Wild about Fermentation:
An Interview with Sandor Ellix Katz

By Terese Allen, Organic Valley Food Editor

Sandor Ellix Katz is the twenty-first century’s Pied Piper of fermented foods. His book, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods, celebrates the myriad pleasures and benefits of the ancient practice of culturing, and reintroduces Americans to this (nearly) lost art.

What do you think is the most magical thing about fermentation?

I view the fermentation arts as the human cultural manifestations of ancient co-evolutionary relationships, in which we harness the power of bacteria and fungi present on the plants and animal products we eat [in order] to enhance rather than degrade foods. It’s a partnership with invisible life forces we have just recently begun to see and understand, but have lived and worked with forever.

When, where and how did people start making cultured cheese and butter?

We can only speculate about the origins of ferments, since they all predate recorded history. Presumably, in their origins, cultured cheese and butter were not made by adding selected bacterial populations to them, but rather were populated by the lactic acid bacteria inevitably present in all raw milk.

Why have people traditionally cultured milk?

Fresh milk as we know it is really a product of the twentieth century and refrigeration. Most people throughout time have enjoyed sour milk. When milk spontaneously soured into something that people especially liked, they tried to perpetuate it by adding it back into the next batch of milk. That’s what culturing is.

Culturing, or culture—the term has multiple meanings and associations. Could you tell us how they interrelate?

As my exploration of fermentation unfolds, I keep coming back to the profound significance of the fact that we use the same word (culture) to describe the community of bacteria that transform milk into yogurt, as well as the practice of subsistence itself--language, music, art, literature, science, spiritual practices, belief systems, etc. The word comes from the Latin cultura, a form of the verb colere, [meaning] to cultivate or till. Going back further, it derives from the Indo-European root “kwel,” meaning to revolve, from which “cycle,” “circle,” “chakra,” and many other words, along with “culture,” are derived. The starters that we use to introduce fermentation organisms into our foods—cultures—are important elements of the cultural practices that get passed from generation to generation.

You’ve described fermentation as a “multicultural adventure.” Can you explain?

People ferment foods and beverages everywhere. Through them we can explore the flavors and the practices that distinguish different cultural traditions. I find this very exciting.

Would you comment about seasonality as it relates to cultured dairy foods?

Milk flow tends to be heaviest in the summer, and especially small dairy operations sometimes dry up their animals (stop milking them) in the late winter in preparation for the arrival of babies in the spring. Temperature fluctuations also influence the behavior of the cultures. All food production revolves around seasonality.

Is there a growing interest in cultured foods in the United States today?

There is most definitely a growing interest in live-culture foods. I see it in attendance at my workshops, in Internet traffic and the demand for starter cultures, and in the small enterprises cropping up around the U.S. that create and sell live-culture foods. I think it is strongly related to other food movements, including those advocating local foods and sustainability, along with nutrition-focused movements, slow food, and others.