We all had our moment. For some, it was during the first confinement, in 2020, the beginning of a love story around bread, sourdough and kneading by hand. We had to take good care of it. For others, it’s with the yoghurt machine inherited from the grandmother. For still others, it was the day when they were given the gift of strange translucent grains, with the responsibility of learning how to make kefir… Some now have in their pantry a collection of bright colors and various shapes – pickled beets or onions, candied lemons, miso paste, kimchi cabbage (Korean fermented cabbage), ginger bug (“ginger sourdough”), jars of sourdough, pickled berries…
As for those who don’t care or find these cultures in the bottom of the refrigerator repulsive, they have inevitably one day enjoyed cheeses, yogurts, sausages, pickles, beers, ciders or wines, honeys, even pancakes, and, of course, breads. Like Monsieur Jourdain, who was writing prose without knowing it, they too ate fermented, with their eyes closed and with a good appetite, products whose taste, flavor and texture owe everything to the micro-organisms present on the surface of the raw materials with which they are made (milk for cheeses and yogurts, fruit and vegetable skins for wine and lactofermentation, etc.).
“The history of man is a domestication of the rotten, which enabled him to survive and flourish. » Christophe Lavelle, researcher
Fermentation is a living process that takes place spontaneously, almost magically, provided there is water and nutrients. It is after the elimination of pathogenic micro-organisms that fermentation will stabilize and the conservation phase (several years, even at room temperature) will begin. Under the action of good bacteria and yeasts, foods are transformed, colors and textures change, liquids become effervescent, sugars are revealed or absorbed, new nuances of taste appear, nutrients arise, as with sauerkraut, concentrated in vitamin C, which saved many sailors from scurvy.
“It is the action of micro-organisms – bacteria, yeasts, fungi – on food, not to be confused with certain purely chemical transformations such as oxidation”, summarizes Christophe Lavelle, researcher at the CNRS and the National Museum of Natural History. “The rotten and the fermented follow the same process, the difference between them is a question of acceptability and point of view, depending on whether one considers the product consumable or not”, continues the researcher, who concludes: “The history of man is a domestication of the rotten, which enabled him to survive and flourish. »
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