December 21, 2022 • 44 mins
Every human culture has developed fermentation practices – but beyond that, fermentation helped human culture develop in the first place. In this interview, we chat with food historian Dr. Julia Skinner about how she cooked up her new book, ‘Our Fermented Lives: A History of How Fermented Foods Have Shaped Cultures and Communities’.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Saber Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm more in Vocal Bum And
today we have a special guest on the show for you,
returning friend of the show, Dr Julius Skinner. Yes, thank
you so much for joining us. We're so happy to
have you. Thank you for having me. It's nice to
be back. Yes, yes, if you have listened to our show,
(00:30):
you have heard Dr Julius Skinner. Before um, tea Time,
we did something about tea time. We did food waste
and we did a video together with old timey apple pie,
which was a delight very tall. Yeah, it was quite tall.
I mean it tasted delicious, but that was my biggest
(00:52):
takeaway with this is kind of difficult to eat. Yeah,
it was very like very slow eating pie. I had
to be yeah, which is fine, which is fine, mindful eating. Um,
And it was you know that the apples I really
feel like because it incorporates whole apples. And I think
that the apples that we were able to source, even
the smallest ones, were larger than the intended apple size
(01:13):
that we were dealing with. Um indeed, indeed, but still delightful.
It was. It was delightful it was, and and it's
always delightful to have you on here. Would you mind
giving kind of a brief a brief rundown introduction to
our listeners who need a refresher maybe miss those episodes,
go check them out if you did. Uh, just about
(01:35):
about all the amazing things that you've done and who
you are? Yeah, we we We usually start these interviews
with a with a solid like, Hi, who are you?
Mm hmmm yeah, so um, I mean and the author
of several food books like you mentioned and the latest
being are Fermented Lives. UM. I also run a food
(01:58):
history and fermentation company called Root and so I do
fermentation classes. I do um in person workshops. Sometimes a
lot of what I do is online. UM. I do
consulting for people who want, like, um, a food historian
to look at like, you know, their book, manuscript or
something and be like, does this sound at all like accurate? Uh?
(02:21):
And so that's kind of fun. UM. I do writing coaching.
I do a bunch of stuff. Um, but yeah, I
am primarily a food historian and a fermentation enthusiast and
yeah that's me, yes, I mean, and obviously that means
you fit right in our wheelhouse of both Friends and
show because we are all about fermentation, we're all about
(02:47):
food history. And yes, you wrote a book and congratulations
because it's amazing and you said does copies and it's
so good. I love it so so much. And as
I was reading and I was like, why are you
so cool? Yeah, I was saying, I was saying in
(03:12):
classic move right before we started recording, like like yeah,
like I've just been like like taking little little snacks
out of it, just just like oh oh that's so cool.
Oh that one's so good. Oh thank you? Yeah. Yeah,
so it's been really fun. Yes, can you can you
tell the listeners about the book why you want to
write it? So, why fermentation? All of those things? Yes,
(03:35):
So it's I mean, the topic is giant, right, it's
the global history of fermentation, which is um a food
making practice found in every culture, you know, throughout the
world and across you know, thousands of years. So the
large topic, not not a small undertaking. Yeah, we we
probably we probably mentioned fermentation in every episode that we do,
(03:57):
partially because I loved screaming about bacteria poop, but also right,
like it's super fascinating. Yeah, yeah it is. And it's
you know, as as I kind of got into fermenting food, um,
you know, ten twenty years ago, I started trying to
look more into the history of it, and some you know,
some books mentioned some of the history like it's out there,
(04:20):
but it wasn't really all in one place. And I
kind of wanted to have, like, what is the comprehensive
history of this, or as comprehensive as you can get, um,
And so I started diving in and looking and I
ended up I initially was going to organize it geographically,
and then what I discovered, um, was that there's so
(04:41):
much overlap between obviously, like we're fermenting cabbages, for example,
in a bunch of different places, and so it kind
of it would be a really boring book if I'm
like and also here we fermat cabbage. People like okay, great,
thank you, Julia. I got it. So I ended up
(05:03):
organizing it by themes instead, so you could I see like,
why are we fermenting the cabbage. Oh, we're preserving the cabbage,
ratting flavor to the cabbage. We're you know whatever. Um. Yeah,
And that's how it came about. Uh. Yeah, it's it's
such a amazing world when you start digging into it,
because you're taking what is essentially such a simple process
(05:26):
that that it happens without any human intervention at all.
And that's probably how we got so many simultaneous little
pop ups of very similar products around the world. But
but yeah, I mean, because you're just talking about UM,
microbes eating your food and then excreting some kind of
flavor molecules and something that will usually preserve it in
(05:48):
some way, like an alcohol or something like that. And
but like right, like like out of that extremely simple
definition and simplified definition, UM, fermentation can work on food
and drinks, UM, on all of these levels, both practical
and pleasurable. UM, could you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
(06:10):
I mean, I you know, I think as you were
saying that, the thing that came to mind is something
that I mentioned in the start of the flavor chapter,
which is that our ancestors had taste buds and flavor
preferences and things like us. And I think that we
we we kind of sometimes assume that they were just
all eating, you know, terrible subsistence food that was flavorless,
(06:31):
and it's just not not true. And I think our
fermentation traditions we see around the world are a good
example of that. Um. Certainly, fermenting ads nutrition to food
as well. Um, you know, but there's something like let's
say West African sour sour grain porridges those Um, you know,
(06:52):
it's not like you need to preserve the dried grains
with fermentation, Like they're dried grains, they're pretty well preserved.
But but know, from a nutritional and from a flavor standpoint, Um,
it really adds a lot. And um, yeah, it's yeah,
there's examples like that all over the world. Yeah, that's
one of the ones that I think I only personally
(07:14):
keyed into recently. Um, that's that the right. So many
of these processes are really digging into how to get
more nutrients out of those foods that you're trying to prepare.
And it's just so it's so it's so smart and
amazing that people figure this out. Yeah. Yeah, I feel
like it'd be very interesting to kind of watch the
(07:34):
process of folks trial and error and kind of you know,
how long did it take to do this, Like what
what kind of ends up having the flavor nutrition balance?
We like, what ends up you know, not working for us? Yeah? Um,
I guess kind of along those lines, Could you talk
a little bit about what fermentation means to you, because
(07:56):
I know that it was kind of a personal journey
getting into it. Yeah, so, I, um, you know, I
always turned to Sandercats's definition of the transformative action of
microbes when I talk about fermentation itself. But I think
we have to consider that transformation as you know, a
personal transformation and the transformation of our food. You know,
(08:18):
for me, making fermented food is very much, you know,
kind of a center of Oh. I mean, I don't
know if I would call it like my wellness practice,
but my sanity part of a wellness practice, being saying
feels like a wellness practice. Yeah. So, you know, I
(08:42):
start every day before I do anything else, you know,
while I'm making my coffee or doing whatever, I will,
h kind of check on all my ferments, and like
I begin every day with them, I constantly, you know,
I feel like they're always teaching me. Like I'm always
learning something both about the access of fermentation and about
(09:02):
you know, I mean, other life things that maybe aren't
exactly about fermentation itself, like for example, being patient. Like
it's not like any of this happens you know, right
then it's not like you're putting something in a skillet
and having it be done twenty minutes later like you were.
You were on somebody else's timeline and you kind of
have to wait for that somebody to decide when they're
(09:24):
going to start doing their thing, you know. And so
it's been it's been really powerful in that way. Um,
you know. And it's also interesting because I started fermenting
food when I had you know, I didn't have a
lot of money, but I had like a lot of
vegetables in my garden, and so it kind of became
this practice in like abundance and so like when I
(09:44):
have like my class that's preserving abundance, and when I
talk about that idea, like, um, that's kind of where
that comes from. Is that like recognizing how much you
have and how much these methods help you capture it? Yeah,
And it can be um such a such a connection
point to with um with you know, uh, your personal
(10:08):
ancestors or in terms of family recipes, or just in
terms of your your human ancestors around the world, because
like human history sort of hinges on fermentation. Um. Do
you think there are aspects of that that that you're
just super into that. You think that maybe people don't
realize I mean, I think, you know, I mean, at
(10:30):
the most basic level, if we look at evolution, I mean,
like what did we evolve from? We all evolved from microbes.
