Boston Ferments connects, educates and inspires communities through fermentation.
Two stages will have amazing fermentation experts and lactic-acid aficionados speaking throughout the fest. Both stages are inside and one is upstairs & the other downstairs. See speaker bios & more info below...
Fermentation: Broadening our Perspective
This lecture will weave together themes of coevolution, nutrition, foodways & anthropology, and economics using fermentation as catalyst.
Sandor Katz, author of the Art of Fermentation
My name is Sandor Ellix Katz, and I am a fermentation revivalist. My interest in fermentation grew out of my overlapping interests in cooking, nutrition and gardening. It started with sauerkraut. I found an old crock buried in our barn, harvested cabbage from our garden, chopped it up, salted it, and waited. That first kraut tasted so alive and powerfully nutritious! Its sharp flavor sent my salivary glands into a frenzy and got me hooked on fermentation. I have made sauerkraut ever since, earning the nickname Sandorkraut, even as my repertoire has expanded. I have explored and experimented widely in the realm of fermentation, and my mission with this website is to share information and resources, in order to encourage home fermentation experimentalists and propel more live-culture foods out into our culture.
I am a native of New York City, a graduate of Brown University, and a retired policy wonk. In 1993, I moved from New York City to Cannon County, Tennessee, where I am part of a vibrant extended community of queer folks (and many other friends and allies). I have AIDS and consider fermented foods to be an important part of my healing. Since 2003 when my book Wild Fermentation was published, I have taught hundreds of workshops demystifying fermentation and empowering people to reclaim this important transformational process in their kitchens. I have presented workshops in more than half of the states of the U.S., as well as Canada, Australia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Indonesia, and Denmark. Venues have included universities, farms, farmers’ markets, conferences, bookstores, and community spaces.
speakers
The Microbiome Wonder. A Closer Look At Our Ancestral Dependence On Bacteria To Nourish Us
We will explore the human microbiome and its origins in the soil and its implications for human health. We’ll delve into the intersection between human health, gut flora and our ancestral relationship to dirt and the consequences of a sterile world. We’ll leave ample time for questions, answers and mutual learning!
See their crowd funded experiment here.
Daniela Connelly (on right in photo) is a family medicine and integrative physician whose focus is on disease prevention through optimal nutrition. She works with underserved populations in Lawrence, Massachusetts. She also runs Field to Fork Farm in Southern New Hampshire, an organic farm/CSA that serves the local community with grass fed meats, eggs, milk and honey. Her passion for farming and medicine overlap with her passion for the biome of both the gut and the soil. She has presented at medical conferences on topics of optimal nutrition, and most recently she presented at the NOAF NH winter conference on the similarities between the determinant of soil health and gut health. Laura Wolfer (left) is a molecular biologist and anthropologist. She is an avid gardener and also runs a small organic farm in Southern New Hampshire. As a biologist and anthropologist, she melds her passion for evolutionary biology with the history of human interactions with the soil. When she is not digging in her vegetable plot, or digging at the archeological site, she’s shaping clay as a potter and artist. Both Daniela and Laura are now researching how agricultural systems can affect our exposure to microbes.
Where does booze come from?
Come join in and learn how grains, potatoes, honey, vegetables, and more become a stiff drink in your glass on a Saturday night. We will explore the basics of fermentation and the specifics of how this natural process replaces sugar with flavor, character, depth and most importantly…alcohol.
Maggie Campbell, Head Distiller at Privateer Rum
Maggie was enchanted by the alchemy of spirits at a ripe young age with her first dram in the Oban distillery in Scotland. Immersing herself in the world of wine, spirits and brewing she started as a bar-back before she could legally drink and dove into sommelier school as soon as she completed her degree in Philosophy at the University of Colorado. She went on to work in the boutique wine, craft brew and spirits world while founding the Denver Brewer’s League, developing a home still and winning the Denver Brewster’s Woman Brewing Competition. She attended the Sieble Institute in Chicago for their first ever course on Craft Distillation and Technologies and became Assistant Distiller at Germain-Robin in California. She is currently in the Level 4 Diploma program for the Wine and Spirits Education Trust out of London and working towards her Masters of Wine. She holds the position of Head Distiller at Privateer Rum where she diligently crafts the Silver Reserve Rum inspired by her love of aromatic eau de vie and the True American Amber Rum that plays off her whiskey experience. Her advice for aspiring distillers, “Read all the books you can and knock on every distillery door you can get to. Having mentors with different philosophies gives you a whole world of tools to pull from.”
