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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: it's fermentation day here at the Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind podcast. We're gonna be talking about kim she one

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Speaker 1: of my favorite foods of all time. Uh. And also

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Speaker 1: later in the episode, just wanted to give you a

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Speaker 1: heads up. Robert and I are going to chat about

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Speaker 1: kimchi for a while first, but later on we're gonna

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Speaker 1: be speaking with a bona fide fermentation expert from a

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Speaker 1: Tufts fermentation lab. Her name is Dr Esther Miller, and

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Speaker 1: it sounds like she's got one of the coolest jobs

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Speaker 1: in the world. Yeah. Given the title we went with

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Speaker 1: here kim che a song of salt and Cabbage, I

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Speaker 1: guess it's a missed opportunity for us to have done

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Speaker 1: some sort of um Wester Ross themed cold open skit

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Speaker 1: about about kim she Well, I guess the real prince

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Speaker 1: was promised in the story is the lacto Bacillus bacteria

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Speaker 1: and and he must come in order to rescue the fermentation,

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Speaker 1: for the jar is dark and full of spores. That's

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Speaker 1: pretty good. But of course you know there's some there.

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Speaker 1: There has to have been some pickling and from and

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Speaker 1: or fermentation in the west Ro's books, because it seems

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Speaker 1: like they were always lengthy descriptions of what kind of

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Speaker 1: foods uh of characters were eating. Yeah, but a lot

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Speaker 1: of it is I think like a classic Anglo cuisine inspired,

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Speaker 1: which is is actually very low. Well, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to be insulting, I would say at least the perception

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Speaker 1: is that it's relatively low on on spices and and

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Speaker 1: complex flavors. It tends to be a rather bland cuisine,

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Speaker 1: kind of focused on grain, meat and dairy. All right,

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Speaker 1: But then I do we do have to to point

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Speaker 1: out that, I guess there was beer, there was cheese,

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Speaker 1: there was bread. And that's one of the reasons that

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Speaker 1: fermented foods are so fascinating because there there are these

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Speaker 1: things that we often forget are fermented, like cheese and

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Speaker 1: bread and chocolate, and then we have these fermented um,

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Speaker 1: you know, staples of various fermented goods that you're going

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Speaker 1: to have in your your kitchen. And also some of

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Speaker 1: the more um elaborate examples. For instance, Uh, there's the kivak,

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Speaker 1: which is a traditional Inuit food from Greenland in which

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Speaker 1: little ox These these little birds are caught and then

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Speaker 1: fermented in a seal skin that's buried beneath rocks. There's

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Speaker 1: a great feature on this in the documentary series Human

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Speaker 1: Planet that came out several years back and was at

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Speaker 1: the time narrated by John Hurt. I gotta admit, as

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Speaker 1: much as I love fermented foods, I have never tried

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Speaker 1: that one, and a lot of the fermented foods that

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Speaker 1: I've never really gotten into, or the various kinds of

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Speaker 1: fermented meats and dairy products from around the world, which

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Speaker 1: are extremely common. Though I think fermented vegetable dishes such

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Speaker 1: as kim she have seen more of an international renaissance

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Speaker 1: and in recent years. Yeah, I feel like when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid, I wasn't as exposed to as many

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Speaker 1: fermented food aside from these obviously fermented foods, you know,

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Speaker 1: like they I remember being you supposed to sour kraud

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Speaker 1: but not really digging it for a long time. But

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Speaker 1: but now, well, you know, is that is that a

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Speaker 1: good or a bad? Uh? I'm just I'm just so

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Speaker 1: sorry for your deprived childhood. I mean, I I can

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Speaker 1: remember loving sour kroud as long as I had. One

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Speaker 1: of my earliest positive food memories is actually a memory

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Speaker 1: of eating a half sour pickle. Um. Yeah, I just

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Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's always been there for me,

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Speaker 1: the love of especially like fermented pickled vegetables so good.

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Speaker 1: I think I just had kind of work up to it,

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Speaker 1: like some of those strong flavors, Like there was some

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Speaker 1: sort of German um oh, some sort of purple cabbage

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Speaker 1: type thing that I also didn't have a real strong

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Speaker 1: uh attraction to at the time. But all these things

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Speaker 1: have grown on me today. I love sauer kroud, and

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Speaker 1: I love kim she. I love exploring the various fermented

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Speaker 1: veggie or mushroom items you'll find uh in various cuisines.

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Speaker 1: And my son, who is eight now, he's been pretty

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Speaker 1: pretty into all things fermented pretty much his whole life,

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Speaker 1: as long as they're not actually spicy. That's where he

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Speaker 1: has a little more to struggle. But ultimately, I don't

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Speaker 1: know how much of this is his nature versus nurture

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Speaker 1: with him though, Yeah, I wonder about that too, because

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Speaker 1: for minute vegetables, definitely they can have strong kind of

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Speaker 1: unfamiliar flavors and aromas that takes him getting used to.

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Speaker 1: So I would imagine that having a taste for fermented

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Speaker 1: foods is somewhat learned. Though then again, I wonder if

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Speaker 1: there could actually be an instinct, or at least a

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Speaker 1: slight predisposition that humans would have to find certain kinds

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Speaker 1: of smells and flavors associated with vegetable fermentation appetizing, since

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Speaker 1: this could be a possible vector to get useful gut

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Speaker 1: bacteria and other beneficial microbes that I think there's good

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Speaker 1: evidence that a lot of these good microbes do actually

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Speaker 1: survive the digestion process and and can help recolonize the

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Speaker 1: gut with with beneficial bacteria. And then of course having

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Speaker 1: healthy gut bacteria could provide some kind of survival advantage.

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Speaker 1: So I wonder it's it's possible. I can imagine that

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Speaker 1: there's some kind of instinctual predisposition that animals that like

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Speaker 1: humans could have uh to to find these smells and

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Speaker 1: flavors appealing. And another thing I would say is that

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Speaker 1: you can contrast the appealing or at least potentially appealing

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Speaker 1: smell of fermented foods like kim chi or yogurt with

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Speaker 1: the smell of food that's rotting due to an unambiguously

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Speaker 1: unfriendly micro But in these cases, our visceral reaction to

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Speaker 1: the smell, I think it's much different. It's sort of automatic,

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Speaker 1: instinctive revulsion. Uh. You know, some people might be grossed

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Speaker 1: out by the smell of kim chi or sauer kraut.