I mean, if you go far back enough, you know,
and so it's like we're not only dealing with like
foods that are ancestors made our human ancestors, but we're
also kind of in a way collaborating, you know, with
(10:53):
these microbial ancestors, and we're kind of working together in
that way. And that's you know, I mean a huge oversimplification,
and microbiologists listening are probably like, that's not exactly correct.
But but like you know, very broad strokes, like when
we think about like microbes that we've had a long
relationship with, I mean, the reason why our microbiome is
(11:14):
so important to us is because we eventually became the
host of these microbes and still are and kind of
help each other out, um, you know, and I think too,
um when we think about that sort of um ancestry
and about you know, kind of the impact that this
can have on somebody, UM and exploring that. I mean,
(11:36):
something I talked about in the book is making sewings,
which is this fermented oat um like porridge situation. And
you know, it was really interesting because I had never
had it before. I had no idea what it was.
I came across it while I was doing research and
I was like, okay, like let's make that thing. I
tasted it, and I was like, this is really familiar.
(11:57):
Like I feel like I've been eating this my entire
life and I hadn't been. So it's kind of this
like and I've talked with people, you know, who have
had that experience with other you know, foods that like
their ancestors would have eaten, but they hadn't eaten um,
and so that, you know, that was also kind of
something I found very interesting about it. Yeah, yeah, the same.
(12:20):
I mean that was one of the my very favorite
things was when you would be talking about like this
connection between like fermentation and just how humans work and
humans and microbes how they work together. And I love
that kind of sense of place of like wild fermentations.
And there's something that's really fascinating to me about like
(12:41):
you can you can plan things to a degree, but
then you're kind of just say, let's see what happens.
It's based on what's around me and what I can find.
And I love that. I find that so so interesting. Yeah,
like a decenters us from being like the soul driver
of a cooking practice, and since we're very good at
(13:03):
centralizing ourselves, it's kind of refreshing to be like forced
out of that position. Yeah, it's kind of exciting. It's like, oh,
let's see what happens. Like yeah, no, no, yees, you'll
take the wheel, like right, Um, we we are ostensibly
(13:27):
a food show. Um. But you also talk in the
book a lot about other areas of culture that use fermentation.
Can you talk about a few of those, um, yes,
So like in dying, for example, UM, like dying like
cloth not not. I mean, it's like there's also fermentation
(13:50):
connected with that, but that's different, Um yes, cloth dying
or you know, making inks and whatever. I mean, there's
a lot of um, a lot of fermentation used to
make say, indigo die, um, which has you know a
(14:12):
really pretty intense, um and awful history, including here in Georgia. UM.
But you know is still you know, is one of
the ways that we used fermentation in outside of food, um,
you know, in other things. Like ink making, even non
(14:32):
fermented inks will often use vinegar as a preservative. Um.
When I make um oak goll ink, which is you
know those like wasp gulls on um on oak like
oak branches. Oh sure, yeah, so you can take that
and you take like some other like some iron filings,
and you like cook it down. It makes this really
(14:54):
beautiful um ink and then you add vinegar to stabilize
it or to preserve it. And yeah, so there's there's
a lot of different ways. I mean, the arts and
craft stuff is one of the things I'm most interested in,
because you know, I do a lot of arts and
craft stuff in my life. But yeah, but you know,
(15:14):
I mean there's all kinds of like industry applications and
you know, all kinds of you know, we're kind of
at this interesting moment where we are both very like
returning to these traditional methods like the stuff I do
where I just like throw stuff in a jar and
kind of see what happens. And it's very like the
most low tech and also at the moment where we
have you know, these like dedicated you know biotech companies
(15:38):
working on you know, strains of use that will break
down this specific thing in this specific way or something. Um. Yeah, yeah,
all of these right industrial levels of of either um,
you know, harnessing the power of fermentation to break down
pollutants in our environments um or or right to produce
(15:58):
products like um flavor molecules or medicines, all kinds of things. Yeah,
it's a really interesting time to kind of have both
of those in tandem, having such just so many different
ways that we can approach fermentation more than you know,
we've had in the past. Yeah, and it is so new.
(16:19):
I I forget about that all the time. But right,
you know, we didn't have a have have like self
theory until what the eighteen thirties, and so we didn't
understand how any of this worked until like Carlsberg Labs
and stuff like that started working in it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's all all rather new, and yeah, it's but it's
(16:39):
very interesting because we had, like we had an understanding
obviously that something was happening, and yeah, like the different
ways that we described, like the unseen forces that are
shaping this, you know over time. UM, Like, it's not
surprising to me that fermentation becomes the source of so
many like you know, myths, deity myths, like you know,
(17:02):
all these different you know, stories that kind of connected
with the divine in some way. We've got more of
our conversation with Julia, but first we've got a quick
break forward from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsors,
(17:24):
and back to the interview. You've been talking a little
bit about UM, the ways in which some of this
historical research resonates with people and how it's resonated with you.
Have there been any any pieces that UM that you
can share with us that just really you were like, oh, oh,
(17:46):
I mean I think that you know, that's so in
the example was a really good like that was maybe
the most like you know, personally kind of profound one.
But yeah, I mean there's something that that I came
across UM while doing research for the health chapter, was
you know, Chinese medicine iurveda UM humoral theory like all
(18:09):
these different traditional healing modalities around the world that I
mean explicitly bring in food UM as medicine in a
way that we definitely lost sight of for a long
time and are starting to maybe think of again. But
you know, but also thinking about UM individualized medicine. You know,
(18:32):
food is medicine and about how flavor can help us
kind of strike balance between things, and you know, in
sour flavor being one of those things, um kind of
you know, in Chinese medicine, thinking about for example, like
it being more prominent in the spring kind of waking
your body back up and all of that. Um. So yeah,
(18:54):
that was. That was something that I was like, oh
that makes sense. Um, you know. One of the things was,
you know, some of the flavor pairings that we have
are based rooted in this, so you know, vinegar and pork,
lemon and fish, like these sorts of things are actually
humoral medicine based and kind of thinking about like oh,
like of course, like that makes sense because our you know,
(19:17):
all of this informs each other, Like of course that
would be true. But yeah, it was. It was interesting
to see it born out. Oh yeah, that stuff is
so it's so deeply ingrained in our culture, um that
that we mostly don't even think about it or talk
about it anymore, but it is so fascinating when you
dig in. I think that that was one of my
favorite Weird offshoot episodes where like, yes, we're sensibly a
(19:38):
food show, but we've got to do an episode about
humoral medicine, and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's so
like there's so much to dive into with it, like
because I always, you know, I think when we're growing
up and we hear about it, it's like, oh, it's
that crazy thing they use leeches, and it's like, well, yeah,
but that's a lot more. Yeah, and some of it,
(20:00):
some of it does prove out, maybe not the leeches,
but not the leeches. Um. I guess. Sort of speaking
of do you, do you have any like super favorite
weird historical sources, because you you do like like as
a historian you get to go into some weird collections
and look at some of these original sources. Do you
(20:23):
have any favorite ones? I mean, I really like I
like just going in and you know, kind of like
when you're playing in the kitchen, like you know, kind
of allowing yourself to be surprised and allowing yourself to
have you know, that serendipity. Um. I like the first
collection that I worked with that was a culinary history
(20:44):
collection is at the University of Iowa. UM. And if
you have any listeners in Iowa who you know, ever
go to the sath Maury collection. They'll know what I'm
talking about. It's really very cool. Um, lots of old
old books and then lots of other things as well.
And yeah, it was very very fun to go in there.
And that's you know, that's where I found the first
(21:06):
old cookbook that I ever started working with, you know,
years and years and years ago. Um, the one that
the Tall Pie is from. It comes full circle, always
comes sounds about, right. Yeah, we we do. We do
(21:29):
always love finding and reading out I think that's one
of Annie's personal specialties is reading out old timey recipes
that are in a version of English that no longer
really exists. Yeah. Well in the format of them too.
I mean, it's so interesting to read them and have
like try to translate them from modern cooks. That's that's
(21:50):
always kind of an interesting, interesting feat. Yeah. I feel
like usually I do really well until I get to
the lasts, and it's for some reason, the lass and
it's always where I'm like, what are you talking? I
feel like the last sentence and a lot of those
like it, it's just like all the information is already
pretty condensed, and then it's like it's just like it
is an extra condensed. It's like, okay, now, put this
(22:12):
over a fire for five days and then like you know,
and store it in the usual way, and you're like,
what does that mean? What's the what kind of fire?
