🦠 The most popular fermentations of yesterday and today did not appear thanks to scholarly minds who planned them, but rather through culinary mistakes! Kombucha, cheese, but also sourdough bread, beer, and wine are fundamentally simple and happy accidents that humans quickly sought to reproduce. It is highly likely that the first beer bubbles appeared in a bowl of barley forgotten in the rain by an Egyptian, that the sour taste of sauerkraut was first appreciated by one of the thousands of Chinese who built the Great Wall of China when they had only cabbage to eat; that somewhere in Asia, a woman noticed that her cup of sweet tea, forgotten a few days earlier on her windowsill, now contained a fizzy and vinegary liquid we call kombucha today…
> The magic of fermentation actually operated on its own in various civilizations, providing new ways to preserve food, make it more digestible, and multiply its benefits.
> Unfortunately, in most developed countries, the culture of fermentation has gradually been lost over the years, mainly due to the advent of pasteurization. Indeed, the era of cleanliness and antibacterial soap was born! This reality has its benefits, of course, but today we have an exaggerated phobia of bacteria and a need for "over-sterilization" to supposedly preserve health. The word "bacteria" itself is frightening. It is associated with dirt, diseases, epidemics, and invaders… The food industry has given them a more appealing name, the famous "probiotics" (from the Greek meaning "in favor of life").
🦠 Fermentation is actually based on the basic principles of life on earth: every form of life seeks a hospitable environment to live in, feeds to grow, defends itself to repel invaders, and expels waste to maintain its balance. Food fermentations are nothing more than the result of the survival cycle of a number of microorganisms wandering in search of food.
> In many of these fermentations, sugar is the main food consumed by the microorganisms, and acetic acid, alcohol, and carbon dioxide are the main by-products. These expelled substances are harmless to the colonizing microorganisms but make the environment inhospitable to bacteria or yeasts that could compete with them.
> Lacto-fermentation (or lactic fermentation) is a fermentation that occurs in the absence of oxygen and involves lactic-type bacteria known as "friendly" (bifidus, lactobacillus). These bacteria are found in foods, in the human body, and in soils, particularly those cultivated according to the principles of organic or biodynamic agriculture, as they have a much more active biological life than treated and compacted soils. Consequently, organic vegetables are more "lacto-fermentable" than foods containing bactericidal pesticide residues.
🦠 Fermentation is thus an effective means of preservation and a culinary art that offers a wide range of surprising textures and flavors. It is also an ancestral method of food preservation, requiring different stages and regular monitoring to ensure the final product is of the highest quality.
> All fermentations have in common the strengthening of the immune system, the support of intestinal flora, and they provide valuable aid to digestion.
🦠 To learn more, also check out our various product sheets and blog articles:
> Lacto-fermentation, a true health asset!
> Lactic ferments: for making homemade yogurt, but not only!
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