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Speaker 1: But I think that negative reaction is qualitatively different than

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Speaker 1: the like, you know, hot garbage kind of reaction people

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Speaker 1: have to the smell of like real dangerous spoilage in foods. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like the like the actual like dead animal smell which

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Speaker 1: really connects with us on a on a primal level,

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Speaker 1: Like when you smell it, you it. You not might

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Speaker 1: not be able to summon that smell in your head

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Speaker 1: right now, but it's undeniable when you encounter it. Um

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Speaker 1: And now I've I've I've read some different things about about,

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Speaker 1: you know, kids and flavor, just through I think virtue

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Speaker 1: of of being a parent. I know, there's the the

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Speaker 1: argument that you know, since a child has a smaller

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Speaker 1: body and is more susceptible to the dangers of of poisons,

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Speaker 1: that that they are going to be overly sensitive to

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Speaker 1: certain strong smells or flavors. UM. And there's also this angle.

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Speaker 1: I've not done any like full research into it, and

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Speaker 1: perhaps this would be a topic for the future, but

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Speaker 1: I know that biopsychologist Julie Manila has researched the topic

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Speaker 1: a bit regarding uh, you know, uh, whether we're born

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Speaker 1: with certain food preferences in mind. And she has some

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Speaker 1: work that shows that food preferences may be developed in

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Speaker 1: the womb or during very early life. So we're talking

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Speaker 1: prenatally and postnatally, involving both the amniotic fluid and rest milk.

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Speaker 1: So if I'm understanding it correctly, the diet of a

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Speaker 1: child's biological mother can influence the child's taste later on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that would not be surprising to me. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of things from the from the parents

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Speaker 1: environment can come through to the child like that. Um.

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Speaker 1: But another thing, you know, I'm thinking about with with

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Speaker 1: people's taste for fermented foods is that it could be

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Speaker 1: a psychological framing issue. You know, We've talked before about

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Speaker 1: the research showing that people you can take the same

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Speaker 1: smell and that people might find it appealing if you

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Speaker 1: blindfold them and tell them the smell is coming from

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Speaker 1: a cheese, but find it disgusting if you blindfold them

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Speaker 1: and tell them it's coming from a sock. Uh. For

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Speaker 1: people on a Western diet who are unfamiliar with kim

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Speaker 1: chie or with other fermented vegetables and find the smell

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Speaker 1: off putting, it's possible that it's you know, that it's

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Speaker 1: similar aromas that they would find appealing if they just

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Speaker 1: had more of a reason to associate them with, say

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Speaker 1: the idea of vegetables, because like some of the aromas

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Speaker 1: that come off of kim chi can smell kind of cheesy,

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Speaker 1: and that's a strange thing to smell coming off of

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Speaker 1: vegetables if you're not used to it. Yeah, I've I

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Speaker 1: think I've voiced a similar thing with Durian fruit before.

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Speaker 1: Durian fruit, of course, is is beloved in many parts

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Speaker 1: of the world, but sometimes is less appreciated, certainly in

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Speaker 1: Western circles, and I think part of that is, like

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Speaker 1: if my my take anyway, is that if you approach

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Speaker 1: the Durian as being a cheese and not a fruit,

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Speaker 1: then then that's going to dismantle some of these associations

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Speaker 1: you you make, because when you take in the aroma

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Speaker 1: of the Durian fruit. You might think, well, that that

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Speaker 1: doesn't smell like I expect a fruit to smell. I'm

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Speaker 1: more accustomed to a really sweet smell with a fruit

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Speaker 1: or something much milder. But if you approach it thinking cheese,

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Speaker 1: then I think you're in a better position to enjoy it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think that's a really good point, and it almost

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Speaker 1: makes me wonder if there is there a certain kind

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Speaker 1: of meditation practice that has been honed in order to

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Speaker 1: ready the mind to exp orient's new flavors and aromas

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Speaker 1: as pleasurable when you're not used to them. I wonder

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Speaker 1: if there is such a thing. I think maybe, yeah,

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Speaker 1: maybe just a general sort of centering of the self

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Speaker 1: is probably would probably be helpful in those cases. I

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Speaker 1: do want to point out to the in terms of

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Speaker 1: Durian fruit, I don't have a lot of experience eating

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Speaker 1: Durian fruit, so anytime I have encountered it, I am

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Speaker 1: very much I feel like encountering it as an outsider

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Speaker 1: to like regular consumption. So I would love to hear

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Speaker 1: from anyone out there who is, like, you know, grown

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Speaker 1: up with Durian fruit and how you like, because ultimately

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Speaker 1: my whole think of it as a cheese and not

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Speaker 1: a fruit thing that maybe entirely based as well. In

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Speaker 1: my situation as kind of a Durian outsider, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: can see that. But obviously, I mean, tastes that were

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Speaker 1: once unfamiliar to us can become very very central to

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Speaker 1: our way of experiencing food in the world. I mean,

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Speaker 1: so I grew up loving pickled vegetables, but I did

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Speaker 1: not um, I did not grow up with kim chi,

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Speaker 1: and now kimchi is one of my favorite foods. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you you like pin me down and said, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, uh, if you could only eat one kind

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Speaker 1: of food the rest of your life, what would it be.

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Speaker 1: I would try to reach for something like, well, something

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Speaker 1: that could be served with bonsch on, you know, all

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Speaker 1: those little dishes like Korean side dishes of various different

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Speaker 1: vegetable preparations and kimchi and things like that. That's the

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Speaker 1: bulls eye for me. That's like the best thing, and

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Speaker 1: it wasn't always there. So like clearly, our orientations about

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Speaker 1: food can change as we mature or maybe I shouldn't

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Speaker 1: say mature, just as we go on in life. So

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Speaker 1: in terms of just fermentation in general. We'll get back

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Speaker 1: more specifically to kim chi here in a bit, I

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Speaker 1: was reading a bit about it from fermentation expert sand

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Speaker 1: Or Cats. I'm sure he's come up in your research

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Speaker 1: as well. Um uh, you know, often cited and had

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Speaker 1: written several books on the topic. And our crowd king Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Cats points out that if you venture into any restaurant

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Speaker 1: on the planet, if you dig into any cuisine, you're

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Speaker 1: gonna find products of fermentation. And again this includes more

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Speaker 1: obvious examples such as you know, the sour crowd and

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Speaker 1: the kimchi, but it also means bread, cheese, salad, dressing, alcohol, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: In fact, you know, he contends that it's hard to

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Speaker 1: get through the day without engaging with a product of fermentation.

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Speaker 1: All right, so we're naming fairly disparate seeming food items.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what do bread and cheese and sauerkraud and

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Speaker 1: kimchi really have in common? What? What? What is it?

