When Cabbage Becomes Sauerkraut

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Foodthink’s Perspective

In October this year, Foodthink partnered with dozens of farmers’ markets, eco-farms, fermentation artisans, restaurants, publishing houses, and non-profit organisations to launch the ‘Ferment Awakening Festival’. In November, we hosted four book club sessions centred on Sandor Katz’s *The Art of Fermentation*. Our guest for the first session was a long-time friend of Foodthink, Sun Shan. Sun Shan currently runs the Chi Garden eco-farm and fermentation kitchen in Ottawa, Canada. Over eight years of living a ‘half-farmer, half-X’ lifestyle, she has accumulated extensive experience in making fermented foods. Her farm’s Korean kimchi and mountain-style kale pickles have sparked a ‘kimchi craze’ at local farmers’ markets. Below is Sun Shan’s sharing from *The Art of Fermentation* book club.

I. Fermentation: Both Science and Art

● Sandor Katz and the English edition of *The Art of Fermentation*.

The English title of the book is *The Art of Fermentation*. Why use the word ‘art’ instead of ‘science’?

For someone like me, with a background in biology, fermentation is actually a very scientific process. For instance, we know precisely that when acidity reaches a certain level—specifically, when the pH value is below 4.6—harmful bacteria will not grow. Consequently, fermented foods like sauerkraut are regarded as low-risk foods within food safety standards and at Canadian farmers’ markets.

● Homemade pickled vegetables from Sun Shan’s fermentation kitchen. This special recipe uses two types of radish and kale, making it ideal for stir-frying with meat. Upon opening the jar, a deep, sweet, and rich aroma instantly makes your mouth water.

Many people are overly fixated on the ‘science’ of fermentation and worry deeply about the safety of homemade fermented foods: Will kimchi, home-brewed alcohol, or bean paste upset my stomach? Could the fermented food I’ve made cause poisoning? They feel that food culture is too complex and that it’s simply easier to leave it to the factories.

In reality, whether fermenting vegetables, grains, or meat, one must collaborate with microorganisms—and industrial fermentation is no exception. Factories must determine safety based on existing fermentation experiments and results. Every country has its own regulations; for example, if a traditional fermentation strain has been used in a certain region for a long period without any food safety incidents, only then is it deemed feasible to implement that method for standardised mass production.

While fermentation is certainly a scientific change, it does not always progress as expected. You might not achieve the ‘standard’ taste in the traditional sense, and you might even start to doubt yourself, but that is precisely the charm of fermented foods: they are unique, and no two are ever exactly the same. There is endless joy in the process of constantly questioning and seeking guidance from elders and fermentation communities.

● A fermentation community established by ‘Happy Lab’ around kombucha. Members visit each other with their own home-brewed kombucha for blind tastings. Image source: Diane

This is also the core philosophy of *The Art of Fermentation*: fermentation is an art of collaborating with nature and microorganisms.

In the view of the author, Sandor Katz, fermentation represents more than just the process of food transformation under the action of microorganisms; it is also a social act. The ‘Ferment Awakening Festival’ launched by Foodthink this October was, of course, not just about the fermentation of food, but also the fermentation of community and culture.

Fermentation is science, art, and—more importantly—a form of community work. Taking this opportunity to connect with fermentation experts can be immensely rewarding.

● Foodthink was honoured to use the ‘Ferment Awakening Festival’ and *The Art of Fermentation* book club as an opportunity to connect with Sandor Katz himself across the ocean.

II. Why Do We Need Fermentation?

Sandor once said, “Fermentation is a cultural universal.” This could be roughly translated as “Fermentation is a food language spoken all over the world.” Every East Asian kitchen will inevitably have soy sauce and vinegar; Westerners love using red wine in their cooking and frequently eat cheese, chocolate, and coffee—all of which are fermented foods. If the culinary world lacked fermentation, it would become monotonous; the richness of flavours would decline, and the zest and depth of taste would be greatly diminished. How different our dietary lives would be!

● Do you know which categories of fermented foods correspond to the different colours of food?

As large-scale industrial food production becomes the norm, the traditional cultures and crafts associated with food are slowly vanishing.

Taking China as an example, a few decades ago, almost every household might have made their own pickled vegetables, sauerkraut, or kimchi. People in Sichuan and Chongqing would make *doubanjiang* (broad bean paste), those in the Jiangzhe region excelled at yellow rice wine, people in Yunnan would *ba* (cure) their meats and fish, and in the Northeast, *dajiang* (soy bean paste) was a favourite… Every household and every community had someone who knew how to ferment food.

But today, fewer and fewer people possess these fermentation skills. They have been replaced by large factories using industrial methods; we may soon lose this universal language of “fermentation”.

This is why Sandor began sharing his knowledge of fermentation; he hopes to use it to spark a cultural renaissance. The Foodthink reading group’s preview reposted the preface to *The Art of Fermentation*, using the term “food sovereignty” in the title. This echoes the performance art Sandor has practiced for decades—seeking and reclaiming our food sovereignty through fermented foods as a way to resist homogenisation.

In an era where fast-food chains like McDonald’s and Coca-Cola dominate the globe, if the chips we eat don’t taste like McDonald’s, we might even doubt whether they are chips at all. In such a unified, homogenised, and characterless food world, why does Sandor repeatedly return to topics of microbes, culture, and the symbiosis of life in *The Art of Fermentation*?

I will start by sharing two pages that I find particularly brilliant.

