Of Cabbages & Kimchi — the fizzy pleasure of fermented food

Lady Dai, aka Xin Zhui, a Chinese noblewoman whose tomb dates to 168BC, is known for being one of the best-preserved mummies ever found (she still had eyelashes when her body was discovered in 1968). Alongside Lady Dai in the tomb were some of her favourite foods, including fermented black soyabeans, the basis of soy sauce, although that delicious condiment hadn’t yet been created.

Humans have enjoyed fermented foods for a very long time, as James Read explains in Of Cabbages & Kimchi, his delightfully enthusiastic celebration of 10 different fermented foodstuffs, from yoghurt to kimchi (Korean fermented cabbage), sauerkraut to kombucha (Japanese fermented tea). Each chapter is a combination of recipes and practical tips plus science and history. The author notes that vinegar (a form of fermented alcohol) was already being used by Egyptians 5,000 years ago and was valued so highly that it was sometimes used as payment — something we know from receipts engraved in pottery.

You can see why fermentation would have been an important element in people’s diets during the many centuries when it was a matter of survival to preserve food. The real puzzle is why ferments are enjoying such a revival now, despite the fact we have supermarkets stocked (temporary food shortages aside) with fresh produce all year round. As recently as 10 years ago, kimchi and kombucha were little known by western consumers, but they are now wildly popular, both for their health benefits and because making small batch DIY ferments has become a hipsterish pursuit.

Read himself is part of this fermentation revival. A former journalist, he became so addicted to making kimchi that he started his own kimchi company. He writes about these “fizzy foods” with a spirit of humorous exploration, an atmosphere reinforced by the book’s surreal illustrations from Marija Tiurina. Some get hooked on fermentation because of the health benefits for the gut microbiome, but Read shrugs off many of the claims made for them as “hyperbole”, while acknowledging that the act of fermenting certain foods does “unlock more of the nutrients”.

For Read, the appeal of fermentation is the range of exciting flavours it generates, from the rich umami of soy sauce to the tangy sourness of yoghurt. But most of all, he relishes the processes themselves, which he compares to the joy of gardening: “The prickle of contentment when doing a morning check on your sauerkraut or hot sauce and hearing the little ‘phut’ as you open the jar which heralds the beginnings of fermentation is a bit like seeing the first hints of fruit bursting out of the flower of a tomato plant.” Read recounts the pleasure he takes in “burping” his jars of sauerkraut to release the carbon dioxide, and the “terrible hoard” of glass jars he has accumulated in pursuit of his hobby.

Of Cabbages & Kimchi explains brilliantly just how many different processes are going on in those jars. Some forms of fermentation are simple and spontaneous: “wild” ferments that more or less make themselves, such as tepache, a Mexican drink made from pineapple left in sugar and water. Others, such as soy sauce, are so elaborate and require “so many unintuitive stages” that, as Read writes, “it’s really quite amazing it exists at all”.

There are already several excellent books about fermentation (The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz remains the benchmark), but Read brings a freshness to the subject, which gave me an itch to do more of it. The real test of a recipe book is not what it tells you but how it affects your life in the kitchen and, judging by the clutter of glass jars accumulating in my fridge, this one is a hit.

Of Cabbages & Kimchi: A Practical Guide to the World of Fermented Food by James Read, Particular Books £22, 240 pages

Bee Wilson is the author of ‘The Way We Eat Now’

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