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Speaker 1: What is the core process of fermentation? Well, in a nutshell,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeats,

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Speaker 1: or other micro organisms, typically involving uh effervescence and the

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Speaker 1: giving off of heat. Most notably, it enables humans to

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Speaker 1: preserve food and store it for travel, um or for

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Speaker 1: you know, for hard times, and as such it was

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Speaker 1: often vital for human expansion into harsher climates. It's something

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Speaker 1: a way that you could take your food with you

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Speaker 1: and it would survive and be edible when you get

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Speaker 1: to your destination, or allow you to to have food

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Speaker 1: in a destination that is that is harsher, right. I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of the big roles of fermentation I think clearly is,

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Speaker 1: especially the fermentation of vegetables, is preserving vegetable and products

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Speaker 1: through the winter. Uh. The traditional preparation cycle for kimchi

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Speaker 1: involves packing it into pots in the autumn that can

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Speaker 1: be eaten throughout the winter, I guess throughout the rest

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Speaker 1: of the year, when fresh vegetables would be hard to

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Speaker 1: come by. So, as is often the case with food traditions,

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Speaker 1: I think many forms of fermentation, vegetable fermentation likely followed

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Speaker 1: a path of beginning with a mistake and then moving

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Speaker 1: to utilitarian innovation as a preservative, but eventually just becoming

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Speaker 1: a taste preference, becoming something people liked because it's good.

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Speaker 1: But I also wanted to go back to a note

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Speaker 1: you had on the idea of effervescence in fermentation. This,

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Speaker 1: this idea of effervescence or bubbling uh this is actually

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite things about certain kinds of kim chi.

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Speaker 1: It's not always like this, but certain kinds of kim

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Speaker 1: chi not only have these great complex flavors and pleasing crunch,

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Speaker 1: it sometimes has something you don't find in other solid foods,

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Speaker 1: which is a palpable taste of carbonation in the mouth.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes kim che can kind of bubble and fizz and

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Speaker 1: zing in your mouth while you're chewing on it, the

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Speaker 1: same way that a sip of a carbonated drink does.

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Speaker 1: And and this is one thing I really love that

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Speaker 1: this bubbling property of fermentation is also what creates, of course,

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Speaker 1: you know the crumb structure, the holes in a loaf

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Speaker 1: of bread. But these bubbles are gas given off by

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Speaker 1: the yeast and bread as they metabolize the sugar in

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Speaker 1: the dough. The effervescent property in uh in kim che,

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Speaker 1: of course, is the is the ceo to produced by

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Speaker 1: the bacteria as they break down the sugars in the cabbage.

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Speaker 1: But this effervescent property of giving off bubbles or gas

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Speaker 1: was actually probably where the word fermentation comes from. It's

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Speaker 1: derived ultimately from the Latin word for very, meaning to

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Speaker 1: boil or to seethe, and ancient Latin speakers probably would

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Speaker 1: have been able to observe that as grape juice sat

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Speaker 1: in vats and the natural yeasts turned sugar content into

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Speaker 1: alcohol to make wine, you would give off bubbles as

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Speaker 1: if it were somehow boiling without an external heat source.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, so I was reading about fermentation in a

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Speaker 1: in a book called the Noma Guide to Fermentation is

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Speaker 1: written by the staff of the famous Nordic Cuisine restaurant.

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Speaker 1: But there there are several ways they point out that

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Speaker 1: you can define fermentation, which are basically all scientifically correct

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Speaker 1: at different levels of zooming in the first is that

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Speaker 1: fermentation is the transformation of foods by microorganisms. You let

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Speaker 1: the microbes do something to the food. The second is

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Speaker 1: that it's the transformation of foods by enzymes produced by

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Speaker 1: the micro organisms. Specifically, what they're doing is they're participating

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Speaker 1: in the chemical breakdown of molecules in the food. So

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Speaker 1: they're breaking down long starch chains into different pieces of

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Speaker 1: those chains, getting a little different sugar ers and things.

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Speaker 1: They're breaking down long protein chains into smaller pieces of

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Speaker 1: those chains. But then finally they say it is quote

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Speaker 1: the process by which a micro organism converts sugar into

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Speaker 1: another substance in the absence of oxygen and uh and

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Speaker 1: as as we know that, there are different microbes that

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Speaker 1: are involved in different kinds of fermentation. So for example,

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Speaker 1: you've got yeast, which is a fungal microbe. It's a

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Speaker 1: fungus and it's the agent primarily involved in the creation

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Speaker 1: of bread, but also wine and beer. While the agent

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Speaker 1: most important to the fermentation of vegetables like cabbage in

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Speaker 1: sauerkraud and kim chi is lactic acid bacteria. And we'll

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Speaker 1: get into more detail on that later, but the gist

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Speaker 1: is that if you take a bunch of vegetables such

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Speaker 1: as cabbage, doesn't have to be cabbage, but this is

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Speaker 1: often the vegetable used you put salt on them, they

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Speaker 1: will kind of whilt down, release water, create a brine

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Speaker 1: that's salty in nature, and this salt creates an environment

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Speaker 1: where certain kinds of bacteria that or tolerant of salt

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Speaker 1: can thrive and overtake other microbes which are less tolerant

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Speaker 1: of salt, and as they take over these lactic acid

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Speaker 1: bacteria further drive out other biological contaminants with the byproducts

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Speaker 1: of their metabolism. In the case of lactic acid bacteria,

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Speaker 1: as they eat the sugars and the vegetables and the brine,

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Speaker 1: they excrete lactic acid, which of course is an acid.

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Speaker 1: It lowers the pH of the brine. It acts as

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Speaker 1: a preservative, so it inhibits the growth of other microbes,

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Speaker 1: kind of like if you had added an acid directly,

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Speaker 1: like if you added vinegar or some of their acid

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Speaker 1: to pickle your food. Except a major difference is that

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Speaker 1: the flavors that come out of the bacterial acid production

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Speaker 1: process are so much more complex and rich than the

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Speaker 1: sort of one note flavor of a simple dash of vinegar. Now, fermentation,

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Speaker 1: of course, uh as I think is already coming out,

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Speaker 1: occurs without human intention all the time. No humans are

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Speaker 1: required for this, and examples range from the fermentation a

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Speaker 1: fallen fruit to the inturic fermentation inside a creature's digestive system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this is actually an evolutionary adaptation. Terreic fermentation is

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Speaker 1: really interesting. So it is a symbiotic adaptation involving multiple

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Speaker 1: different species working together, and it's used by many animals,

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Speaker 1: including ruminant herbivores like sheep and cattle and camels, and

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Speaker 1: it allows them to survive on a diet of tough,

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Speaker 1: cellulose riddled plant matter that animals like us simply couldn't digest.

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Speaker 1: I mean, if you and I go out and eat

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Speaker 1: a bunch of grass. My dog tries it sometimes, but

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Speaker 1: I don't think it really helps them all that much.

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Speaker 1: Um and we we we just would not be able

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Speaker 1: to get much energy out of it at all. But

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Speaker 1: there's an advantage to surviving on a diet like this

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Speaker 1: if you can. Obviously, tough plant matter like grass is abundant,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to capture, there's lots of it. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: run or fight back, but it's just hard to get

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Speaker 1: useful chemical energy out of it. So animals with natural

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Speaker 1: enteric fermentation and use the help of a cultivated microbiome.