The role fermented foods play in the GAPS diet and how specifically to ferment vegetables
Mary will be speaking about what the GAPS diet is, who befits from it, how to do the GAPS diet and important role that ferments play in a healthy diet. And Alex will talk about fermentation, including specifics of how to ferment vegetables, and I'll also talk about the importance of reclaiming your own health, and a bit about the role that fermentation can play in that journey.
Alex Lewin, author of Real Food Fermentation and Mary G Brackett, author of the Heal Your Gut Cookbook
Alex is an author, software engineer and architect, fermenter, health coach, real food activist, trained chef, raw milk drinker, motorcycle and scooter rider, and urban bicyclist. I write the blog, Feed Me Like You Mean It. I think that Ball jars are the ultimate glassware. My heroes include Sandor Katz, Sally Fallon, Vandana Shiva, Kurt Vonnegut, Anthony Bourdain, and Alan Turing. My first book, Real Food Fermentation, came out in June 2012. It is the first fully illustrated, step by step guide to creating simple fermented foods at home.
Take Your Kraut to the Next Level!
Looking to improve your veggie fermentation technique? Join Real Pickles founder, Dan Rosenberg, for a chat about what’s really going on at the microbio level and how you can use that knowledge to make better kraut. Bring your questions and fermentation challenges, and we’ll figure out some answers.
Dan Rosenberg started Real Pickles in 2001, taking 1,000 pounds of organic pickling cucumbers and making dill pickles to sell to about 25 stores in western Massachusetts. Co-owner Addie Rose Holland soon joined Rosenberg in the production of high-quality, traditional pickled foods, using natural fermentation to create products that are raw, vinegar-free and 100 percent organic.
local cheese-making: who makes it & why pay attention?
Join our panel of cheese experts for a presentation on all the mysterious glories of traditional cheese. Panelists will discuss how cheese is made, how speciality cheese should be properly tasted, and what sorts of other (fermented) beverages or condiments pair especially well.
Brad Jones [moderator]: Cheese of Choice Coalition Manager at Oldways
Jacqueline Foster, head cheese maker of Grey Barns on Martha’s Vineyard
Rory Stamp, cheesemonger at Formaggio Kitchen Cambridge
Robert Aguilera, prominent member of the American Cheese Society, former Formaggio Kitchen Buyer/Manager, and current US account manager for Fromagex
Brad manages the Cheese of Choice Coalition at Oldways, supporting the production and appreciation of raw-milk, artisan, and traditional cheese. Brad spent many years behind the towering cheese wall of renowned Formaggio Kitchen acting as Manager, Buyer, Classroom Educator, and all around cheese enthusiast. “From that vantage point,” he notes, “it’s hard not to fall in love with great cheese. It sort of swept me off my feet.” He has worked with artisan cheese producers across America and abroad. Through the Cheese of Choice Coalition, he is excited to pass along his passion for great cheese and to help ensure that this traditional, healthy, and delicious food remains accessible to all.
Sailing on the bacterial winds: Founding and Fermenting an Artisanal Foods Business
This talk will focus on starting a business based on the ancient art of fermentation, from production to stardust. The Brinery uses local produce to jar artisinal krauts, kimchis, pickles, and relishes for sale all around the Midwest, filling the sails of its customers with probiotic bliss and great tasting products. David will discuss the natural evolution of his experience as a farmer to a fermenter, describing the deep and inherent connections between the local economy, sailing, and our inner gut bacteria.
David Klingenberger, Chief Fermenting Officer of The Brinery. Founder and CFO (Chief Fermenting Officer) of the Brinery, David’s life is a ballad of land and sea. His love of fermentation began in the fields of Tantre Farm, where he preserved an overabundance of cabbages grown by father farmer Richard Andres. Passing many years in Tantre furrows, as well as sailing between growing seasons, David eventually founded the Brinery in summer of 2010. As a business owner, David embraces the connection between good health and fermentation, a sailor guiding his probiotic ship though the seas and guts of others. He also enjoys flying kites.
If we are lucky, David might riff off his recent comments regarding the benefits of eating live fermented foods: "billions of bacteria off crawl up inside of your system and create a very very harmonious intergalactic bactorial bliss. Its a blissful state of existence inside of a properly functioning digestive system."
