Welcome! We’re Paul and Sarah, two adventurers who love food. We also love to experiment and try new things, which led us to the world of fermentation. Pickles, hot sauce, ginger ale – count us in!
Fermentation is an adventure.
An adventure that not only extends the life of your food, but ADDS life. Whether you realize it or not, you are a living ecosystem that thrives on the life that exists in your food, specifically your digestive system. Not only is fermentation good for digestion, it tastes really freaking good!
It’s an adventure we want to explore together with you. Whether we’re whipping up a batch of pickles, experimenting with new flavors, visiting a winery or brewery, or simply enjoying all that fermentation has to offer, we want to share the journey with you.
The Lost Art of Fermentation
Fermentation is an adventure that has largely been forgotten by the mainstream for a number of reasons. Technology advances in refrigeration and canning have made food last longer. Additives and preservatives extend the shelf life far beyond what’s natural (or healthy). On top of that, the easy convenience of just-in-time delivery makes packaged, grab and go foods more preferable. Even rules by government have made producing and selling fermented products harder. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Imagine a few mason jars of cucumbers suspended in a salt brine fermenting on your kitchen counter, or even more alien – a kombucha mother. To some, the process of fermentation might set the scene for a sinister sci-fi movie.
But bring up the results of fermentation from any single delicacy prized by humankind such as craft beer, wine, cheese, olives, pickles, coffee, bread, and literally every popular condiment under the sun (hot sauce, mustard, ketchup, soy sauce, vinegar) and people could rave about them endlessly.
A new revival of old-world skills needs to take place to bring fermentation back to its former status in the mind of the masses. On a positive note, over the past ten years we’ve seen the cottage industry of fermented goods exploding!
You could go out and buy these delicious products at a premium OR you could make them yourself cheaply and learn something about the micro universe. At the very least maybe you incorporate more of this deliciousness into your diet.
Creating Culture
The Fermentation Adventure is our journey that focuses on everything having to do with fermentation and “creating culture” including building a community of people that enjoy this lost art.
Everything on this website along with our videos or podcasts are our opinions alone and should not be taken as the definitive resource, personal advice, or the replacement of common sense and personal responsibility. (See our Legal Disclaimers & Policies)
There are endless topics in fermentation are many and include a wide variety of areas including study of:
- Understanding the microbial world
- Techniques of preservation
- Lacto-fermentation
- Fermenting Equipment
- Vegetable ferments
- Fruit ferments
- Fermented beverages
- Fermented grains
- Fermented legumes
- Dangers of fermentation
- Fermentation in human history
And probably several more that we have yet to discover, but we’re willing to find out! Thank you for your interest in this amazing topic of fermentation and we look forward to see what this journey will bring.
We’re not claiming to be experts on any of these topics, but we’re always learning about the mysteries of the natural world. We invite you to join us on this journey of understanding the microbial world of bacteria, yeast, fungi, the processes and interconnections they share, and the mysteries that we have yet to discover!
– Paul and Sarah