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Speaker 1: They have chambers in their digestive system specifically for the

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Speaker 1: microbial breakdown of tough plant matter, and it transforms all

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Speaker 1: that grass and stuff like that into simple sugars that

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Speaker 1: can be easily used as energy by the animals. So

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Speaker 1: it's almost like these room and at herbivores have a

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Speaker 1: kim chee jar inside their digestive system. But you know,

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Speaker 1: if you've ever tried to make kim chee at home,

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Speaker 1: which I am doing right now, one thing you know

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Speaker 1: is that as the fermentation happens, you either need to

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Speaker 1: have a ventable lid on the jar that will allow

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Speaker 1: gas to escape, or you need to burp it frequently.

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Speaker 1: You need to take the top off and let the

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Speaker 1: gas out, or pressure can really build up with some

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Speaker 1: disastrous consequences, which we can talk about at a little

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Speaker 1: more later. And a similar thing actually goes on with

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Speaker 1: animals that undergo terreic fermentation because these room and at

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Speaker 1: herbivores end up having to burp out an awful lot

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Speaker 1: of byproduct gas, generally methane, and in large enough quantity,

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Speaker 1: which is generally the case with say cows that are

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Speaker 1: that are that are raised by humans, that actually adds

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Speaker 1: up and has an impact on climate. Yeah, that's absolutely right,

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Speaker 1: And in fact, I know they're ongoing projects to try

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Speaker 1: to fiddle with that, to say, like, can we actually

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Speaker 1: get down the level of methane that is exhaled by

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Speaker 1: these room and herbivores by making certain tweaks to say

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Speaker 1: their gut microbiota or to there or to exactly what

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Speaker 1: the sugars in their diet are and things like that.

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Speaker 1: So that's cows. But when it comes to humans, and

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Speaker 1: specifically when it comes to the intentional use of fermentation,

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Speaker 1: of the fermentation process, this is widely considered a Neolithic technology.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back,

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Speaker 1: we will dive into what we know of the history

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Speaker 1: of fermentation. Than all right, we're back. So Robert, you

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Speaker 1: you've teased us about the history of fermentation, saying that

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Speaker 1: intend channel use of fermentation of foods by humans is

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Speaker 1: something that goes back to the Stone Age, the Neolithic era, right,

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Speaker 1: you know, at least uh So. Evidence of fermented beverages

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Speaker 1: in China, for instance, seemed to date back to the

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Speaker 1: seventh millennium BC, based on evidence from a Neolithic village

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Speaker 1: in Henan Province uh and this this evidence revealed a

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Speaker 1: a fermented mixture of rice, honey and fruit. This was

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Speaker 1: mentioned in um in a in a paper titled Fermented

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Speaker 1: Beverages in pre and Protohistoric China from P and A.

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Speaker 1: S Uh in two thousand four written by A McGovern

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Speaker 1: at all and then I was also looking at a

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Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen study from Adam Bothius in the

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Speaker 1: Journal of Archaeological Science, and that puts a date on

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Speaker 1: Scandinavian fermentation evidence to nine thousand, two hundred years ago

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Speaker 1: during the early Mesolithic. UH. This would have been processed fish,

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Speaker 1: so the idea here is that they were using something

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Speaker 1: described as a gutter to ferment fishing and preserving it

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Speaker 1: for later. The author discovered evidence of this gutter along

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Speaker 1: with vast quantities of well preserved fish bones to support

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Speaker 1: this argument, and fermented fish products are actually very common now.

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Speaker 1: You might not know that you've been consuming them, but

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Speaker 1: examples include Worcestershire sauce this is a fermented fish product,

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Speaker 1: or of course, Asian fish sauces nonpla. These are made

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Speaker 1: by salting fish and then using the extracted liquid that

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Speaker 1: comes out as the strong, deeply complex salty flavoring agent.

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Speaker 1: Another example would be an ancient Roman food known as garum,

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Speaker 1: which was actually in many many ways similar to Asian

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Speaker 1: fish sauce. So fermented fish products are are actually in

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Speaker 1: wide use around the world today. You might not always

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Speaker 1: think about them being the product of rotting fish, but

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Speaker 1: or you know, controlled rot, but that's what they are. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And if you want more on garam and in in

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Speaker 1: various fish fermentation in products sauces, we did an episode

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Speaker 1: of Invention about ketchup and and how all this ties

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Speaker 1: into the history of the product we now know as ketchup. Now.

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Speaker 1: As for the fermentation of vegetables, that's key to what

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Speaker 1: we're talking about here with kimchi, and it's believed that

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Speaker 1: this too came before the agricultural revolution, so before we

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Speaker 1: were able as humans to harness crop technology to control

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Speaker 1: uh and manipulate the way crops grow for our benefit,

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Speaker 1: we harness the power to preserve those goods through fermentation.

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Speaker 1: This is fascinating and it reminds me of the evidence

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Speaker 1: that we've discussed previously that the invention of bread probably

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Speaker 1: predates the invention of agriculture, before wheat and other grains

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Speaker 1: were staple crops that people grew on purpose. It looks

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Speaker 1: like we have pretty good evidence that Stone age people's

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Speaker 1: were harvesting wild grains such as iron corn, wheat, grass,

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Speaker 1: taking taking those grains and then aching bread out of it.

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Speaker 1: The evidence we talked about was a paper published in

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Speaker 1: in p N. A. S. By Iran's oteg we at

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Speaker 1: all and basically the authors here, we're looking at an

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Speaker 1: archaeological site in Jordan's that was an ancient cooking site

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Speaker 1: from about fourteen thousand years ago, when they found matter

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Speaker 1: that looks very much like bread crumbs there. So these

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Speaker 1: would be bread, predating the agricultural revolution by thousands of years. Now.

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Speaker 1: As for kim chi itself, so yeah, we we've already

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Speaker 1: described it a bit and talked about it a bit.