How big is the fire? Right? Exactly? My landlord is
going to be mad. I don't even have a fireplace.
(22:40):
Does a Yankee candle count? What's going on? Well? It
was interesting because we joke, you know, we are sensibly
a food show. We are so many things come up,
We see so many trends that come up. Fermentation is
always mine, But when this way are you told that?
I was like, oh, yeah, was the friendship bread? And
(23:01):
kind of how you got into fermentation around that and
it because of the pandemic and something people were doing
like sour dough bread. It just made me think about that.
But it's just like all of these examples of things
that we might not consider at first that fermentation is
involved in, but it is. And then something like that,
like I did that in college too, and it was
so kind of like, oh, somebody gave this to me.
(23:23):
It's like a pet and fere like, Okay, we're gonna
get through this together and we're all going to enjoy
this at the end, which I love because I think
like you did such a good job of illustrating that point,
and which is when we try to make off and
in the show is like you're talking about fermentation, but
you're talking about so much more. You're talking about friendship bread.
Like the name is friendship. I just I loved it.
(23:48):
I loved it. UM. And and kind of related to that,
you had a lot in there about you know, communities
and being respectful of communities and fermentation and things like
food insecurity and waste and how fermentation can play such
a huge role in that. Can you talk about that
(24:08):
for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, so, UM, in a
lot of my classes and in my life, and obviously
also in this book, UM, I talk a lot about
food waste and reducing food waste. UM. Fermentation is a
really powerful way to do that because it allows us
to change the flavor and texture of whatever various scraps.
(24:30):
But it can also be a good jumping off point
as well. So one example I often give is using
things like herb stems in putting them in vinegar and
then you have it's like, okay, well now you have
a flavored vinegar. UM, and you didn't throw all that
stuff away. You know, and you can you can take
fermented things that you make and if you like the
flavor and don't like the texture, you know, you can
(24:51):
put it in a dehydrator and dry it and like
then you can still use it in some other way. Yeah,
I I like using fermentation uh as a food waste
producing method for a couple wastes or a couple of reasons,
you know, one like I just said, the flavor component,
and another being that it's really accessible, you know, I'm
(25:13):
I'm able to do something like go and teach a
class in a community garden and people with very limited resources,
you know, can probably track down a jar and some
salt and um. You know, we can kind of go
from there. You know. It's and it's something that is
very nourishing. It's something healthy, and it's something that you know,
especially if we're talking about food and secure areas where
(25:35):
people have limited access to fresh food and want to
stretch that food. You know, I mean, if you're not
giving people, if people don't have the ability to um
to access probiotic food, and maybe you don't know how
to make probiotic food, you know, I mean, I don't
want to say like probiotic food is a panacea, because
(25:57):
nothing is, but it certainly is important for our health,
and you know, it can be a good way to
empower folks and you know, and again it's affordable and
you know, really customizable, really versatile. Um, it's something I
think we really we could handle to tap into more
as cooks when we think about being a little gentler
(26:19):
on the earth with our our practices. Yeah, and I
I talked about this a lot on the show I
I lived by myself. I'm somebody who's very particular about
leftovers and ways. Laura and I just talked about this.
And so when I was reading your book, it's so
helpful because not only does have like all these cool
like historical facts and history, but you have recipes. You
(26:44):
have recipes throughout of how to put this into practice
that are helpful, accessible, pretty easy. And there were so
many ingredients where I was like, I'm trying to find
a way to use this up and you had a
recipe in there and I was like, Ah, that's amato paste.
This is what I did you try like all of
those recipes? Have you tried all of them? Oh? Yeah?
(27:06):
It's well And it's interesting because I started so I
I wrote the bulk of this book. I had gotten
the contract before lockdown, but the bulk of this book
happened kind of during UM and so I had written.
I'd probably written about half of it. By lockdown. I
was like, Okay, it's time to like start writing and
testing the recipes as all of our grocery stores were
(27:29):
having shortages and you know, everything was chaos and you know,
and so it's very interesting because I tried to cook
in a very you know, waste reducing way anyways, but
I kind of had no choice. Um, there were recipes
that I wanted to make that just like I was like,
well that's not you know, that's not going to happen.
(27:50):
I was going to try to I can't remember what
I was going to make. There was like a fish
thing I was going to make, and just nowhere had
the kind of fish I wanted. So I was like,
never mind, not that one. Yeah, not that one. But
you know, and I mean I don't do a ton
of ton of meat fermentation anyways, but um, so it's fine.
But like I'm looking at I like wrote a little
list of all of the recipes for easy reference. Yeah,
(28:15):
and you know, I mean it's yeah, A lot of
these are ones I mean that are both you know,
both standard in my in my kitchen practice and also
you know, things like the banana vinegar. I mean, it's
kind of one of my go to waste reducing things
because like I I always I always assume I'm going
(28:36):
to eat a lot more bananas than I do. Like
every time I buy bananas, like I'm gonna have a
banana every day this week, Well, no you're not, because
they're going to be like inredibly nearly after like three days,
and they're gonna be mushy and terrible and you're not
gonna want them, yeah, and so and so then I
(28:57):
make fanacraft them. Well that is that is always the
produce thing. I have such a hard time with that.
It's and we we we talked about that on the
show sometimes, I think most recently in our Pairs episode,
where I'm like, oh man, i have these really well
intentioned pairs sitting in my kitchen, but I'm not going
(29:18):
to remember to check them when they're probably going to
be ripe, and then they're not going to be good
after that, and so yeah, yeah, yeah, now and I
do with you know, I also live alone and have.
I tend to buy a lot of produce and then
I'm like, oh, but it's just me here. What did
I do? Yeah, so I do a lot of just
(29:40):
like oh crap, I've got to pickle that like now,
um projects and so you know that way, if I
like go out of town or whatever, you know, it'll
still be fine when I get back. Yeah, I mean
the pandemic. I I joked about it a lot on
the show. For me, it's not quite the same, but
I did have to get pretty creative. Um, well, I
(30:02):
have this. This is what I have. I can't find
anything else. Let's see what I can do. And I
do really like that aspects of it UM. And there's
something about reading your book where I don't know, there
was just something powerful about knowing we've been doing that forever,
Like even though it looks slightly different now, we've been
(30:23):
doing that forever. And like you having that moment of
you know, with the soulan's and you're like, oh, I'm
connecting to this even though I don't really have a
particular like memory with it UM. And you say in
there you talk a lot about about like fermentation as
community um both within like your body but within the community.
But you also say like you're looking for big conversations
(30:47):
with this, if you could expound on that point. Yeah,
I mean, I think, you know, fermentation, Like we've talked
about touches on so much, you know, I think the
food waste is a good place to jump off because
it's a reminder of that we you know, it's not
like we've had supermarkets for really most of history, and
(31:07):
we've just had a very different relationship to eating and
a lot of the foods that we consider to be
kind of staple foods and a lot of our diets
were developed based on that, and you know, like the
boxed mac and cheese, canned soup, you know, whatever, whatever
is like a much more recent phenomenon, you know, a
modernization of those things. Yeah, And so you know, I
(31:29):
think one of the conversations I enjoy having is about
this sort of like the power of using these traditional
foods in our you know, in our kitchens and making
them and interacting with them, and you know, and I
was talking about the personal journey of this and how
that I've connected so much with so many other parts
(31:52):
of my life and interest through doing this, you know,
And one thing I think about a lot is community
and so UM you know, with community, when we're making
a traditional food UM in a group which is in
a lot of UM, a lot of places. Over time,
you know, it still sometimes happens today You'll have big
like sara kraut making parties, kimchi making parties, you know ums,
(32:16):
people get together and have like homebrewing days like you
know whatever. But it's like you're making you're making this
thing that both brings your community together once during the
making and you get to catch up and all this
good stuff. But you're also providing your community food security
in the future, and so you're caring for your community
and kind of this long term holistic way UM that
(32:39):
I think is outside of what UM. You know, just
like when we talk about like food and community, and
it kind of often becomes like this kind of pithy
statement that it's like like food brings people together, and
it's like, okay, well what does that mean? Now? How
does it bring people together? You know? And I think
this this book was nice to commun enity chapter was
(33:00):
nice because I got to like dive into that and
be like, okay, like how does it do that? Um?
