Fermentation as Metaphor

by Sandor Ellix Katz

In 2012, Sandor Ellix Katz published The Art of Fermentation, which quickly became the bible for foodies around the world, a runaway best seller, and a James Beard Book Award winner. Since then, his work has gone on to inspire countless professionals and home cooks worldwide, bringing fermentation into the mainstream.

In Fermentation as Metaphor, stemming from his personal obsession with all things fermented, Katz meditates on his art and work, drawing connections between microbial communities and aspects of human politics, religion, social and cultural movements, art, music, sexuality, identity, and even our individual thoughts and feelings. He informs his arguments with his vast knowledge of the fermentation process, which he describes as a slow, gentle, steady, yet unstoppable force for change.

Throughout this truly one-of-a-kind book, Katz showcases 50 mesmerizing, original images of otherworldly beings from an unseen universe - images of fermented foods and beverages that he has photographed using both a stereoscope and electron microscope - exalting microbial life from the level of “germs” to that of high art. When you see the raw beauty and complexity of microbial structures, Katz says, they will take you “far from absolute boundaries and rigid categories. They force us to reconceptualize. They make us ferment”.

PLEASE When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Genres: Food, Cooking, Nonfiction, Cookbooks, Nature, Science, Philosophy

Audible Audio

Published October 15, 2020

About the author

My name is Sandor Ellix Katz, and I am a fermentation revivalist.

Reviews

[Gloria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this - but while I admire Katz' project of bringing the joys of fermentation to everyone, this felt like a pretty superficial thinkpiece/blogpost that has been extended to a book-length essay. The main (essentially anarchist) thesis is that fermentation is a lens through which we can question the arbitrary boundaries that define much of human existence - national borders, the border of skin, clean/unclean, male/female, and so on. Katz is strongest when writing about things he can fluently relate to fermentation, e.g the whole area of antibiotic resistance due to the overuse of antibiotics, especially in agriculture, and the discourse of cleanliness in terms of empty concepts like 'clean eating' (which, as someone with a comprehensive food-related autoimmune disorder, is a particular bugbear of mine). It also feels very very timely to read this essay during a global viral pandemic.

However, he comes a cropper when delving more broadly into what is a hugely appealing movement into fermentation as a way of better understanding the spectrums of gender and neurodivergence. I am excited to see these associations being made, and I am with Katz in spirit. However, the way he discusses autism and neurodivergence makes it clear to me (as he admits) that he doesn't know very much about the subject. I would expect someone writing even only a couple of paragraphs about autism to have understood the 'social model' critique of disability better, and not just champion the 'quirky and different' traits of neurodivergent people. NO. ASD tells us much much more than just that there are 'special' people with unusual qualities walking among us, the 'normal' people. There is a particularly fascinating area emerging around the actual neurological pathways of autistic people/ people with autism which would really benefit Katz's argument that humans are 'fermenting' with difference and overlap all the time. The reason I am really sending for him here is that in the section about autism he specifically owns his past mistake of suggesting a probiotic diet can 'cure' autism. While I'm glad he's sharing this, I think it's a massive shame he didn't spend just a few hours thinking more deeply about what place neurodivergence might have in his thinking!

In sum, it's a gentle piece of polemic which I hope hits the right audiences to get them to question some of their political assumptions. But it's a leaky little boat!

I also loved the photos of fermenting substances!

[Madeleine Dodge · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book kinda read like an Instagram infographic to me….I liked the over arching thesis but Katz jumped around so much between so many different points (sometimes flexing his wokeness I fear) that the depth of the metaphor felt a little clumsy and underdeveloped. The poetic opportunities in fermentation as metaphor are huge, maybe a different writer could’ve wielded them better? Really want to check out Mercedes Villalba’s “Manifesto Ferviente” which was cited early in the book.

[Gabriela Bonfiglio · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book pretentious and uninspiring—full of half-baked musings about the "state of the world." I generally admire Katz a great deal, so this was a poor introduction to his work. The pictures were nice tho.

[Rye Thomasdatter · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love fermentation and I love metaphor. But this was just silly.

[Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing amazing short read with beautiful pictures. It makes me worry less about destruction, because I know we will all re-ferment into something better…

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review from Dublin Review of Books:
He calls himself a fermentation revivalist. With several award-winning books on the subject and a very large following on YouTube, Sandor Ellix Katz is part fermentation expert and part fermentation superstar. But I wondered: why revivalist? Did fermentation ever go out of fashion? Where I spent my adult life ‑ in Japan ‑ fermentation has always stood centre-stage. From soy sauce to miso and from sake to tsukemono, it is hard to imagine Japanese food without it.

I was inducted into the Way of Pickles early on in my Japan days. The first time I visited my ex-husband’s hometown in Shizuoka, the family egged me on to stick my hand into Grandma’s pickle jar. It was kept underneath the sink, and every day someone had to put their hand deep into the large ceramic jug and stir things up to keep the fermentation process going. This was called nukazuke, and Grandma Ogasawara was an expert. The nuka “bed” ‑ made from rice bran, salt, seaweed and some water ‑ required regular stirring for oxygenation. Why this had to be done with a human hand remained a mystery, one among many. Grandma would toss in cucumbers, radishes, eggplant, carrots, little onions or anything else she had on hand and then a few days or weeks later, eat accordingly. Because she never tossed out the nuka bed, the flavours became more complex over time. Or so the story goes. In the end, I did stick my hand in and give it a stir ‑ to everyone’s great delight. And his grandma rewarded me with the best pickles I had ever tasted.

