Mary Karlin

Mastering Fermentation: Recipes for Making and Cooking with Fermented Foods

by Mary Karlin

A beautifully illustrated and authoritative guide to the art and science of fermented foods, featuring 70 recipes that progress from simple fermented condiments like vinegars and mustards to more advanced techniques for using wild yeast, fermenting meats, and curing fish.

Yup, it's another book that I had to read because of my garden!

A year ago was my first and only attempt at fermentation - an idea I'm fascinated by because I have IBS, and let's face it, fermented foods are my friend, and the idea of making my own fermented food is even nicer. I had a bunch of tomatoes from my garden that needed to be used up, no way to can, no more space in the garden, and I had just bought a bunch of garlic, onions, and various peppers from a farmer's market, so I decided to make salsa. I found a recipe online for making fermented salsa, spent hours dicing up the veggies and doing everything I was supposed to, only to find out our water had gotten infected by e.coli and the water was unsafe to drink without boiling first - which, of course, I hadn't done because I was trying to ferment the salsa. I had 6 pints and an odd quart jar of salsa that I had to toss because it just wasn't safe to try to eat the salsa.

All that to say I haven't forgotten the idea of fermenting foods. I even debating about taking a class on fermenting foods at my local trade school at night, but at $39, did I really need to take a class when I could just get a book from the library? Or heck, just do more googling? I liked the idea off hand holding, but $39 was a lot of money to spend on a night class for something like fermenting foods. and then this book fell into my lap, and I'm in love with this book and the ideas and information contained inside enough to purchase a copy for my own library. Okay, I'll probably wait & get a used copy, but still... I'm going to buy a copy.

Add all of that in, and then add recipes I haven't seen anywhere else - like mushroom ketchup - I mean, come on, mushroom ketchup!… (plus d'informations)

This book tried to do too much, and therefore didn't really do a satisfactory job of most of what it tried to do.

1) In some cases I wasn't really convinced that fermentation was taking place. The 'fermentation' periods with no active culture added were much too short.

2) The assumption that you can catch wild yeast anywhere within a few days is just not true in my experience.

3) If you ferment sugar to create CO2 in a soda, you are also creating alcohol in that soda, and this should have been made very clear.

4) Sometimes the translator was not clear about the specifics of certain terms. (I read this book in German.)

5) Shopping suggestions were given for Germany and Switzerland, but not for Austria.

Quite honestly, I shall have to work hard to get over this book and back to the point where I can get excited about trying to find the equipment and special ingredients for a few projects I wanted to try. This book made it sound much too complicated.… (plus d'informations)