And that you know that sort of gathering and that
sort of like intergenerational knowledge sharing. You know, something I
talk a lot about in there is about the preservation
of um of culinary knowledge, of fermentation knowledge, in particular
(33:21):
the you know, we're talking about techniques that are primarily
used throughout history by people who were not considered you know,
valuable enough to record their information. So you would have
women's servants, enslaved folks like a lot of people who
maybe didn't have access to either literacy or two or
(33:41):
were you know, considered important enough to write about a
lot of their techniques, and everything would be lost. And so,
you know, a lot of when I think about community
building too, is like we're like we're the anchor point
between the past and future, Like we get to decide
what's coming from the past and staying with us and
coming to the future. And so we are at a
(34:02):
critical decision point of saying, I want these culinary traditions
to survive. Well, it's on me to write down how
Grandma does this. It's on me to do whatever, Like
I'm the one that gets to pick. So that's kind
of a whole soapbox. I can go on, but I'll
leave it there. Yeah, we love us. So we have
(34:29):
a lot more ground we want to cover in this conversation,
but first we have a quick break for word from
our sponsor. We're back, Thank you sponsor, and speaking about
these communities, you know, like like so much about fermentation
(34:51):
is so incredibly specific to UM, to the person who's
working with it and the place where they're working and
UM and the the traditions that have been handed down
to them. But there are, as we were talking about earlier,
so many practices or tropes that endure across cultures. UM.
(35:12):
In doing this research, did you find any examples of
that that really surprised or fascinated you? I mean, one
thing that I found was very interesting. UM, I'm not
sure I would say surprising, but it was. I found
it really fascinating. UM. Was that a lot of different cultures,
you know, like we talked about UM or, like you
(35:34):
just said, rather our specific fermentation practices, you know, are
are specific toss Um in a lot of ways. You know,
the way that I'm going to make sauerkroud is probably
slightly different than the way you might and the place
where I live might make it taste a little bit
different than the place that you live, but yeah, I
mean as far as kind of the cultural significance of things.
(35:58):
You know, one thing that I found very interesting as
I was doing my research was alcohol and kind of
the role that like we um, we assigned alcohol in
different cultures as being you know, something that was like
gifted to us from by the gods, and it was
like a gift that gave us like knowledge and inspiration
and like all of these things that like make us
(36:18):
feel really good like it does when we have a
few drinks. Um. Yeah, I'm sorry. You know that that
was interesting because of course, like you know, I mean, alcohol,
like ethanol is intoxicating wherever you are, so like I
guess it makes sense. Uh um, okay, do you? Um,
(36:41):
do you have any Let's let's say that someone is
totally new to this entire conversation and they are similarly inspired, um,
drink responsibly but similarly inspired. Um do you is there
like a like a good ferment for folks to start
to experiment with. I'm honestly, I think just like you know,
something simple like sauer kraut is a really good, good
(37:05):
kind of starter starter one you know, I'll have I'll
have people ask like, oh, I've never made ferment before.
I want to make like vinegar, I might want to
make fish sauce or I one or whatever, and like
those are also really easy, but something like sauer kraut
is like a one step process. You kind of just
like you make it, you put it in the jar,
you check the jar, you make sure it's you know,
(37:25):
doing its thing, and then you have suberkraut. And the
next time about vegetables, it's like if it smells like
fermented vegetables, like if it smells like suer kraut, suberkraut,
like you don't have to worry about like, oh, is
is my suer kraut gonna kill me? Like if it's
got like red mold or something on it, like yeah,
I don't eat that. But like if it just looks
(37:46):
like normal suer kraut and smells like suberkraut, like it's
you know, it's very safe and fine. Yeah. Uh. Do
you have a favorite project that you've got going right now?
I'm trying to think I have about a hundred things
fermenting right, Oh my goodness. And you're not supposed to
(38:06):
have favorites, I know, but I know, I know, I'm
in the other room. Maybe they can't hear me. So
there's this interesting thing that, um, one of my friends
posted about about a month ago that I am trying,
which is using sour dough discard um as the base
of brian to ferment cauliflower. And yeah, so it's like
(38:30):
this really nice, like sour tasty cauliflower. I'm enjoying that. Um.
You know, it's the time of year where I make
a lot of vinegar. I have a lot of you know,
apples and stuff, and so I tend to make enough
cider vinegar to last me for the year, which is
a lot of cider vinegar. And I always end up
(38:50):
having to buy some around about June because I'll be
like it turns out like all of those gallons of
vinegar weren't enough. Whoops, cook too much. Yeah, uh, do
you have like like a white whale of fermentation? Do
(39:13):
you have something that you've been like wanting to do
and it's never quite gotten right or that like you
haven't wanted to try yet because it just hasn't come
together in the right way. So I've made I've made
like shorter term meat from it, like the only meat
recipe I have. Um, in the book is for a
(39:33):
tie a type pork sausage that like a sour sausage
that's like fermented like a few days. Like it's not
you know, it's not a very long ferment. But I've
never done like a really long aged like salami sort
of situation. Um. I've watched other people do that. I've
like helped other people make it and then left and
(39:54):
not experienced the fine product. But like I've never like,
I've never actually made it start to finish. And yeah,
I think that would be fun. Oh yeah, goodness. Now
I'm thinking about when we right what I'm thinking of
of that that interview, We've got to go do it
um home and in Finch and they talked us a
(40:15):
little bit through their their house for ment program and
everything they do in that cabinet. I was just like,
oh no, um, but yeah, I guess um speaking speaking
of the future, what what else? What else does the
future hold for you? Are there any other projects you've
got coming up that you can talk with us about
(40:36):
or um, uh, just just research you're psyched about. Well
I'm doing Um, I'm actually working on another book proposal
right now I can't talk about. But I hope I
hope will be nice and well, I mean I hope
that it comes to fruition that's the publisher wants it,
(40:58):
and you know things. Um yeah, I mean right now
I'm writing a lot of articles. I'm mostly I'm really
enjoying kind of diving into my newsletter and playing with
like different formats and thinking about food and like different angles. Um.
I have an interview series in there, um as you
both know, um and having been part of it, um
(41:22):
that I you know, where I talked with different folks
connected to food in various ways. Um. So I've been
doing that. Um yeah, you know, I kind of have
these big, longer term dreams of like I would really
love to like have kind of sander Cat style fermentation residencies,
but like also with like you know, creative writing, art
(41:43):
sort of like stuff involved to Um yeah yeah tie
it all in right, Yeah, I like that would be
very fun. Um yeah, I don't know, like we'll see,
Like I'm just writing and enjoying things right now. Now.
That's an amazing that's an amazing place to be absolutely.
(42:03):
Um well yeah. So so the book that we've been
talking largely about today is again called Our Fermented lives
a history. Um subtitle how Fermented Foods of Shape, Cultures
and Communities. Um. But but where else can people find you? So? Um?
On social I'm at book is Julia and Root Kitchens
(42:25):
and if they want to read my newsletter at root
Kitchens dot sub stact dot com. Heck, yeah, yes, yeah,
yes do it listeners. Such a good book and if
you like this show, you will like this book. Yes,
it's so it's so nerdy and funny and thoughtful and
(42:46):
like and sweet and it's just yeah, it's it's I'm
not buttering you up because you're looking at me on
a video call. It's it's it's really, it's really quite enjoyable.
So thank you, thank you for making this this beautiful
weird thing, and thank you for being here. Always a
(43:08):
pleasure to have you. I look forward to hopefully meeting
in person and maybe trying some fermented foods. Yeah, it's
always a great, great part of it. Yeah, we definitely
are overdue for an in person meet up. And it
is always like a lovely, like selfish part of a
good Julia visit. I'm just like, oh man, she's going
to give us something weird. It's gonna be so good
(43:31):
refrigerators like amazing every time. I oh wow, it's a
lot going on. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you again for being here. Um listeners, go check
Julie out if you haven't already. Uh and you can
(43:51):
contact us if you would like. Our email is hello
at saborpot dot com. We are also on social media.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and that other
one Twitter at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows things. As always to our
(44:12):
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard, thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber Protection of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm more in Vocal Bum And
today we have a special guest on the show for you,
returning friend of the show, Dr Julius Skinner. Yes, thank
you so much for joining us. We're so happy to
have you. Thank you for having me. It's nice to
be back. Yes, yes, if you have listened to our show,
(00:30):
you have heard Dr Julius Skinner. Before um, tea Time,
we did something about tea time. We did food waste
and we did a video together with old timey apple pie,
which was a delight very tall. Yeah, it was quite tall.
