A few weeks ago, I took “Intro to Fermentation” at a local San Francisco cooking school, and - not to be dramatic - it blew my mind.

I’ve been a huge fan of probiotic rich foods for a long time, since I discovered their benefits of a healthy gut against my rheumatoid arthritis. It’s been one of my cooking resolutions to try making my own sauerkraut, and after one absolutely foul failed attempt I was thrilled that I was able to make time to attend this class to learn more. There’s such a community of “fermentos” (people who ferment foods) here in the Bay Area, that I knew it was going to be a fun class.

The class started with a lecture on the history and the science behind of fermented foods. I was like a little girl in her favorite class in school, just scribbling and scribbling away in my notebook in the front row. I think the rest of the “students” thought that there would be more eating and less learning, but I was THRILLED to be lectured.

I wanted to share with you some of the fun facts I learned about fermenting foods:

1. The oldest evidence of fermented foods goes back to 10,000 BCE in China which was kombucha!
2. Pretty much every cuisine has some kind of core fermented food or condiment (except the American diet - womp)
3. There’s two kinds of fermentation:
   1. Wild fermentation - employs organisms already in the environment and/or food to start the fermentation (sauerkraut, traditionally made pickles, apple cider vinegar)
   2. Inoculation - adding organisms to initiate fermentation (yogurt, cheese, kefir)
4. The bacteria living in your stomach love to eat FIBER. So eat lots of fiber to support them!
5. Studies have shown that removing fermented foods from your diet decreased your immune response, but adding fermented foods back in increased and supported immune response
6. Studies have also shown that eating a diverse amount of fermented foods and their bacteria is best for your immune response. So it’s great if you have yogurt in the AM, but even better if you have some sauerkraut with lunch and a kombucha with dinner too. It’s kind of like eating the rainbow when it comes to regular foods as well
7. People who have less social anxiety have been documented to have a healthier gut flora, leading to new theories on healthy gut bacteria and overall mood

At this point, the lecturer started going down a route about how the bacteria in our gut want to be introduced to more bacteria (makes sense) so therefore, our bacteria in our system are influencing us to go meet other people so we can make out with them and procreate and gain new bacteria (aaaand she loses me).

Regardless, I totally enjoyed most of the lecture. But then it was time to eat! We sampled lots of different fermented foods, including a herb sauce, a chili harissa sauce, a grape ketchup, sauerkraut - you name it. Fermented foods have such an interesting, umami flavor. There is nothing bland about them, and even the smallest amount can add a lot to a dish. You can find the recipes that we sampled on the teacher’s blog.

Then it was time to ferment! We made a jar of preserved lemons and a big jar of sauerkraut to take home with us.

Since then, I’ve preserved lemons, had another attempt at making sauerkraut (round #2 fail), and fermented carrots. It’s definitely an art that I’m still getting a hang of. I have to say, the preserved lemons have been the most USEFUL thing in my kitchen and the easiest thing to ferment. Any fresh sauce that you whip up that includes lemons - think salsa, chimichurri, ANY dressing - use chopped or food processed preserved lemons instead for a probiotic benefit AND delicious flavor.