Bread. Cheese. Wine. Beer. Coffee. Chocolate. Most people consume fermented foods and drinks every day. For thousands of years, humans have enjoyed the distinctive flavors and nutrition resulting from the transformative power of microscopic bacteria and fungi. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods is the first cookbook to widely explore the culinary magic of fermentation.”Fermentation has been an important journey of discovery for me,” writes author Sandor El
$ 14.14
Wild Fermentation,
This is the only cookbook that I know of that you will read from cover to cover. It is not the dry “do this in this order” kind of book, it walks with you on your culinary endevors like your mom or grandma would, telling you stories along the way, including the secrets that make not just sourdough bread, but unforgettable sourdough bread.
Sandor doesn’t just tell us, he shows us, how to be self-sufficient about making and storing food (with little need for a stove or a refrigerator): making sourdough, cheese, miso, making tempeh, making wine, beer and, it seems, almost every other fermented food made the world over. And he gives you a list of resources where you can order the most mundane and exotic of starter cultures and even seaweed from our own Atlantic coast.
And your concept of “self” will never be the same again. He shows us how to reclaim and restore a part of ourselves that has protected us like the ozone layer protects the earth: the world of microbes in and around us, the protective cloak of the microecology that is meant to be a part of us like our skin.
Fermented foods restore a health balance like no probiotics and vitamins can. Happy reading, happy fermenting, happy eating!
Was this review helpful to you?
|Not a “Flip Open and Cook” Kind of Book,
While the introductions to the chapters and the recipes definitely catch my interest and make me want to prepare these recipes, I am finding over and over again that the recipes are not written in a way where you could flip to the page and go.
Frequently, the instructions refer in an unclear manner to a different recipe that you need to follow in part, but make some changes.
Other times one of the ingredients is a recipe in itself, but no page number is given for where to find these extra instructions. For instance, many recipes call for “honey water,” but give no information about how to prepare “honey water” or where in the book to find this concoction, leaving you to page through and search for it. Once you find honey water, you find that it is in a recipe for honey wine. Are the the recipes that call for “honey water” intending for you to use the ingredients from this honey wine recipe or use the final product? No answer is apparent.
I feel like I will have to re-write each of these recipes to include their FULL INSTRUCTIONS to make them user friendly. I don’t know whether this was a choice made to save space, a sign of a disorganized mind, or simple laziness on the part of the author.
Was this review helpful to you?
|OH So Good!!!,
I love this book! I’ve tried a few of the recipes and just love the results! I can’t believe none of the “back to nature” type books and publications I read talk about the simple and healthful ways of preserving food through fermentation!
Sandor does a fantastic job of taking the mystery and careful measuring out of fermentation. Most of the recipes I’ve read for fermentation say you must follow the recipe exactly or risk food poisoning. I’d rather play around with the recipes, so this is just perfect for me! I’m also impressed with his research into traditional recipes.
I just read that kimchi may cure Avian Flu, and the recipe in this book is a fantastic hit here! We use it as salad dressing with some sesame oil!
Was this review helpful to you?
|