I mean it tasted delicious, but that was my biggest
(00:52):
takeaway with this is kind of difficult to eat. Yeah,
it was very like very slow eating pie. I had
to be yeah, which is fine, which is fine, mindful eating. Um,
And it was you know that the apples I really
feel like because it incorporates whole apples. And I think
that the apples that we were able to source, even
the smallest ones, were larger than the intended apple size
(01:13):
that we were dealing with. Um indeed, indeed, but still delightful.
It was. It was delightful it was, and and it's
always delightful to have you on here. Would you mind
giving kind of a brief a brief rundown introduction to
our listeners who need a refresher maybe miss those episodes,
go check them out if you did. Uh, just about
(01:35):
about all the amazing things that you've done and who
you are? Yeah, we we We usually start these interviews
with a with a solid like, Hi, who are you?
Mm hmmm yeah, so um, I mean and the author
of several food books like you mentioned and the latest
being are Fermented Lives. UM. I also run a food
(01:58):
history and fermentation company called Root and so I do
fermentation classes. I do um in person workshops. Sometimes a
lot of what I do is online. UM. I do
consulting for people who want, like, um, a food historian
to look at like, you know, their book, manuscript or
something and be like, does this sound at all like accurate? Uh?
(02:21):
And so that's kind of fun. UM. I do writing coaching.
I do a bunch of stuff. Um, but yeah, I
am primarily a food historian and a fermentation enthusiast and
yeah that's me, yes, I mean, and obviously that means
you fit right in our wheelhouse of both Friends and
show because we are all about fermentation, we're all about
(02:47):
food history. And yes, you wrote a book and congratulations
because it's amazing and you said does copies and it's
so good. I love it so so much. And as
I was reading and I was like, why are you
so cool? Yeah, I was saying, I was saying in
(03:12):
classic move right before we started recording, like like yeah,
like I've just been like like taking little little snacks
out of it, just just like oh oh that's so cool.
Oh that one's so good. Oh thank you? Yeah. Yeah,
so it's been really fun. Yes, can you can you
tell the listeners about the book why you want to
write it? So, why fermentation? All of those things? Yes,
(03:35):
So it's I mean, the topic is giant, right, it's
the global history of fermentation, which is um a food
making practice found in every culture, you know, throughout the
world and across you know, thousands of years. So the
large topic, not not a small undertaking. Yeah, we we
probably we probably mentioned fermentation in every episode that we do,
(03:57):
partially because I loved screaming about bacteria poop, but also right,
like it's super fascinating. Yeah, yeah it is. And it's
you know, as as I kind of got into fermenting food, um,
you know, ten twenty years ago, I started trying to
look more into the history of it, and some you know,
some books mentioned some of the history like it's out there,
(04:20):
but it wasn't really all in one place. And I
kind of wanted to have, like, what is the comprehensive
history of this, or as comprehensive as you can get, um,
And so I started diving in and looking and I
ended up I initially was going to organize it geographically,
and then what I discovered, um, was that there's so
(04:41):
much overlap between obviously, like we're fermenting cabbages, for example,
in a bunch of different places, and so it kind
of it would be a really boring book if I'm
like and also here we fermat cabbage. People like okay, great,
thank you, Julia. I got it. So I ended up
(05:03):
organizing it by themes instead, so you could I see like,
why are we fermenting the cabbage. Oh, we're preserving the cabbage,
ratting flavor to the cabbage. We're you know whatever. Um. Yeah,
And that's how it came about. Uh. Yeah, it's it's
such a amazing world when you start digging into it,
because you're taking what is essentially such a simple process
(05:26):
that that it happens without any human intervention at all.
And that's probably how we got so many simultaneous little
pop ups of very similar products around the world. But
but yeah, I mean, because you're just talking about UM,
microbes eating your food and then excreting some kind of
flavor molecules and something that will usually preserve it in
(05:48):
some way, like an alcohol or something like that. And
but like right, like like out of that extremely simple
definition and simplified definition, UM, fermentation can work on food
and drinks, UM, on all of these levels, both practical
and pleasurable. UM, could you talk a little bit about that. Yeah,
(06:10):
I mean, I you know, I think as you were
saying that, the thing that came to mind is something
that I mentioned in the start of the flavor chapter,
which is that our ancestors had taste buds and flavor
preferences and things like us. And I think that we
we we kind of sometimes assume that they were just
all eating, you know, terrible subsistence food that was flavorless,
(06:31):
and it's just not not true. And I think our
fermentation traditions we see around the world are a good
example of that. Um. Certainly, fermenting ads nutrition to food
as well. Um, you know, but there's something like let's
say West African sour sour grain porridges those Um, you know,
(06:52):
it's not like you need to preserve the dried grains
with fermentation, Like they're dried grains, they're pretty well preserved.
But but know, from a nutritional and from a flavor standpoint, Um,
it really adds a lot. And um, yeah, it's yeah,
there's examples like that all over the world. Yeah, that's
one of the ones that I think I only personally
(07:14):
keyed into recently. Um, that's that the right. So many
of these processes are really digging into how to get
more nutrients out of those foods that you're trying to prepare.
And it's just so it's so it's so smart and
amazing that people figure this out. Yeah. Yeah, I feel
like it'd be very interesting to kind of watch the
(07:34):
process of folks trial and error and kind of you know,
how long did it take to do this, Like what
what kind of ends up having the flavor nutrition balance?
We like, what ends up you know, not working for us? Yeah? Um,
I guess kind of along those lines, Could you talk
a little bit about what fermentation means to you, because
(07:56):
I know that it was kind of a personal journey
getting into it. Yeah, so, I, um, you know, I
always turned to Sandercats's definition of the transformative action of
microbes when I talk about fermentation itself. But I think
we have to consider that transformation as you know, a
personal transformation and the transformation of our food. You know,
(08:18):
for me, making fermented food is very much, you know,
kind of a center of Oh. I mean, I don't
know if I would call it like my wellness practice,
but my sanity part of a wellness practice, being saying
feels like a wellness practice. Yeah. So, you know, I
(08:42):
start every day before I do anything else, you know,
while I'm making my coffee or doing whatever, I will,
h kind of check on all my ferments, and like
I begin every day with them, I constantly, you know,
I feel like they're always teaching me. Like I'm always
learning something both about the access of fermentation and about
(09:02):
you know, I mean, other life things that maybe aren't
exactly about fermentation itself, like for example, being patient. Like
it's not like any of this happens you know, right
then it's not like you're putting something in a skillet
and having it be done twenty minutes later like you were.
You were on somebody else's timeline and you kind of
have to wait for that somebody to decide when they're
(09:24):
going to start doing their thing, you know. And so
it's been it's been really powerful in that way. Um,
you know. And it's also interesting because I started fermenting
food when I had you know, I didn't have a
lot of money, but I had like a lot of
vegetables in my garden, and so it kind of became
this practice in like abundance and so like when I
(09:44):
have like my class that's preserving abundance, and when I
talk about that idea, like, um, that's kind of where
that comes from. Is that like recognizing how much you
have and how much these methods help you capture it? Yeah,
And it can be um such a such a connection
point to with um with you know, uh, your personal
(10:08):
ancestors or in terms of family recipes, or just in
terms of your your human ancestors around the world, because
like human history sort of hinges on fermentation. Um. Do
you think there are aspects of that that that you're
just super into that. You think that maybe people don't
realize I mean, I think, you know, I mean, at
(10:30):
the most basic level, if we look at evolution, I mean,
like what did we evolve from? We all evolved from microbes.
I mean, if you go far back enough, you know,
and so it's like we're not only dealing with like
foods that are ancestors made our human ancestors, but we're
also kind of in a way collaborating, you know, with
(10:53):
these microbial ancestors, and we're kind of working together in
that way. And that's you know, I mean a huge oversimplification,
and microbiologists listening are probably like, that's not exactly correct.