What Next: Fermentation 201
Join Geoff Lukas, Chef de Cuisine at Sofra Bakery & Cafe, as he takes us on a fermentation tour around the world. Geoff will talk about fermentation traditions and you will have the opportunity to taste his global fermenting experiments!
Then make sure to join Geoff the next day at our brunch with Sandor Katz where Geoff will be cooking a 4-course fermented meal that Sandor will intriduce and talk about. An intimate experience not to be missed!
After pursuing a Bachelors Degree in Physics from Drexel University, Chef Geoff Lukas found that the life of a researcher wasn’t as fulfilling as he had once hoped. He began exploring his love of cooking by enrolling in the Culinary Arts program at the Art Institute of Philadelphia. Lukas’ career has taken him to Tinto Wine Bar and Zahav in Philadelphia, and Michelin-starred The Fat Duck in Bray, UK. Through his culinary experience and many travels, Geoff has experienced the nuance of cuisine around the world and brings his talents to the Sofra Bakery & Café kitchen as the Chef de Cuisine. Now Geoff is working to understand the roll of fermentation in the various Middle Eastern cuisines, their subtlety, and their composition in a restaurant setting.
Learn more about Goeff at www.lenagev.com
A History of Ideas about Fermentation and Digestion
While recent scientific study has begun to unravel the role of fermented foods in digestion and basic metabolic function, medical thought about the role of fermentation in physiology goes back about 450 years. Long before Pasteur and the identification of bacteria, and the more recent decoding of the DNA in the human gut biome, physicians long ago speculated on the processing and refinement of food as a kind of ferment and tentatively promoted what we would today call probiotics. This talk explores the ways we can appreciate not only bygone methods of food preservation but how people in the past believed fermented foods could preserve the human body in health.
Ken Albala s the author or editor of 16 books on food including Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe, Beans: A History (winner of the 2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award), and Pancake. He has also co-edited The Business of Food, Human Cuisine, Food and Faith and edited A Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance and The Routledge International Handbook to Food Studies.
Albala was also editor of the Food Cultures Around the World series with 30 volumes in print, the 4-volume Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia, and is now series editor of AltaMira Studies in Food and Gastronomy for which he has written a textbook entitled Three World Cuisines: Italian, Chinese, Mexican (winner of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards best foreign cuisine book in the world for 2012). Albala was co-editor of the journal Food Culture and Society from 2008-2013, and is now editing a 3 volume encyclopedia on Food Issuesfor Sage. He has also co-authored two cookbooks: The Lost Art of Real Cooking and The Lost Arts of Hearth and Home.
Forthcoming this year are a Food History Reader, Nuts: A Global History, a small book entitled Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food and a translation of the 16th century cookbook Livre fort excellent de cuysine.
Beyond Fermentation: The Skin Microbiome and the Role of Microbes in Human Health
The gut isn’t the only part of the body containing lots of good bacteria – so does the skin! Come learn about the skin microbiome and new research from Boston’s own skin microbiome company, AOBiome. Then John will discuss ways that microbes – good and bad – are revolutionizing how we think about health.
John Durant is the author of The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health, in which he advocates using evolutionary principles to combat the global epidemic of obesity, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions. He studied evolutionary psychology at Harvard before moving to New York City and becoming a “professional caveman”: mimicking a hunter-gatherer diet, running barefoot through Central Park, experimenting with intermittent fasting, and doing polar bear swims in the Atlantic. John has been featured in the New York Times and The New Yorker, and interviewed on The Colbert Report and NPR Morning Edition. He blogs at HunterGatherer.com.
John also advises food and health start-ups, including AOBiome, the leading skin microbiome company, and Exo, a pioneer of crickets as a healthy, sustainable, and ethical source of protein. His gut microbiome loves pickles, kombucha, kraut, and kefir and his skin microbiome loves his AOBs.
UPSTAIRS
10:15-11:00 Ken Albala
11:00-12:00 Daniela Connelly & Laura Wolfer
12:00-1:00 John Durant
1:00-2:00 Geoff Lukas
2:00-2:45 Pickle-Off Reality Show & Awards Ceremony and Festival Raffle
3:00-4:00 Sandor Katz
fermentation theory
fermenting practitioner series
DOWNSTAIRS
10:15-11:00 Brad Jones [moderator], Jacqueline Foster, Rory Stamp & Robert Aguilera
11:00-12:00 David Klingenberger
12:00-1:00 Dan Rosenberg
1:00-2:00 Alex Lewin & Mary G Brackett
2:00-3:00 Maggie Campbell