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Speaker 1: We're gonna do a little more detail here. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of fermentent items out there that we can

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Speaker 1: compare to kimchi. But Joe, I don't I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you'd agree with this, but I feel like, in

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Speaker 1: many ways, there's nothing quite like it. Oh yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I love for minute vegetables generally, but kimchi is in

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Speaker 1: a class all of its own. It is a culinary suet. Gennaris. Now, now,

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Speaker 1: at a very basic level, what we're talking about here

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Speaker 1: is a traditional side dish of salted and fermented vegetables,

428
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: generally something like now a cabbage Korean radish, made with

429
00:24:02,880 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: a varying selection of traditional seasonings. Yeah, a very common

430
00:24:07,119 --> 00:24:10,159
Speaker 1: preparation for kimchi would be you take nap a cabbage,

431
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,720
Speaker 1: you salt it to begin a wilting process that will

432
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,760
Speaker 1: bring water out of it, and then you prepare a

433
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: brine or a marinade that will be made out of

434
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: a Korean chili flake, often go chu garu, which is

435
00:24:22,680 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 1: a red chili flake um, and then ginger garlic, often

436
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 1: some kind of fermented fish products such as salted shrimp

437
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 1: or fish sauce uh. And then other other ingredients such

438
00:24:34,040 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: as maybe graded carrots, scallions UM. I might I might

439
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:40,240
Speaker 1: be leaving a few things out here, but but that's

440
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 1: a pretty standard preparation. Now. I was reading about kimchi

441
00:24:43,520 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: in the History of Korean go Chu Go go Chang

442
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: and kimchi in the Journal of Ethnic Foods from and

443
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,719
Speaker 1: this was by Kwan at All and it points out that,

444
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: you know, as you might imagine, fermentation in Korea began

445
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: as a means of preserving vegetables, normally the Chinese cabbage,

446
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:03,040
Speaker 1: or MG cabbage as it is known today, It decomposes

447
00:25:03,119 --> 00:25:06,359
Speaker 1: at normal temperatures due to the action of micro organisms.

448
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: The authors here point out that specifically with with modern

449
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: and kim chi, you add red pepper powder containing capsation

450
00:25:13,320 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: to the cabbage, and this suppresses the growth of of

451
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: putrifying bacteria and promotes lactic acid bacteria. The micro organisms

452
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:24,480
Speaker 1: here the author's right, grow and change into a form

453
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 1: that humans can consume. Now, the basic process here is

454
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,760
Speaker 1: responsible for other key Korean fermented food products as well, uh,

455
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,480
Speaker 1: such as a go go chang, uh chion, gook chang,

456
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,440
Speaker 1: and doan jang. But one of the key ingredients in

457
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:42,760
Speaker 1: modern kimchi is the go chu, the Korean red pepper. UH.

458
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: This powder, which again is involved in arresting putrification and

459
00:25:46,359 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 1: leads to the production of lactic acid. And there are

460
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: different varieties of go go chu. I think they're like

461
00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:55,360
Speaker 1: four main categories. Now in terms of when the gochu

462
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,840
Speaker 1: peppers become involved in the process, apparently there I was.

463
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: I was not really prepared for this, but apparently there's

464
00:26:02,080 --> 00:26:06,720
Speaker 1: some back and forth about when they actually enter Korean cuisine. Yeah,

465
00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:10,359
Speaker 1: I was surprised to find that there's some kind of controversy.

466
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: It's apparently a somewhat contested issue, uh that's infused maybe

467
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,600
Speaker 1: with modern political concerns, like when exactly different types of

468
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: kim chi came to exist. Yeah, for instance, that Quan

469
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:26,560
Speaker 1: paper that I that I just mentioned uh In that

470
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,560
Speaker 1: they contend that quote go chu started to grow on

471
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,399
Speaker 1: the Korean peninsula a few billion years ago, and it

472
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: is safe to say it is original to Korea. So

473
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: that's that is very much um uh in disagreement with

474
00:26:39,920 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: with some of the information we're gonna get to here

475
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:43,399
Speaker 1: in a second, but I wanted to go ahead and

476
00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:46,439
Speaker 1: put that out there. There's also apparently an argument that

477
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 1: kim chi is less than a century old, with the

478
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 1: pepper being introduced to Korea via Japan during World War Two,

479
00:26:52,280 --> 00:26:55,399
Speaker 1: but this is strongly dismissed in many sources, including a

480
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen paper by Jaying at All in journal

481
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: Ethnic Foods, citing the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms of

482
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 1: Korea as a as an historical source dating kimchi back

483
00:27:04,000 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: at least fifteen hundred years in Korean culinary tradition. The

484
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: argument here is that it it would have been invented

485
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago. Uh and then but we see

486
00:27:13,960 --> 00:27:17,160
Speaker 1: it at least some evidence of it fifteen hundred years ago. Yeah,

487
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,880
Speaker 1: Based on the historical sources I was reading, it seems

488
00:27:19,920 --> 00:27:24,120
Speaker 1: like the most likely thing is that kimchi is definitely

489
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: an ancient Korean food, but the introduction of peppers specifically

490
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 1: is more recent, right, Yeah, that seems to be the case.

491
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: So you don't you don't need, or you at least

492
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:38,160
Speaker 1: didn't need peppers for kimchi, uh, you know, throughout most

493
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: of its history, but then you end up seeing the

494
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: introduction of these peppers. I was reading The Colombian Exchange,

495
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: A History of Disease, Food and Ideas by Nathan Nunn

496
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:51,520
Speaker 1: and Nancy Kuan, who point out that the peppers used here,

497
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: the peppers alone, not the Korean fermentation traditions, etcetera, have

498
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:59,280
Speaker 1: a New World origin. So, uh, these peppers would have

499
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,840
Speaker 1: originated in areas of what is today Bolivia and southern Brazil.

500
00:28:03,240 --> 00:28:06,760
Speaker 1: From there they traveled into Mesoamerica and the Caribbean before

501
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,919
Speaker 1: the arrival of Europeans, who then took it elsewhere. So

502
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,919
Speaker 1: along these lines, that's the Korean chili pepper was probably

503
00:28:12,960 --> 00:28:16,439
Speaker 1: introduced to Korea in the early sixteenth century, and the

504
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 1: actual kimchi tradition was much older, however, and seems to

505
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 1: have its roots in Chinese pickling. And here's what Jay

506
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: bock Park wrote about it in Red Pepper and kim

507
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 1: she in Korea. In the Chili Pepper Institute paper from

508
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:35,119
Speaker 1: nineteen quote, it's thought that kim she may have originated

509
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:37,919
Speaker 1: from Chinese pickles. These pickles were brought to Korea and

510
00:28:37,960 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: were altered into several types of kimchi to suit the

511
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: taste of Koreans during the Sheila and Korea dynasties. That's

512
00:28:45,760 --> 00:28:55,160
Speaker 1: c Through and cen Through respectively. Uh. Anyway, the author continues, quote,

513
00:28:55,160 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: since red peppers were imported to Korea in the early

514
00:28:57,920 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 1: part of the seventeenth century, whole bitch kimchi and other

515
00:29:01,160 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 1: kim she prepared with hot red pepper became popular. Yeah,

516
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,120
Speaker 1: and this matches up with everything I was reading. Uh.

517
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: And And in fact, while go chugaru, the red pepper

518
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: flake is a very important ingredient in some of the

519
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: most popular forms of kimchi, I believe there are still

520
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 1: forms of kimchi made that don't involve it, that might

521
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:22,600
Speaker 1: be known as like white kimchi, that might in fact

522
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: be more similar to the older tradition that would of

523
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: course involve salting the cabbage, It would involve adding flavorings

524
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: to the to the brine or the marinade, but would

525
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,920
Speaker 1: but but don't bring in the hot peppers. Yeah, so,

526
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: I know. I do want to stress though, that we've

527
00:29:36,120 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: only briefly gone over the history here, but obviously we've

528
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:43,400
Speaker 1: touched on various elements that involve colonial and imperial expansion.