But but like you know, very broad strokes, like when
we think about like microbes that we've had a long
relationship with, I mean, the reason why our microbiome is
(11:14):
so important to us is because we eventually became the
host of these microbes and still are and kind of
help each other out, um, you know, and I think too,
um when we think about that sort of um ancestry
and about you know, kind of the impact that this
can have on somebody, UM and exploring that. I mean,
(11:36):
something I talked about in the book is making sewings,
which is this fermented oat um like porridge situation. And
you know, it was really interesting because I had never
had it before. I had no idea what it was.
I came across it while I was doing research and
I was like, okay, like let's make that thing. I
tasted it, and I was like, this is really familiar.
(11:57):
Like I feel like I've been eating this my entire
life and I hadn't been. So it's kind of this
like and I've talked with people, you know, who have
had that experience with other you know, foods that like
their ancestors would have eaten, but they hadn't eaten um,
and so that, you know, that was also kind of
something I found very interesting about it. Yeah, yeah, the same.
(12:20):
I mean that was one of the my very favorite
things was when you would be talking about like this
connection between like fermentation and just how humans work and
humans and microbes how they work together. And I love
that kind of sense of place of like wild fermentations.
And there's something that's really fascinating to me about like
(12:41):
you can you can plan things to a degree, but
then you're kind of just say, let's see what happens.
It's based on what's around me and what I can find.
And I love that. I find that so so interesting. Yeah,
like a decenters us from being like the soul driver
of a cooking practice, and since we're very good at
(13:03):
centralizing ourselves, it's kind of refreshing to be like forced
out of that position. Yeah, it's kind of exciting. It's like, oh,
let's see what happens. Like yeah, no, no, yees, you'll
take the wheel, like right, Um, we we are ostensibly
(13:27):
a food show. Um. But you also talk in the
book a lot about other areas of culture that use fermentation.
Can you talk about a few of those, um, yes,
So like in dying, for example, UM, like dying like
cloth not not. I mean, it's like there's also fermentation
(13:50):
connected with that, but that's different, Um yes, cloth dying
or you know, making inks and whatever. I mean, there's
a lot of um, a lot of fermentation used to
make say, indigo die, um, which has you know a
(14:12):
really pretty intense, um and awful history, including here in Georgia. UM.
But you know is still you know, is one of
the ways that we used fermentation in outside of food, um,
you know, in other things. Like ink making, even non
(14:32):
fermented inks will often use vinegar as a preservative. Um.
When I make um oak goll ink, which is you
know those like wasp gulls on um on oak like
oak branches. Oh sure, yeah, so you can take that
and you take like some other like some iron filings,
and you like cook it down. It makes this really
(14:54):
beautiful um ink and then you add vinegar to stabilize
it or to preserve it. And yeah, so there's there's
a lot of different ways. I mean, the arts and
craft stuff is one of the things I'm most interested in,
because you know, I do a lot of arts and
craft stuff in my life. But yeah, but you know,
(15:14):
I mean there's all kinds of like industry applications and
you know, all kinds of you know, we're kind of
at this interesting moment where we are both very like
returning to these traditional methods like the stuff I do
where I just like throw stuff in a jar and
kind of see what happens. And it's very like the
most low tech and also at the moment where we
have you know, these like dedicated you know biotech companies
(15:38):
working on you know, strains of use that will break
down this specific thing in this specific way or something. Um. Yeah, yeah,
all of these right industrial levels of of either um,
you know, harnessing the power of fermentation to break down
pollutants in our environments um or or right to produce
(15:58):
products like um flavor molecules or medicines, all kinds of things. Yeah,
it's a really interesting time to kind of have both
of those in tandem, having such just so many different
ways that we can approach fermentation more than you know,
we've had in the past. Yeah, and it is so new.
(16:19):
I I forget about that all the time. But right,
you know, we didn't have a have have like self
theory until what the eighteen thirties, and so we didn't
understand how any of this worked until like Carlsberg Labs
and stuff like that started working in it. Yeah. Yeah,
it's all all rather new, and yeah, it's but it's
(16:39):
very interesting because we had, like we had an understanding
obviously that something was happening, and yeah, like the different
ways that we described, like the unseen forces that are
shaping this, you know over time. UM, Like, it's not
surprising to me that fermentation becomes the source of so
many like you know, myths, deity myths, like you know,
(17:02):
all these different you know, stories that kind of connected
with the divine in some way. We've got more of
our conversation with Julia, but first we've got a quick
break forward from our sponsors, and we're back. Thank you sponsors,
(17:24):
and back to the interview. You've been talking a little
bit about UM, the ways in which some of this
historical research resonates with people and how it's resonated with you.
Have there been any any pieces that UM that you
can share with us that just really you were like, oh, oh,
(17:46):
I mean I think that you know, that's so in
the example was a really good like that was maybe
the most like you know, personally kind of profound one.
But yeah, I mean there's something that that I came
across UM while doing research for the health chapter, was
you know, Chinese medicine iurveda UM humoral theory like all
(18:09):
these different traditional healing modalities around the world that I
mean explicitly bring in food UM as medicine in a
way that we definitely lost sight of for a long
time and are starting to maybe think of again. But
you know, but also thinking about UM individualized medicine. You know,
(18:32):
food is medicine and about how flavor can help us
kind of strike balance between things, and you know, in
sour flavor being one of those things, um kind of
you know, in Chinese medicine, thinking about for example, like
it being more prominent in the spring kind of waking
your body back up and all of that. Um. So yeah,
(18:54):
that was. That was something that I was like, oh
that makes sense. Um, you know. One of the things was,
you know, some of the flavor pairings that we have
are based rooted in this, so you know, vinegar and pork,
lemon and fish, like these sorts of things are actually
humoral medicine based and kind of thinking about like oh,
like of course, like that makes sense because our you know,
(19:17):
all of this informs each other, Like of course that
would be true. But yeah, it was. It was interesting
to see it born out. Oh yeah, that stuff is
so it's so deeply ingrained in our culture, um that
that we mostly don't even think about it or talk
about it anymore, but it is so fascinating when you
dig in. I think that that was one of my
favorite Weird offshoot episodes where like, yes, we're sensibly a
(19:38):
food show, but we've got to do an episode about
humoral medicine, and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's so
like there's so much to dive into with it, like
because I always, you know, I think when we're growing
up and we hear about it, it's like, oh, it's
that crazy thing they use leeches, and it's like, well, yeah,
but that's a lot more. Yeah, and some of it,
(20:00):
some of it does prove out, maybe not the leeches,
but not the leeches. Um. I guess. Sort of speaking
of do you, do you have any like super favorite
weird historical sources, because you you do like like as
a historian you get to go into some weird collections
and look at some of these original sources. Do you
(20:23):
have any favorite ones? I mean, I really like I
like just going in and you know, kind of like
when you're playing in the kitchen, like you know, kind
of allowing yourself to be surprised and allowing yourself to
have you know, that serendipity. Um. I like the first
collection that I worked with that was a culinary history
(20:44):
collection is at the University of Iowa. UM. And if
you have any listeners in Iowa who you know, ever
go to the sath Maury collection. They'll know what I'm
talking about. It's really very cool. Um, lots of old
old books and then lots of other things as well.
And yeah, it was very very fun to go in there.
And that's you know, that's where I found the first
(21:06):
old cookbook that I ever started working with, you know,
years and years and years ago. Um, the one that
the Tall Pie is from. It comes full circle, always
comes sounds about, right. Yeah, we we do. We do
(21:29):
always love finding and reading out I think that's one
of Annie's personal specialties is reading out old timey recipes
that are in a version of English that no longer
really exists. Yeah. Well in the format of them too.
I mean, it's so interesting to read them and have
like try to translate them from modern cooks. That's that's
(21:50):
always kind of an interesting, interesting feat. Yeah. I feel
like usually I do really well until I get to
the lasts, and it's for some reason, the lass and
it's always where I'm like, what are you talking? I
feel like the last sentence and a lot of those
like it, it's just like all the information is already
pretty condensed, and then it's like it's just like it
is an extra condensed. It's like, okay, now, put this
(22:12):
over a fire for five days and then like you know,
and store it in the usual way, and you're like,
what does that mean? What's the what kind of fire?
