Biographical note:

MARY KARLIN is a passionate cook, cooking teacher, cookbook author, and freelance food writer. She was a founding staff member and is currently a visiting chef-instructor at the award-winning Ramekins Culinary School in Sonoma, CA, where she has taught wood-fired cooking, cheese making, fermentation, and Mediterranean-themed cooking classes for more than ten years.

Mary is also a guest instructor at The Fork at Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese in Point Reyes, CA, and The Cheese School of San Francisco, as well as at other prominent culinary venues around the United States. She teaches an online cheese making course entitled “Artisan Cheese Making” on Craftsy.com. Mary is the author of two previous acclaimed cookbooks: Wood-Fired Cooking (2009) and Artisan Cheese Making at Home (2011).

When not teaching, Mary splits her time between Northern California and Arizona where she makes cheese, fills her pantry full of fermented food, and cooks at her wood-fired oven.
 
www.marykarlin.com
www.artisancheesemakingathome.com
www.masteringfermentation.com

Country of final manufacture:

CN

Excerpt from book:

Introduction

Sourdough bread, cheese, yogurt, beer, wine, sauerkraut, kimchi, sweet chile sauce, soy sauce, pickles, and even chocolate are just a few of the fermented foods that are part of our everyday diets. In the United States, we love a wide variety of savory and sweet ferments that many of us probably don’t even realize are fermented.

Have you ever noticed that many cuisines serve fermented foods with their meals? In Asian cuisine, it’s a small dish of pickled vegetables or spicy kimchi; in Indian cuisine, a fabulous chutney or lentil dosa; in the Mediterranean, an aromatic herbal beverage after the meal. Yes, these fermented foods and beverages are delectable players in the overall dance of flavors, textures, and tastes of a meal, but just as important as their flavor, ferments play a valuable role in the digestion of the meal and subsequent health of our digestive system. Fermentation makes those foods more digestible and therefore more nutritious. It’s a bonus that fermented foods also taste great.

In many supermarkets today, overprocessed versions have replaced many foods that were traditionally fermented: processed cheese has taken the place of farmhouse Cheddar, pasteurized beers that all taste alike have overtaken regional ales and lagers, preservative-laden bread has replaced homemade loaves made with natural starters. The abundance of these foods throughout our food system makes us believe that these processed versions are safer and healthier for us. But they are not. Many ready-made foods have been robbed of many of their naturally occurring beneficial microorganisms by pasteurization and some extreme high-temperature food-safety processes such as ultra-pasteurization. Not all bacteria are bad for us. The presence of certain bacteria is essential to good health. It is important to our overall health that we get back to the practice of having real fermented foods as key elements of our diets. This is not a fad but a trend back to foods that are good for us, many of which we can make ourselves. Once you’ve tasted real fermented foods, you’ll want to stick to them, if only because they simply taste better.

            So why do fermented foods taste so good? Fermentation promotes the growth of desirable bacteria, molds, and yeasts in foods, either food-borne or through the introduction of various “starters” to create an enzymatic action that transforms the food into an elevated state of flavor and nutritive value. Acidified milk turns into creamy cheese, hard barley kernels mellow into refreshing beer, simple cabbage turns into sauerkraut.

While on this unpredicIntroduction  
Chapter 1
Fermentation Basics
Chapter 2
Equipment, Ingredients, and Troubleshooting 9
Chapter 3
Fermented Fruits and Vegetables  
Chapter 4
Legumes, Nuts, Seeds, and Aromatics    
Chapter 5
Fermented Dairy
Chapter 6
Fermented Grains, Breads, and Flatbreads  
Chapter 7
Cured Meats and Fish
Chapter 8
Fermented Beverages
Chapter 9
Cooking with Fermented Foods
 
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Resources
Bibliography
About the Author
Measurement Conversion Charts
Index