529
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:47,600
Speaker 1: So I think it's it's it's obvious why Uh. Sometimes, um,

530
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: you know, some of these are very impassioned arguments. Um. Plus,

531
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,200
Speaker 1: it seems like it is difficult to overstate just how

532
00:29:54,240 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: important kimchi is in Korean culinary culture. Uh. There's a

533
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:02,600
Speaker 1: two thousand six article on MPR as the Salt titled

534
00:30:02,720 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 1: how South Korea uses kimchi to connect to the world

535
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: and beyond, and it shares the following quote. Kimchi is

536
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: not just cabbage salad. It is essential to the culture

537
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,480
Speaker 1: of the country. There are hundreds of different varieties of

538
00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,880
Speaker 1: kimchi and Korea, and about one point five million tons

539
00:30:18,880 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 1: of it is consumed each year. Even the Korean stock

540
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:26,360
Speaker 1: market reflects this obsession. The Kimchi Index tracks when Napa

541
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:30,120
Speaker 1: cabbage and the twelve other ingredients chili, carrots, radishes, and

542
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 1: anchovies among them, are at their best prices. Yeah, there's

543
00:30:33,560 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: been a pretty concerned effort over the years by the

544
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: South Korean government to promote kimchi as a as a

545
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: sort of trendy food worldwide. And I can't you know,

546
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: I can't say I blame them like that. You've got

547
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: you've got this great culinary tradition. Why not use that

548
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: to to help in gender love for your culture around

549
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:53,720
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah, yeah, share it with the world. And

550
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: that's where you see initiatives like the Kimchi Bus. I

551
00:30:55,760 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: don't know if you ran across articles about this. Um

552
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:00,920
Speaker 1: this was which was support it in some part by

553
00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: the South Korean government and it, you know, I don't

554
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: think it's active right now, but it at least was

555
00:31:06,600 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: traveling around to various countries and spreading traditional Korean food

556
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: and kimchi um, you know, very very much spreading the

557
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:17,200
Speaker 1: word of kimchi. It's like an Iowa campaign bus for kimchi,

558
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:19,400
Speaker 1: Like the kimchi is gonna get out and give a

559
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: speech now. That article from The Salt It also points

560
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: out some other cool facts about about the culture of

561
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: kimchi and in related foods. At points out that kim jang,

562
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: the tradition of making kimchi, has long been a unifying

563
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,479
Speaker 1: tradition amid Korean villages and a sustaining one through periods

564
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: of hardship, and that kim jang was even added to

565
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity,

566
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:49,640
Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive. Absolutely, so again, the kim jang

567
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: would be these, uh, these events where people gather together

568
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:56,680
Speaker 1: to make their their pots of kim chi in the

569
00:31:56,720 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: autumn that can be buried for the winter or the

570
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 1: rest of the year. Yeah. Yeah. Based on this article's description,

571
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, a sort of a community

572
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: wide or even cross community kimchi making enterprise, spreading the

573
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: labor intensive process out a maide a large group of people.

574
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: So it's not just you know, my household is making

575
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,480
Speaker 1: kim cheet today. It's no we we as a community,

576
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 1: you know, or even we as you know, as people

577
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: are making kim chee today. Well you know, I was

578
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: telling you about this the other day actually that, uh,

579
00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 1: my experiments in making kimchi at home have been a

580
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:31,480
Speaker 1: solitary project so far. But I can absolutely see how

581
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: making kimchi would be a really fun social, family and

582
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 1: friends kind of project. Is something fun to do with

583
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: kids because like the kids can maybe work on massaging

584
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: the salt into the cabbage and massaging in the marinade

585
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: between the leaves, and you can talk while you're doing it.

586
00:32:49,080 --> 00:32:53,840
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems like an ideal social food preparation situation. Yeah,

587
00:32:53,880 --> 00:32:56,000
Speaker 1: it sounds funn You were mentioning the specific jars you

588
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: have for it, and I think we actually have one

589
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: of those jars, because I we have some sort of

590
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,680
Speaker 1: sauerkraut kit that just hasn't been used yet, you know,

591
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:07,160
Speaker 1: we've been eyeing, and so that might it seems like

592
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 1: that might be usable for this process as well. Oh yeah,

593
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,000
Speaker 1: So to further clarify out there, what what I had

594
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,280
Speaker 1: been offering to share with Robert was was burp lids

595
00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: for jars, which I got, which allows you to, you know,

596
00:33:19,280 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: in case you forget about the kimchi you've got going

597
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,360
Speaker 1: in the jar. It's not gonna blow the lid off

598
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:25,440
Speaker 1: or anything. It's got a little vent where if the

599
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,640
Speaker 1: pressure really builds up inside the CEO two can escape

600
00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:31,480
Speaker 1: out the vent. Now, speaking of of pressure, I spaces

601
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 1: this gets right Intoto. The next thing I wanted to

602
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: talk about here that I know you were excited about

603
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,120
Speaker 1: as well, Joe. Yeah, and that's you have something as

604
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 1: is culturally important as kimchi. UH. This is one of

605
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 1: the reasons that kimchi has gone into space. So in

606
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, South Korea's Uh sillan Ye was selected

607
00:33:51,480 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: to be the country's first astronaut, and the government apparently

608
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: had worked nearly a decade to create UH kimchi as

609
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: well as other Korean dishes they could potentially be taken

610
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:05,640
Speaker 1: into space that we're space ready UH for just such

611
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,800
Speaker 1: an individual. Now, as for why why take kim she

612
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,880
Speaker 1: into space? Well, okay, so there are a few different reasons.

613
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: So one of them, of course, we again we've touched

614
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:15,479
Speaker 1: on the cultural importance of the dish. If you're sending

615
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,240
Speaker 1: an astronaut into space, that is not only a scientific endeavor,

616
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,080
Speaker 1: it is you know, it's about you know, national pride

617
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: to a large extent, So it makes sense to want

618
00:34:23,320 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: to send something as important as kimch up with them

619
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 1: on an individual level. We've talked about this in the

620
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 1: past concerning space food. You know that this is um.