How big is the fire? Right? Exactly? My landlord is
going to be mad. I don't even have a fireplace.
(22:40):
Does a Yankee candle count? What's going on? Well? It
was interesting because we joke, you know, we are sensibly
a food show. We are so many things come up,
We see so many trends that come up. Fermentation is
always mine, But when this way are you told that?
I was like, oh, yeah, was the friendship bread? And
(23:01):
kind of how you got into fermentation around that and
it because of the pandemic and something people were doing
like sour dough bread. It just made me think about that.
But it's just like all of these examples of things
that we might not consider at first that fermentation is
involved in, but it is. And then something like that,
like I did that in college too, and it was
so kind of like, oh, somebody gave this to me.
(23:23):
It's like a pet and fere like, Okay, we're gonna
get through this together and we're all going to enjoy
this at the end, which I love because I think
like you did such a good job of illustrating that point,
and which is when we try to make off and
in the show is like you're talking about fermentation, but
you're talking about so much more. You're talking about friendship bread.
Like the name is friendship. I just I loved it.
(23:48):
I loved it. UM. And and kind of related to that,
you had a lot in there about you know, communities
and being respectful of communities and fermentation and things like
food insecurity and waste and how fermentation can play such
a huge role in that. Can you talk about that
(24:08):
for a little bit. Yeah, yeah, so, UM, in a
lot of my classes and in my life, and obviously
also in this book, UM, I talk a lot about
food waste and reducing food waste. UM. Fermentation is a
really powerful way to do that because it allows us
to change the flavor and texture of whatever various scraps.
(24:30):
But it can also be a good jumping off point
as well. So one example I often give is using
things like herb stems in putting them in vinegar and
then you have it's like, okay, well now you have
a flavored vinegar. UM, and you didn't throw all that
stuff away. You know, and you can you can take
fermented things that you make and if you like the
flavor and don't like the texture, you know, you can
(24:51):
put it in a dehydrator and dry it and like
then you can still use it in some other way. Yeah,
I I like using fermentation uh as a food waste
producing method for a couple wastes or a couple of reasons,
you know, one like I just said, the flavor component,
and another being that it's really accessible, you know, I'm
(25:13):
I'm able to do something like go and teach a
class in a community garden and people with very limited resources,
you know, can probably track down a jar and some
salt and um. You know, we can kind of go
from there. You know. It's and it's something that is
very nourishing. It's something healthy, and it's something that you know,
especially if we're talking about food and secure areas where
(25:35):
people have limited access to fresh food and want to
stretch that food. You know, I mean, if you're not
giving people, if people don't have the ability to um
to access probiotic food, and maybe you don't know how
to make probiotic food, you know, I mean, I don't
want to say like probiotic food is a panacea, because
(25:57):
nothing is, but it certainly is important for our health,
and you know, it can be a good way to
empower folks and you know, and again it's affordable and
you know, really customizable, really versatile. Um, it's something I
think we really we could handle to tap into more
as cooks when we think about being a little gentler
(26:19):
on the earth with our our practices. Yeah, and I
I talked about this a lot on the show I
I lived by myself. I'm somebody who's very particular about
leftovers and ways. Laura and I just talked about this.
And so when I was reading your book, it's so
helpful because not only does have like all these cool
like historical facts and history, but you have recipes. You
(26:44):
have recipes throughout of how to put this into practice
that are helpful, accessible, pretty easy. And there were so
many ingredients where I was like, I'm trying to find
a way to use this up and you had a
recipe in there and I was like, Ah, that's amato paste.
This is what I did you try like all of
those recipes? Have you tried all of them? Oh? Yeah?
(27:06):
It's well And it's interesting because I started so I
I wrote the bulk of this book. I had gotten
the contract before lockdown, but the bulk of this book
happened kind of during UM and so I had written.
I'd probably written about half of it. By lockdown. I
was like, Okay, it's time to like start writing and
testing the recipes as all of our grocery stores were
(27:29):
having shortages and you know, everything was chaos and you know,
and so it's very interesting because I tried to cook
in a very you know, waste reducing way anyways, but
I kind of had no choice. Um, there were recipes
that I wanted to make that just like I was like,
well that's not you know, that's not going to happen.
(27:50):
I was going to try to I can't remember what
I was going to make. There was like a fish
thing I was going to make, and just nowhere had
the kind of fish I wanted. So I was like,
never mind, not that one. Yeah, not that one. But
you know, and I mean I don't do a ton
of ton of meat fermentation anyways, but um, so it's fine.
But like I'm looking at I like wrote a little
list of all of the recipes for easy reference. Yeah,
(28:15):
and you know, I mean it's yeah, A lot of
these are ones I mean that are both you know,
both standard in my in my kitchen practice and also
you know, things like the banana vinegar. I mean, it's
kind of one of my go to waste reducing things
because like I I always I always assume I'm going
(28:36):
to eat a lot more bananas than I do. Like
every time I buy bananas, like I'm gonna have a
banana every day this week, Well, no you're not, because
they're going to be like inredibly nearly after like three days,
and they're gonna be mushy and terrible and you're not
gonna want them, yeah, and so and so then I
(28:57):
make fanacraft them. Well that is that is always the
produce thing. I have such a hard time with that.
It's and we we we talked about that on the
show sometimes, I think most recently in our Pairs episode,
where I'm like, oh man, i have these really well
intentioned pairs sitting in my kitchen, but I'm not going
(29:18):
to remember to check them when they're probably going to
be ripe, and then they're not going to be good
after that, and so yeah, yeah, yeah, now and I
do with you know, I also live alone and have.
I tend to buy a lot of produce and then
I'm like, oh, but it's just me here. What did
I do? Yeah, so I do a lot of just
(29:40):
like oh crap, I've got to pickle that like now,
um projects and so you know that way, if I
like go out of town or whatever, you know, it'll
still be fine when I get back. Yeah, I mean
the pandemic. I I joked about it a lot on
the show. For me, it's not quite the same, but
I did have to get pretty creative. Um, well, I
(30:02):
have this. This is what I have. I can't find
anything else. Let's see what I can do. And I
do really like that aspects of it UM. And there's
something about reading your book where I don't know, there
was just something powerful about knowing we've been doing that forever,
Like even though it looks slightly different now, we've been
(30:23):
doing that forever. And like you having that moment of
you know, with the soulan's and you're like, oh, I'm
connecting to this even though I don't really have a
particular like memory with it UM. And you say in
there you talk a lot about about like fermentation as
community um both within like your body but within the community.
But you also say like you're looking for big conversations
(30:47):
with this, if you could expound on that point. Yeah,
I mean, I think, you know, fermentation, Like we've talked
about touches on so much, you know, I think the
food waste is a good place to jump off because
it's a reminder of that we you know, it's not
like we've had supermarkets for really most of history, and
(31:07):
we've just had a very different relationship to eating and
a lot of the foods that we consider to be
kind of staple foods and a lot of our diets
were developed based on that, and you know, like the
boxed mac and cheese, canned soup, you know, whatever, whatever
is like a much more recent phenomenon, you know, a
modernization of those things. Yeah, And so you know, I
(31:29):
think one of the conversations I enjoy having is about
this sort of like the power of using these traditional
foods in our you know, in our kitchens and making
them and interacting with them, and you know, and I
was talking about the personal journey of this and how
that I've connected so much with so many other parts
(31:52):
of my life and interest through doing this, you know,
And one thing I think about a lot is community
and so UM you know, with community, when we're making
a traditional food UM in a group which is in
a lot of UM, a lot of places. Over time,
you know, it still sometimes happens today You'll have big
like sara kraut making parties, kimchi making parties, you know ums,
(32:16):
people get together and have like homebrewing days like you
know whatever. But it's like you're making you're making this
thing that both brings your community together once during the
making and you get to catch up and all this
good stuff. But you're also providing your community food security
in the future, and so you're caring for your community
and kind of this long term holistic way UM that
(32:39):
I think is outside of what UM. You know, just
like when we talk about like food and community, and
it kind of often becomes like this kind of pithy
statement that it's like like food brings people together, and
it's like, okay, well what does that mean? Now? How
does it bring people together? You know? And I think
this this book was nice to commun enity chapter was
(33:00):
nice because I got to like dive into that and
be like, okay, like how does it do that? Um?
