment isn’t foaming, is mushy or slimy with thick, viscous brine? The answers are in his troubleshooting sections. How about some inventive soda flavors: carrot juice with ginger, or ginger, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and molasses fermented with water kefir? Kombucha candy anyone?
A few of my favorite things about The Art of Fementation:
The extensive detail Katz goes into on the vast array of fermented foods from around the world.
Sugar-based Country Wines, Japanese Pickling, Sweet Potato Fly, Sorghum Porridge, Asian Rice Beer, Corned Beef and Tongue to name of few of the more esoteric along with the basic ferments.
His opening chapter: Fermentation as a Coevolutionary Force.
Katz delves deeply into “cultural” discussions and the bacteria responsible for making fermentation happen and the complex relationship between humans and microbiota.
The recipe for Smerka, a juniper berry soft drink from Russia.
Add juniper berries to water in a jug or jar, no sugar at all. He uses 2 cups berries for 1 gallon of water. Cover with a cloth and ferment for about a month. The berries float to the top, slowly infusing color and flavor into the water, and being to create bubbles, or carbonation.
The Art of Fermentaion Podcast Interview (20:19 minutes)
Here’s a June 13, 2012 interview with Sandor Katz by Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air:
Fermentation: When Food Goes Bad but Stays Good
Recipe Video Demo: Sandor Katz show How to Make Sauerkraut (4:39 minutes)
Sandor Katz has a much more relaxed attitude towards fermenting relying upon intuition and taste when determining the correct amount of salt. I rely upon weighing for a consistent outcome in my Make Sauerkraut! Master Recipe. I like his discussion on determining how long to ferment your sauerkraut.
Here’s a a December 10, 2012 video on making sauerkraut with Sandor Katz by Feast Forward and powered by Jewish Farm School.
Where to Find the Art of Fermentation
Check your local library, independent bookstore or Amazon (Affliate Link) for:
The Art of Fermentation: An In-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from around the World by Sandor Katz.
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Cooked, by Michael Pollan
A Natural History of Transformation
Publisher: Penguin Books, 2013
Hardcover: 480 pages; extensive note section organized by chapter, appendix: Books on Cooking
Number of Recipes: 4:Pork Shoulder Barbeque, Meat Sugo and Pasta, Whole-Wheat Country Loaf, Sauerkraut
About the author: Michael Pollan is the author of five books: Second Nature, A Place of My Own, The Botany of Desire, which received the Borders Original Voices Award for the best nonfiction work of 2001 and was recognized as a best book of the year by the American Booksellers Association and Amazon, and the national bestsellers, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and In Defense of Food. A longtime contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is also the Knight Professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley. His writing on food and agriculture has won numerous awards, including the Reuters/World Conservation Union Global Award in Environmental Journalism, the James Beard Award, and the Genesis Award from the American Humane Association.
Website: Cooked (Book promotion)
After the Introduction, Cooked is divided into four chapters: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. In each section, Pollan shares his quest to learn how to prepare real, simple food and drink related to that element. For example, in “Fire,” he learns about cooking with fire from the great pit-masters with their skills for roasting a whole hog. My favorite section, “Earth,” brings Pollan lessons from Sandor Katz (The Art of Fermentation), on how to make sauerkraut.
This is not a fermentation book, nor a cookbook, but a book to get you thinking about our relationship with cooking.
Well, in a world where so few of us are obliged to cook at all anymore, to choose to do so is to lodge a protest against specialization – against the total rationalization of life. Against the infiltration of commercial interests into every last cranny of our lives. To cook for the pleasure of it, to devote a portion of our leisure to it, is to declare independence from the corporations seeking to organize our every waking moment into yet another reason for consumption.
– Michael Pollan, Cooked
A few of my favorite things about Cooked:
The story of the cheese-making nun, Sister Mother Noella Marcellino.
Pollan learns to make cheese from this woman. Sister Noella, armed with a degree in biology and years of cheese-making experience, got the law changed when she proved that the bugs in her old Provençal wooden barrel were better at killing e-coli than the sterile stainless-steel tools she had been ordered to work with.
Pollan’s discussion on what’s happening during sourdough fermentation:
“In the microuniverse of a sourdough culture, the baker performs in the role of god, or at least of natural selection. It may well be that the requisite microbes are everywhere, but by shaping their environment – the food and feeding schedule, the ambient temperature, the amount of water – the baker, wittingly or unwittingly, selects which microbes will thrive and which will fail. Frequent feedings and warm temperatures tend to favor the yeast, for example, creating an airier, milder loaf, whereas skipping meals and refrigerating the culture favors the bacteria, leading to a more acidic environment, and a more strongly flavored bread.”
Video: Michael Pollan Takes on Cooking, by (7:52 minutes)
Here’s a April 24, 2013 video by Thinkr.
Where to Find Cooked
Check your local library, independent bookstore or Amazon (Affliate Link) for:
Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, by Michael Pollan.
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What Fermentation Book are You Ready to Delve Into?
Do you have a favorite fermentation book that you love and use and want others to learn about? Share it in the Comments section.
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