T.S. Book Club - The Fermentation Kitchen

By Sam Cooper

I’m slowly working my way through this incredible book. A Mother’s Day gift that shows my family know me very well. While I’m a long time dabbler in making my own fermented foods. From Kombucha to champagnes, yogurt to sauerkraut and of course sourdough bread, I’m very aware that I have only scratched the surface in terms of the techniques available and what flavours and gut loving goodness can actually be achieved.

I think one of the things I love most about ferments is their ability to preserve a harvest. And when you go to the effort to grow your own food its great to have multiple options for preserving and consuming that homegrown produce.

If you are new to fermenting or interested to give it a go, I can highly recommend Sam’s book ‘The Fermentation Kitchen’. It is incredibly thorough and delves deeply into the science of fermentation, but in an accessible way. The introduction to our ‘Microbial World’ is fascinating and sets the scene for what is a vast topic. Sam’s passion and knowledge of the world of fermentation is obvious. I love Sam’s analogy of humans as ‘fleshy tubes’ which house more bacteria than there are stars in our galaxy.

There is an impressive list of recipes covering ferments made with bacteria, yeasts or mould. The book is great for beginners, with recipes for kombucha, herbal sodas and yogurt, but essentially this book is for the fermenter looking to extend their repertoire. It is detailed and extensive and includes recipes to make Koji cured vegetable, Miso and more. It is definitely for the adventurous.

The recipes I’m looking forward to trying my hand at are Tepache, a recipe from Mexico that uses pineapple peel and core to make a fermented fizzy drink. It makes good use of something that would otherwise go straight to the compost.

Another is cultured butter. A firm staple at most really good restaurants these days, I look forward to wowing my family and potentially gifting it to special friends at Christmas.

If you have any recommendations for further reading, I’d love to hear them. Reach out at IG.

Written by Kate Taylor