[Iz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoned. So disappointing that someone who did so much to bring fermentation into popular culture could resort to petty moralistic nonsense and classic naturalistic fallacy. First of all, the claim that "there is no case history of food poisoning or illness associated with fermented vegetables. Anywhere." Is flat-out wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes fermented foods are very safe, I always tell people that, but I'd never resort to lies that can be easily disproven just to make a point. This is embarrassing. Especially when I agree with so much of what he says.

I quit this book when I started to read about the whole purity myth thing. I LOVE mixed cultures, I think they're amazing, magical even, and Katz is a valuable source of information on that. But his claims are all based on his ignorance and misunderstanding of scientific concepts, science phobia and technophobia. Isolating a strain from a mixed culture first of all is a simple and easy thing to do. No boogeyman there.

In case you haven't guessed I've worked with both food safety and fermentation R&D. I also think that there is so much magic and joy that you're missing out on if you're against single strain cultures, discovering the beauty of possibilities with them, and how they are transformed in the presence of other strains. Why would anyone be against that?

I had to laugh out loud when he said the "old methods of winemaking worked well enough" without all these scary "new" scientific advancements. Sure they did... If you didn't mind sour, foul flavours and dumping your whole batch every once in a while..

It also looks like he tries to deny his naturalistic fallacy by pointing out that he got the covid vaccine, BUT "everyone is going to get covid one day anyway"... Which was NOT true when this book was written because we could have prevented this whole thing. But sure, nice try.
I had to quit then because I was just getting angry reading it. Nice pictures though.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

We are not human in spite of bacteria; we co-evolved, and the genes of bacteria are fundamental elements of our own cells. Our own bodies teem with colonies of different types that mostly collaborate and cooperate. There is no binary of 'sterile/non-sterile', black/white — instead, there is complexity, a matrix, that we live within and can manipulate but not remove ourselves from. We live due to a system of life forms, from which we came and to which we'll go eventually.

And so Katz continues to think through the cultural implications of this — a word itself founded in fermentation, complexity, and cycles. This mini book is filled with art photography of his own, detailing the odd complexity of the world outside, inside, and all around us, and chapters of mulling about the nature of things.

Now: can this metaphor — interdependency, complexity, inter-reliance — spell out specific cultural and political outcomes? Katz argues yes, and addresses, in broad strokes, everything from racism to politics, gender to modernization. It's rather a large agenda to try to digest in such a small book. This reads to me like a notebook of ideas that fell to the cutting floor of his excellent The Art Of Fermentation.

Still, this is a fascinating read and good for philosophical mulling. "Political transformation is fermentation," he writes, and there is something — maybe it's the millions of flora inside me — that resonates when I read that.

[Alex Delogu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy ecological thinking and support the spread of this viewpoint. It is no doubt beneficial to thinking itself to be exposed to systems and processes that are not easily classifiable and that uproot our habitual ways of thinking. Fermentation is one of these topics and Katz uses it to challenge notions of purity and contamination within various spheres (sexuality, gender, political, nutritional, etc...). It is a short book, more of a contemporary opinion piece, suffused with a sense of urgency. It is a stand against oppression, the convenient and facile labeling of people and things, and a call to think with nuance. If you are new to ecological thought this is a neat place to start. It's presented here in a non-complicated and relatable way. The book is littered with beautiful microscopic images of molds, bacteria, and ferments.

[The_J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful photographic displays from the cover through the body. This is flawed tome, but if you get past the DEI and Aids trauma - there is a tremendous gem of a concept - "Fermentation elements finding a way to combine and create something new: (Social.) Fermentation can be driven by hopes, dreams, and desires; or by necessity, desperation, and anger .. Fermentation is always going on somewhere, though generally not everywhere. ... Fermentation is nothing less than an engine of social change"

"Fire destroys ... fermentation is more gentle."

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is some overlapping of sound in the audiobook, which is disconcerting. Otherwise, Katz's message of fermentation as a way to inspire creative thinking, adaptability, resilience and transformation is one we all need to heed.

[Carolina Estrada · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro crea paralelismos entre la fermentación y varios fenómenos sociales de nuestra época. Lo que más me gustó es el paralelismo entre la importancia comunitaria de la vida a partir de las formaciones de bacterias

[Robin Greenfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another incredible book by one of my favorite humans. A must read for anyone eager to transform our society for the better.

[Kolbe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very surprising and compelling political and social narrative! I wish the incredible photos had been described (including subject and magnification) throughout.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun little book, I like fermentation as a metaphor

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book couldn’t be more timely!!

[Bethany Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing analysis, felt some parts were a stretch but overall a creative and interesting lens in which to view the world

[Cherry · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 45 minute read. A brief manifesto. A reminder of why. A meditation.

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[Andrea Reyes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh,,, tow or three good ideas, the rest are just random thoughts that the author wanted to relate with fermentation.

The photos are pretty cool, though.

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Katz brings up some important topics.

[Cande · Rating 4 out of 5]

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