And that you know that sort of gathering and that
sort of like intergenerational knowledge sharing. You know, something I
talk a lot about in there is about the preservation
of um of culinary knowledge, of fermentation knowledge, in particular
(33:21):
the you know, we're talking about techniques that are primarily
used throughout history by people who were not considered you know,
valuable enough to record their information. So you would have
women's servants, enslaved folks like a lot of people who
maybe didn't have access to either literacy or two or
(33:41):
were you know, considered important enough to write about a
lot of their techniques, and everything would be lost. And so,
you know, a lot of when I think about community
building too, is like we're like we're the anchor point
between the past and future, Like we get to decide
what's coming from the past and staying with us and
coming to the future. And so we are at a
(34:02):
critical decision point of saying, I want these culinary traditions
to survive. Well, it's on me to write down how
Grandma does this. It's on me to do whatever, Like
I'm the one that gets to pick. So that's kind
of a whole soapbox. I can go on, but I'll
leave it there. Yeah, we love us. So we have
(34:29):
a lot more ground we want to cover in this conversation,
but first we have a quick break for word from
our sponsor. We're back, Thank you sponsor, and speaking about
these communities, you know, like like so much about fermentation
(34:51):
is so incredibly specific to UM, to the person who's
working with it and the place where they're working and
UM and the the traditions that have been handed down
to them. But there are, as we were talking about earlier,
so many practices or tropes that endure across cultures. UM.
(35:12):
In doing this research, did you find any examples of
that that really surprised or fascinated you? I mean, one
thing that I found was very interesting. UM, I'm not
sure I would say surprising, but it was. I found
it really fascinating. UM. Was that a lot of different cultures,
you know, like we talked about UM or, like you
(35:34):
just said, rather our specific fermentation practices, you know, are
are specific toss Um in a lot of ways. You know,
the way that I'm going to make sauerkroud is probably
slightly different than the way you might and the place
where I live might make it taste a little bit
different than the place that you live, but yeah, I
mean as far as kind of the cultural significance of things.
(35:58):
You know, one thing that I found very interesting as
I was doing my research was alcohol and kind of
the role that like we um, we assigned alcohol in
different cultures as being you know, something that was like
gifted to us from by the gods, and it was
like a gift that gave us like knowledge and inspiration
and like all of these things that like make us
(36:18):
feel really good like it does when we have a
few drinks. Um. Yeah, I'm sorry. You know that that
was interesting because of course, like you know, I mean, alcohol,
like ethanol is intoxicating wherever you are, so like I
guess it makes sense. Uh um, okay, do you? Um,
(36:41):
do you have any Let's let's say that someone is
totally new to this entire conversation and they are similarly inspired, um,
drink responsibly but similarly inspired. Um do you is there
like a like a good ferment for folks to start
to experiment with. I'm honestly, I think just like you know,
something simple like sauer kraut is a really good, good
(37:05):
kind of starter starter one you know, I'll have I'll
have people ask like, oh, I've never made ferment before.
I want to make like vinegar, I might want to
make fish sauce or I one or whatever, and like
those are also really easy, but something like sauer kraut
is like a one step process. You kind of just
like you make it, you put it in the jar,
you check the jar, you make sure it's you know,
(37:25):
doing its thing, and then you have suberkraut. And the
next time about vegetables, it's like if it smells like
fermented vegetables, like if it smells like suer kraut, suberkraut,
like you don't have to worry about like, oh, is
is my suer kraut gonna kill me? Like if it's
got like red mold or something on it, like yeah,
I don't eat that. But like if it just looks
(37:46):
like normal suer kraut and smells like suberkraut, like it's
you know, it's very safe and fine. Yeah. Uh. Do
you have a favorite project that you've got going right now?
I'm trying to think I have about a hundred things
fermenting right, Oh my goodness. And you're not supposed to
(38:06):
have favorites, I know, but I know, I know, I'm
in the other room. Maybe they can't hear me. So
there's this interesting thing that, um, one of my friends
posted about about a month ago that I am trying,
which is using sour dough discard um as the base
of brian to ferment cauliflower. And yeah, so it's like
(38:30):
this really nice, like sour tasty cauliflower. I'm enjoying that. Um.
You know, it's the time of year where I make
a lot of vinegar. I have a lot of you know,
apples and stuff, and so I tend to make enough
cider vinegar to last me for the year, which is
a lot of cider vinegar. And I always end up
(38:50):
having to buy some around about June because I'll be
like it turns out like all of those gallons of
vinegar weren't enough. Whoops, cook too much. Yeah, uh, do
you have like like a white whale of fermentation? Do
(39:13):
you have something that you've been like wanting to do
and it's never quite gotten right or that like you
haven't wanted to try yet because it just hasn't come
together in the right way. So I've made I've made
like shorter term meat from it, like the only meat
recipe I have. Um, in the book is for a
(39:33):
tie a type pork sausage that like a sour sausage
that's like fermented like a few days. Like it's not
you know, it's not a very long ferment. But I've
never done like a really long aged like salami sort
of situation. Um. I've watched other people do that. I've
like helped other people make it and then left and
(39:54):
not experienced the fine product. But like I've never like,
I've never actually made it start to finish. And yeah,
I think that would be fun. Oh yeah, goodness. Now
I'm thinking about when we right what I'm thinking of
of that that interview, We've got to go do it
um home and in Finch and they talked us a
(40:15):
little bit through their their house for ment program and
everything they do in that cabinet. I was just like,
oh no, um, but yeah, I guess um speaking speaking
of the future, what what else? What else does the
future hold for you? Are there any other projects you've
got coming up that you can talk with us about
(40:36):
or um, uh, just just research you're psyched about. Well
I'm doing Um, I'm actually working on another book proposal
right now I can't talk about. But I hope I
hope will be nice and well, I mean I hope
that it comes to fruition that's the publisher wants it,
(40:58):
and you know things. Um yeah, I mean right now
I'm writing a lot of articles. I'm mostly I'm really
enjoying kind of diving into my newsletter and playing with
like different formats and thinking about food and like different angles. Um.
I have an interview series in there, um as you
both know, um and having been part of it, um
(41:22):
that I you know, where I talked with different folks
connected to food in various ways. Um. So I've been
doing that. Um yeah, you know, I kind of have
these big, longer term dreams of like I would really
love to like have kind of sander Cat style fermentation residencies,
but like also with like you know, creative writing, art
(41:43):
sort of like stuff involved to Um yeah yeah tie
it all in right, Yeah, I like that would be
very fun. Um yeah, I don't know, like we'll see,
Like I'm just writing and enjoying things right now. Now.
That's an amazing that's an amazing place to be absolutely.
(42:03):
Um well yeah. So so the book that we've been
talking largely about today is again called Our Fermented lives
a history. Um subtitle how Fermented Foods of Shape, Cultures
and Communities. Um. But but where else can people find you? So? Um?
On social I'm at book is Julia and Root Kitchens
(42:25):
and if they want to read my newsletter at root
Kitchens dot sub stact dot com. Heck, yeah, yes, yeah,
yes do it listeners. Such a good book and if
you like this show, you will like this book. Yes,
it's so it's so nerdy and funny and thoughtful and
(42:46):
like and sweet and it's just yeah, it's it's I'm
not buttering you up because you're looking at me on
a video call. It's it's it's really, it's really quite enjoyable.
So thank you, thank you for making this this beautiful
weird thing, and thank you for being here. Always a
(43:08):
pleasure to have you. I look forward to hopefully meeting
in person and maybe trying some fermented foods. Yeah, it's
always a great, great part of it. Yeah, we definitely
are overdue for an in person meet up. And it
is always like a lovely, like selfish part of a
good Julia visit. I'm just like, oh man, she's going
to give us something weird. It's gonna be so good
(43:31):
refrigerators like amazing every time. I oh wow, it's a
lot going on. Well, thank you, thank you, thank you,
thank you again for being here. Um listeners, go check
Julie out if you haven't already. Uh and you can
(43:51):
contact us if you would like. Our email is hello
at saborpot dot com. We are also on social media.
You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and that other
one Twitter at saver pod and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows things. As always to our
(44:12):
superproducers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard, thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
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