Home fermentation and fermented foods from around the world
Practical guides to fermenting at home – sauerkraut, kimchi, pickles, kefir, kombucha – and to fermented foods from around the world. Updated articles list their sources and say plainly when a ferment isn't safe to make at home. About Figaro Shakes →
134 traditional fermented foods and drinks from 12 regions, compared in one table: how each is fermented, its main microbes, whether it still has live microbes when eaten,…
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Suan cai is Northeast China's sour cabbage: napa cabbage, usually blanched in boiling water, weighed down with a stone in salted water and fermented for about a month.…
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Kiviaq is an Inughuit food from northwest Greenland: a few hundred little auks packed whole, feathers and all, into a sealskin, sewn shut with the air pressed out…
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Ting is a fermented sorghum porridge from Botswana, also eaten in South Africa, where it is called ting ya mabele: sorghum meal is mixed with water and a…
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Most home ferments want an ordinary warm room: sauerkraut and fermented pickles 70–75°F (21–24°C) for 3–4 weeks, kombucha 68–77°F (20–25°C) for 7–10 days and milk kefir 68–77°F (20–25°C)…
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Kiseli kupus is Balkan sour cabbage: whole cored heads of white cabbage fermented in brine and used leaf by leaf, above all for sarma. Use salt equal to…
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Fesikh (feseekh, faseikh) is whole fish, usually grey mullet, salted without gutting and left to ferment for 15 days to 3 months, eaten in Egypt at Sham el-Nessim…
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pH 4.6 is the safety line for fermented foods: at or below it, the bacterium that causes botulism can't grow or make toxin, so a ferment needs to…
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Brine-cured olives are made Greek-style: ripe olives go straight into salt brine and ferment for months while the bitterness leaches out. University of California extension uses a brine…
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Kinema is a sticky, umami fermented soybean food from eastern Nepal, first made by the Limboo people and now eaten across the Darjeeling Hills, Sikkim and southern Bhutan,…
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Maheu (mahewu, amahewu) is a Southern African non-alcoholic drink made by fermenting thin cooked maize porridge. Cook maize meal with water for 15–20 minutes, cool it, stir in…
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Gundruk is Nepal's fermented, sun-dried leafy vegetable. Wilt mustard, radish or cauliflower leaves for a day or two, shred them, pack them very tightly into a jar without…
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Judima is the GI-tagged rice wine of the Dimasa people of Assam, Northeast India. Cooked rice is fermented for 5–7 days with humao, a starter cake of rice…
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Trahanas is the Greek and Cypriot pantry crumble of fermented milk (sour trahanas) or fresh milk (sweet) and cracked wheat: the milk is fermented, the wheat added, the…
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Zha cai is the salted, pressed and fermented stem of tuber mustard (Brassica juncea var. tumida) from Fuling, Chongqing, dated to 1898. Industrially it's pickled three times in…
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Figaro Shakes started in 2016 as a visual journal of shakes and smoothies. Those recipes are still here.
