Fermentation Quotes

“I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of cabbage molds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its color and texture transmute. Its flavor becomes tarter, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death, because it enjoys a new life altogether.
The memories I had stored, I could not let fester. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, in my every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“To ferment your own food is to lodge a small but eloquent protest - on behalf of the senses and the microbes - against the homogenization of flavors and food experiences now rolling like a great, undifferentiated lawn across the globe. It is also a declaration of independence from an economy that would much prefer we remain passive consumers of its standardized commodities, rather than creators of idiosyncratic products expressive of ourselves and of the places where we live, because your pale ale or sourdough bread or kimchi is going to taste nothing like mine or anyone else's.”
― Michael Pollan, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

“He thought that it was all over, finished, done with. Andrew had never yet had reason to observe the first tiny bubble of fermenting yeast, in which was contained an inevitable, alchemical transformation.”
― J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

“Resistence takes place on many planes. Occasionally it can be dramatic and public, but most of the decisions we are faced with are mundane and private. What to eat is a choice that we make several times a day, if we are lucky. The cumulative choices we make about food have profound implications. Food offers us many opportunities to resist the culture of mass marketing and commodification. Though consumer action can take many creative and powerful forms, we do not have to be reduced to the role of consumers selecting from seductive convenience items. We can merge appetite with activism and choose to involve ourselves in food as cocreators. (Page 27)”
― Sandor Ellix Katz, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods

“Rice paddies climb the hillsides in wet, verdant staircases, dense woodlands trade space with geometric farmscapes, tiny Shinto shrines sprout like mushrooms in Noto forests. Villages seem to materialize from nowhere- wedged into valleys, perched atop hills, finessed into coastal corners. Pull over, climb out of your car, breathe deep for a taste of the finest air that will ever enter your lungs: green as a high mountain, salty and sweet, with just a whisper of decay in the finish.
Noto gained its reputation as the Kingdom of Fermentation because of this air. For most of its history, Noto was cut off from the rest of Japan, forced into a subsistence model that in many ways endures today. That was possible not only because of the bounty of Noto's fertile environment of trees, grasslands, fresh water, and sea, but because the air is rich with humidity that encourages the growth of healthy bacteria, the building blocks of fermentation.”
― Matt Goulding, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan's Food Culture

“Cheese is all about the dark side of life" - Sister Noella; aka The Cheese Nun”
― Michael Pollan, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation

“Culture begins with cultivating the land, planting seeds, bringing intentionality to cycles that we act to perpetuate.”
― Sandor Ellix Katz, The Art of Fermentation: An in-Depth Exploration of Essential Concepts and Processes from Around the World

“I believe that sake and wine are the only drinks in the world that have achieved the level of being forms of art.
Wine is made from grapes. Grapes have a lot of sugar in them to start with.
Although it's a gross simplification, if you crushed the grapes and put them in a barrel they'd naturally ferment and turn into wine.
But that's not the case with sake. In order for fermentation to occur, the starch in the rice has to be converted into sugar.
And that involves a far more complex and difficult process than what's involved in making wine.
In the entire world, no other country has developed such a refined drink out of cereal grains.
What you usually get out of cereal grains is something like beer, which has a low proof...
... or a distilled liquor like whiskey, which has a high one.
I want you to understand what a wonderful and unique thing sake is...
... and to appreciate the amazing skill it takes to create a drink that is practically an art form out of plain rice.”
― Tetsu Kariya, Sake

“Salt not only keeps food from spoiling, the fermentation that occurs during salting results in greater nutritional value and deeper flavour---what we Japanese call umami. This word, now used around the world, describes a fifth taste: savoury---after sweet, sour, salty and bitter. This is what makes Japanese pickles special.”
― Machiko Tateno, Japanese Pickled Vegetables: 129 Homestyle Recipes for Traditional Brined, Vinegared and Fermented Pickles

“What I love about pickling and preserving is the big tent of flavour possibilities. Each batch I make is slightly different from previous ones. All you need is a vegetable, some salt and a little assistance from microorganisms floating in the air. With time, these elements work together to produce something unique and delicious.”
― Machiko Tateno, Japanese Pickled Vegetables: 129 Homestyle Recipes for Traditional Brined, Vinegared and Fermented Pickles

“Ugh, so what're we supposed to help with?"
"Harvesting stuff from our veggie garden out back."
"Wow! You guys grow your own ingredients too?"
"Yeah. A lot of the people living at Polaris are into making their own.
Ibusaki makes the wood chips he uses for smoking meats and cheeses.
Ryoko specializes in cooking foods that use shio koji as an ingredient... *Shio koji is rice malt fermented in salt and water.*
... so she has her own warehouse close to the dorm where she ferments her own.
Me, I want to make my own breed of Polaris chicken, like the French bresse. I have my own flock I'm keeping free-range right here.
So... over here is the place Isshiki senpai runs.
A kitchen garden with over a dozen different kinds of vegetables!”
― Yuto Tsukuda, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Vol. 2