In these passages, Sandor explains that the entire food system is shifting towards large-scale commercialised and industrialised processing. This brings many problems to the planet and the world of animals and plants with which we coexist; nature is being harmed by unsustainable agricultural and food processing methods. He repeatedly emphasises that fermentation is a cultural renaissance—a way to engage with food and cultivation, and to reclaim one’s dignity and rights. He also mentions that humans do not exist independently of the living world; we coexist with all living organisms, and fermentation is a wonderful way for humans and nature to live in symbiosis.

III. Sandorkraut

From a fermentation novice to one of the most prolific authors in the field and a living embodiment of fermentation, Sandor Katz has poured immense passion and effort into his work. *The Art of Fermentation* was not his first book on the subject. His first, *Wild Fermentation*, was published in 2003, roughly ten years before *The Art of Fermentation*.

The success of that first book allowed Sandor to gather more insights while selling his books, sharing his knowledge, and travelling. This enabled him to document a wider array of fermentation methods, foods, and stories of regional differences, which eventually culminated in *The Art of Fermentation*.

Following the publication of *Wild Fermentation*, Sandor spent two years travelling across the United States and Australia, interviewing non-conformist individuals and communities within the food world. He distilled these stories of breaking food monopolies and homogenisation into his book *The Food Movement*, reminding us that food should not rely on artificial heating methods like the microwave.

During the lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, the diligent Sandor compiled the fermentation stories he had encountered during his years of global travel into *Fermentation Journeys*, published in 2021.

Despite having written so many books, Sandor is not an academic researcher; he is actually a very relaxed and unpretentious person.

I once attended a lecture by Sandor at a fermentation festival. During the class, he whipped up a batch of sauerkraut on the fly. Whether it was red or purple, or sourced from which small-scale farmer, he simply chopped it into a basin. He didn’t bother weighing the salt; he just poured it in and tasted it: “Hmm? Not salty enough, a bit more salt.”

The illustrations in this children’s book capture Sandor making fermented foods perfectly; they are incredibly vivid.

Sandor is also very low-key. The articles on his website are all written by himself, and many of his photographs look very modest—you can tell at a glance they aren’t staged: just a hand holding some loose, dripping sauerkraut.

Yes, this is the man himself, “Sandorkraut”.

Sauerkraut made Sandor. He earned the nickname “Sandorkraut” because he is always whispering in people’s ears, suggesting they “make some sauerkraut”. Thirty years ago, Sandor might never have imagined that he would become a missionary, spreading the philosophy of fermentation every single day.

For Sandor, fermentation is also a metaphor that speaks directly to life and death.

Sandor is HIV positive. During the AIDS epidemic of the 80s and 90s in New York, he lost many friends and community partners. In his books, he frequently mentions the experience of losing friends and family, sharing his records and reflections on mortality with the reader.

By changing his lifestyle, farming, and making fermented foods like sauerkraut, Sandor healed his body, repairing and extending his own life.

● Sun Shan and her husband Li Bo at the Ontario Fermentation Festival, pictured with Sandor Katz.
In a sense, when we turn a cabbage into sauerkraut, the cabbage dies, but it is also reborn. As “Sandorkraut”, his life experience—returning to the land, cutting through loneliness, and rebuilding a connection with life—is complementary. Fermentation truly gave him a second life.

IV. “Keep Fermenting!”

Over a decade ago, through a stroke of luck, Sandor accompanied a Chinese mother and daughter to visit the fermentation frontiers of China in the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan regions. The journey was captured in an eight-part documentary series, *A Journey through the People’s Republic of Fermentation*. When the group first arrived in China and were strolling through the streets of Chengdu, they spotted dried sausages hanging outside the window of a woman named Auntie Ding. Auntie Ding and her husband warmly hosted the three of them with Chengdu-style delicacies and agreed to be interviewed. The camera recorded her entire process of making Sichuan pickles (Pao Cai), which is why the first episode is titled “Auntie Ding’s Sichuan Pickles”.

Inspired by “Auntie Ding’s Pickles”, I have now begun sharing the method for making Sichuan pickles in local fermentation courses in Canada. The method is one my father taught me.

In North America, most people have never heard of Sichuan pickles. Auntie Ding and Sandor helped make them popular, so I also share my own story with pickles and the story of China’s pickles, hoping to break down more cultural and dietary “barriers”.

● Sun Shan organising a pickle fermentation workshop in Canada.

Over the past eight years, I have run small eco-farms in two regions of Ontario, Canada, producing certified organic vegetables and turning those, along with vegetables from fellow farmers, into various fermented foods.

I am from the North, and my husband Li Bo is from Yunnan. I grew up with the culture of fermented bean curd, and he grew up with the culture of pickled vegetables. Many of the fermentation techniques we use replicate the traditional methods we are familiar with, though we also experiment with different methods we’ve learned.

There is so much to learn from this process, including the connection between fermentation and family that Sandor discusses in his books.

This process is not a shift from the outside in, but from the inside out—beginning with our gut and our microbiome. “Starting with a jar of sauerkraut, from the inside out, slowly and gently rebuilding the connection between the body and the land, food, and all natural things.”

So, keep fermenting! Keep fermenting!

● Scan the QR code on the poster to watch the replay of the first *The Art of Fermentation* reading group.

Foodthink Author
Sun Shan
Currently operates Chi Garden eco-farm and fermentation kitchen in Ottawa. She graduated from Peking University with a degree in Ecology and founded the university’s first nature conservation society, the “Green Life Association”. She later earned a Master’s degree in Environmental and Public Policy from George Mason University in the US. After several years of working in research institutes, environmental organisations, the field of sustainable development, and non-profit organisations, she now serves as the Chairperson of the Shan Shui Conservation Center.

 

 

Text compiled by: Shanwei

Editor: Ze’en

Published by Foodthink