621
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: Going into space is a physically and mentally um you know,

622
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: exhausting endeavor. So if you have something meaningful for them

623
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,239
Speaker 1: to eat up there, you know, some sort of bit

624
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: some sort of food that that not only sustains them

625
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: but perhaps reminds them of home, etcetera. Like that's that's

626
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:50,839
Speaker 1: that's a win. So there's been there's always been an

627
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,680
Speaker 1: effort to do that with the food that is sent

628
00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:55,800
Speaker 1: up with astronauts. But then on top of that, micro

629
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: gravity often is often described as us living in microscradic

630
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: gravity rather as often described as being in this kind

631
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:05,960
Speaker 1: of state of perpetual nasal blockage, right, because everything is

632
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:08,839
Speaker 1: just kind of you know, without gravity, everything just kind

633
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: of moves up and it just floats free. So this

634
00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: is one of the reasons that it's kind of difficult

635
00:35:14,680 --> 00:35:18,440
Speaker 1: to taste food in space, and so you want something

636
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,600
Speaker 1: with a strong flavor perhaps spice to it, if you

637
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: really want to to to taste anything. And that's one

638
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: of the reasons that NASA's shrimp cocktail has apparently been

639
00:35:27,560 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 1: popular for years, not because people want those you know,

640
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:34,560
Speaker 1: those shrimp that have been kind of stepped on orbit,

641
00:35:35,120 --> 00:35:37,960
Speaker 1: but it's that it's the horse radish in the cocktail sauce,

642
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: like it has a strong spicy flavor and it can

643
00:35:40,000 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 1: kind of clear your head a bit, that's right. Yeah,

644
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: it opens up those nasal passages. There's there's something there

645
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: you can detect as as far as flavor and aroma

646
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: goes um. But another thing I wanted to emphasize again, uh,

647
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,359
Speaker 1: the idea of a Korean astronaut having access to kim

648
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 1: chi as part of their food in space. This is

649
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:02,200
Speaker 1: not just important because obviously it is part of Korean cuisine,

650
00:36:02,320 --> 00:36:05,360
Speaker 1: but that it is such a regular part of traditional

651
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,160
Speaker 1: Korean culinary life that um, that kimchi. You know, it's

652
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: not unusual for kim chi to be served at basically

653
00:36:12,200 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: every meal on every on a Korean table, right, yeah,

654
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: it is. It is the the traditional side dish, so

655
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:20,600
Speaker 1: you know it would be so in a similar sense.

656
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, of course there's ketchup in space

657
00:36:22,840 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: or some version of it, because that is like the

658
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 1: staple of some people's diets, right, Kimchi is very much

659
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 1: the same affair. But the idea of taking kim chi

660
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 1: into space, well, of course a wonderful idea as far

661
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: as the flavor and the comfort that that it can provide.

662
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:39,600
Speaker 1: It immediately calls to mind some particular hazards in the

663
00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 1: case of kim chi that are not the case with

664
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:45,919
Speaker 1: other foods, because have you ever seen what happens when

665
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: there is a sealed jar of kim chi without a

666
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:52,680
Speaker 1: burping lid, and the fermentation gets a little too aggressive,

667
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:57,279
Speaker 1: gets a little frisky. Uh, you should look up video

668
00:36:57,280 --> 00:37:01,279
Speaker 1: of this, Robert. And so the microbes inside the fermentation

669
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: will produce co O two as they do their business,

670
00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:06,360
Speaker 1: and they can produce so much c O two that

671
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:09,480
Speaker 1: they can basically blow the lids off of jars, or

672
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 1: maybe maybe if they don't blow the lid off, when

673
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 1: you open the jar, suddenly it's like when you know,

674
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,200
Speaker 1: it's like mintos and a diet coke. It's like spewing

675
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: spicy marinate everywhere, and the cabbage puffs up out of

676
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:23,640
Speaker 1: the top like you know, a muffin coming out of

677
00:37:23,640 --> 00:37:27,000
Speaker 1: its mold, or like a Yorkshire putting. Uh. It can

678
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: it can look really funny. And I've actually read stories

679
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:32,480
Speaker 1: of this being a real problem for people who have

680
00:37:32,520 --> 00:37:36,319
Speaker 1: tried transporting kimchi in luggage and airplanes. I don't know

681
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 1: if they let you do that anymore, but this at

682
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:40,879
Speaker 1: least has been a problem for some people. I've read

683
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 1: about it in the past, Like you would take a

684
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:46,319
Speaker 1: jar overseas with you or something, and sometimes the jar

685
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: can explode in your luggage and soak everything in spicy,

686
00:37:50,640 --> 00:37:54,360
Speaker 1: rotting cabbage water, which is delicious but not really something

687
00:37:54,400 --> 00:38:00,480
Speaker 1: you want to fully saturate your underwear. Um that that

688
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 1: that article from the Salt that I mentioned earlier. They

689
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 1: have a little bit more about the about taking kimchi

690
00:38:05,440 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: into space, and they actually talked to youth astronaut about this,

691
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:12,879
Speaker 1: asking you know, what was it like? And the one

692
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:14,840
Speaker 1: thing they point out is that for the kimchee to

693
00:38:14,880 --> 00:38:17,319
Speaker 1: go into space, it had to be radiated to kill

694
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: all of the micro organisms in it, which he says

695
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:23,880
Speaker 1: left it looking quote so saggy. It looked like it

696
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: was a hundred years old. So it apparently, you know,

697
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: didn't taste maybe like terrestrial kimchi, but apparently it tasted

698
00:38:30,680 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: it tasted enough like kim chi that it did the job,

699
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: you know it um It It packed the you know,

700
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: the spicy fermented punch, and it reminded them of home.

701
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 1: So mission accomplished. Well, this is an important point because okay,

702
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:48,359
Speaker 1: so obviously there there are multiple reasons you'd probably want

703
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: to kill all of the microbes in the kimchi, and

704
00:38:51,239 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: you'd want to radiate it before you take it into space.

705
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,400
Speaker 1: You definitely don't want kimchi blowing the lid off of

706
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,720
Speaker 1: its jar inside a space station. That would be Uh,

707
00:39:00,200 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: that could be disastrous, like spills are not good in microgravity.

708
00:39:04,719 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: But anyway, it really emphasizes that that kim chi is

709
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: at its core a living product. And you can have

710
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:14,840
Speaker 1: kim chi that's been sterilized. I mean sometimes people sometimes

711
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: I cook it before I eat it, especially when it

712
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:18,719
Speaker 1: gets older. You know, you can saute it in a

713
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:21,120
Speaker 1: pan and add as an as an ingredient of things,

714
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:25,840
Speaker 1: and then of course it's fantastic and delicious. But but

715
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: at that point it is sterile before cooking it or

716
00:39:28,800 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 1: before radiating it. If you've just got a jar of

717
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:33,279
Speaker 1: kim chie sitting in your fridge, I mean, this is

718
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:36,720
Speaker 1: a living organism. This, this kim chi that you're eating.