“Optimize the digestion process with nutritional supplements.”
― Steven Magee

“I grew up in a farming household where tsukemono pickles were a common topic of kitchen conversation. We would speculate whether the cucumber pickle might be ready or wish we had some of Mom's special long-fermented pickles--all we needed with a bowl of rice for a satisfying meal.”
― Machiko Tateno, Japanese Pickled Vegetables: 129 Homestyle Recipes for Traditional Brined, Vinegared and Fermented Pickles

“Oh! There's a straw!" she exclaimed excitedly, pushing her face toward the straw and straight into the bush of blooming oregano, inhaling its fresh aroma as she sucked up a creamy warm liquid. It was a soup, but it took her a few minutes to figure out exactly what kind of soup--- it was sweet and buttery and soft. And then she placed it.
"Potato!" she cried, her eyes darting across the table to Eamon.
Eamon's eyes sparkled in return, and he submerged his face into the tiny herb garden. "Point proven, once again," he added, after coming up for air.
She tried to sip it slowly, savoring the sweet flavor and velvety texture, but it was too delicious.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“Next, a quail egg, topped with a dried plum and rose hip "chorizo" that was spicy, salty, and had the same umami qualities of a meat-based sausage. This dish made Cassie sit back in her chair, chewing longer than she should have, savoring every moment of its presence in her mouth.
"How do they do that?" asked Cassie blankly.
"What?" asked Ben.
"Make fruit taste like meat."
"Fermentation.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“The next dish arrived, a small bowl of morels cooked in brown butter served with maitake mushroom broth, complex and unctuous. The morels were harvested the year before, pickled and preserved, and served with a hand-carved appetizer fork. The concentration of flavor brought images of the woods to her mind, from the mossy forest floor to the tree canopy high above. This dish was followed by marigold flowers fried in an incredibly light tempura and then salted, served with an egg yolk dipping sauce. Then walnut "tofu," surrounded by grilled rose petals, topped with a sunflower seed mole, herbs, and tiny flowers, and a caramelized milk tart stuffed with cheese and thinly sliced black truffles, the flavor nutty and savory.
"That's better than sex," Cassie overheard Eamon say from across the table, eyes closed and head back in rapture.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“Then they were served a small beeswax cup filled with flowers and crunchy bee pollen, followed by a presentation of a large shawarma, or at least what looked like a shawarma, adorned with roasted onions and rosemary, cut tableside. Pia explained that it was not made from lamb or chicken, as is traditional, but instead from celery root and truffles, before it was cooked on a spit for hours. One of the chefs used a large knife to slice off thin pieces of the "meat," plating it with greens, roasted apple, and red currants, before smothering the plate in a brown "jus." Cassie cut off a small bite and was surprised by how much it tasted like meat. It was earthy, salty, sweet, rich, and incredibly delicious.
"Well, this is way better than the shawarma cart in my neighborhood," said Rebecca, practically licking her plate.
"No kidding," agreed Ben, soaking up the jus with a fat slice of sourdough bread.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“The first round of dessert was a glass-like tortellini filled with rose hip fudge, flower petals, and wood sorrel. The inside was sweet, jammy, and tasted of cooked plum. And then the final dish: a small potted purple oxalis plant surrounded by fresh herbs, which gave Cassie a feeling of déjà vu.
"And we've come full circle," said Kelly, picking up the hand-forged garden trowel that came with the plate. She cut the dish in half, revealing a layered cake of rose-scented ice cream in a chocolate pot topped with edible chocolate dirt.”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like

“We tasted the Vegetable menu, an exploration through the garden with awe-inspiring presentations of ingredients we so often take for granted. Take, for example, the potato, usually served baked, fried, boiled, steamed. Here they return the potato to its humble beginning, the ground, but in the world of Noma, it arrives in the form of potato soup served in a terracotta pot, topped with a garden of herbs. While potatoes are often a favorite staple of a meal, it was refreshing to be surprised by this dish. It was a hint of what else was to come.
Other dishes are crafted from ingredients that are transformed through experimental cooking techniques; onions that are cooked until they resembled lumps of charcoal, with sweet, almost gooey centers, fermented ants that taste of pickled ginger and lemongrass, or plums, dried and fermented until they could easily be confused with cured meat. ”
― Emily Arden Wells, Eat Post Like