As I write this, there are lacto-fermented cucumbers and garlic scapes and (semi-successful, semi-failed; if you do home ferments, you might know what I mean) ginger beer in my refrigerator and in-progress jars of beets and watermelon rinds fermenting on my kitchen island. Oh, and some fresh-baked sourdough cooling on the range. Reading Fermented Foods: The History and Science of a Microbiological Wonder was a lovely accompaniment to the hands-on fermentation projects I’ve been cultivating in my house. While Christine Baumgarthuber references Sandor Katz, fermentation guru and author of The Art of Fermentation (2012), this book is not a how-to guide for fermentation projects but rather an overarching narrative of the history of fermentation, considered alongside the rise of hygienic or Pasteurian practice. As with microbes, there is an immense amount of history on fermentation if you know where to look.

The book is necessarily broad, as ferments...

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