719
00:39:36,880 --> 00:39:39,680
Speaker 1: The life goes on within it, and it will even

720
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: though the fermentation will be much slowed down by the

721
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:47,440
Speaker 1: temperatures inside a refrigerator. Uh, it is still alive and

722
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:50,239
Speaker 1: things are still happening there. It is still maturing, it

723
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 1: is still evolving as an ecosystem. Absolutely. Now speaking of

724
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,919
Speaker 1: that that ecosystem let's bring everything back down from space. Uh,

725
00:39:57,960 --> 00:40:01,480
Speaker 1: not only to the Earth, but nder the earth. Because

726
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: we've already referenced a few types of fermentation. Uh that

727
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 1: entails burying a vessel or using some sort of a gutter,

728
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: you know, made in earth or stone. It's worth noting

729
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 1: that the traditional means of creating kim she also entails burying, uh,

730
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 1: the the container bearing what Michael Pollen in his two

731
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 1: thousand book Cooked described as a child sized earthenware croc.

732
00:40:27,640 --> 00:40:29,920
Speaker 1: So I wanted to read just an excerpt from that,

733
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: that excellent book, which, by the way, mentions kim she

734
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: a lot. So if you if you're looking for, you know,

735
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: a really good book about about foods, science and history,

736
00:40:39,280 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: you know, of course always turned to Michael Pollan, but

737
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: particularly this book has a lot of kimchi in it.

738
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,359
Speaker 1: But here's what he had to say. Quote. Nowadays, pit

739
00:40:47,480 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 1: fermentation strikes most of us as primitive, strange, and unsanitary.

740
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 1: Yet we think nothing of aging cheese is underground in caves,

741
00:40:55,640 --> 00:40:58,560
Speaker 1: which is not so very different? And how different is

742
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:02,080
Speaker 1: a pit fermentation really from fermenting food in a croc

743
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:05,840
Speaker 1: earthenware as it's called, is really just earth once removed,

744
00:41:06,400 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: cleaner and more portable, perhaps, but otherwise the same basic idea.

745
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 1: Even today, Koreans bury their child sized crocs of kimchi

746
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 1: in the backyard in order to maintain the even cool

747
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: conditions that the lacto but silly prefer. The earthenware croc

748
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: is a good reminder that every ferment is food and

749
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: drink stolen or borrowed from the Earth by temporarily diverting

750
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:34,279
Speaker 1: its microbial gravitational pull to our own ends. Everyone knows

751
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: who stole the power of fire from the gods for

752
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: the benefit of humankind, But who is the prometheus of pickling?

753
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: That sounds like a great story to where is? I

754
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,719
Speaker 1: would be shocked if there was not some mythical tradition

755
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: that had a story of a god giving the gift

756
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: of pickling or fermentation to humans. Yeah, it seemed I

757
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: hadn't haven't had a chance to look into it. But

758
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,279
Speaker 1: I I would assume that some god or another would

759
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: have that at least on their their resume, you know.

760
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:08,520
Speaker 1: For Pollen's part, he goes on in this book to think, well, okay, pickling, fermentation,

761
00:42:08,760 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: these are not going to be as as jazzy as

762
00:42:11,960 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: killing animals or um or or certainly creating fire, these

763
00:42:16,640 --> 00:42:20,280
Speaker 1: other acts of early human endeavor that were so important.

764
00:42:20,600 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 1: But there's still there are others, including sand or cats.

765
00:42:23,080 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: We mentioned earlier who has apparently put it on par

766
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:32,480
Speaker 1: with fire in our history, saying like like pickling, um fermentation. Uh,

767
00:42:32,560 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: these processes are up there with our fire technology in

768
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 1: terms of their importance to our our our history. Well, yeah,

769
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 1: I would say, especially if you go with Remember we

770
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 1: talked previously about the importance of bread in the development

771
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,839
Speaker 1: of human civilization because of the kinds of nutrition that

772
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: it could provide relative to its own ingredients raw. And

773
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: of course fermentation is an important part of many bread

774
00:42:57,000 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: so there are also unleavened breads. But you know, yeah,

775
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: so I think it's there at the heart. I don't

776
00:43:02,640 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: know if it's quite at the level of fire, but

777
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,320
Speaker 1: especially if you're going for like the richness of human

778
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,919
Speaker 1: life and pleasure and foods and all that, it's got

779
00:43:10,920 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 1: to be right up there. Now, I do want to

780
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: say something real quick about the idea of the prometheus

781
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: of pickling. Now, in this case, I think pollen is

782
00:43:17,520 --> 00:43:20,200
Speaker 1: using pickling a little bit informally, but there is a

783
00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: distinction to be made between pickling and fermentation. Basically, pickling

784
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: is preserving food with a salt brine, while fermentation involves bacteria.

785
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: So some pickled foods are also fermented, but they don't

786
00:43:33,080 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: have to be. Yeah, Like, for example, you can make

787
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 1: pickled foods that have no microbial action in them at all.

788
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 1: Like you just dump a bunch of like vinegar and

789
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:43,359
Speaker 1: other flavors that you can make a pickle brine out

790
00:43:43,400 --> 00:43:45,799
Speaker 1: of vinegar and salt and sugar or something like that,

791
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,640
Speaker 1: and it will be so vinegary that nothing will live

792
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: within it, so there's no fermentation going on at all. Yeah,

793
00:43:51,600 --> 00:43:54,799
Speaker 1: Like I do some of these box meals um uh,

794
00:43:55,360 --> 00:43:58,680
Speaker 1: like you know Martha meals, etcetera, and uh, And they'll

795
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,400
Speaker 1: often have me do some like very quick fridge pickles

796
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:03,359
Speaker 1: or sometimes they don't even go in the fridge. And

797
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,320
Speaker 1: I have to say, sometimes I feel like I doubt myself.

798
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,600
Speaker 1: I'm like, am I really making something that I can

799
00:44:08,600 --> 00:44:11,200
Speaker 1: call pickle? Or did I just throw some salt at

800
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 1: some cucumbers for like ten minutes? Oh, you can call

801
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: it a pickle. It's just not fermented. I mean, pickling

802
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: is is a broader umbrella. Um. And and there are

803
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:22,400
Speaker 1: major differences in flavor. I'm sure you've noticed. Like you

804
00:44:22,440 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: can achieve the same preservative effect either by salting cabbage

805
00:44:27,600 --> 00:44:30,959
Speaker 1: allowing the lactic acid bacteria to thrive, which in turn

806
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,320
Speaker 1: produces lactic acid which lowers the pH of the environment

807
00:44:34,320 --> 00:44:37,600
Speaker 1: and preserves the cabbage. Or you can just dump a

808
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: bunch of acid like vinegar directly onto the food and

809
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 1: just cut out the bacterial middleman. But you're losing a

810
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:48,440
Speaker 1: lot when you do that, because the bacterial middleman actually

811
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,520
Speaker 1: makes a huge difference in the aroma, taste, and texture

812
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: of the final product. That the bacterial middleman produces a

813
00:44:55,280 --> 00:45:00,200
Speaker 1: much greater diversity of flavorful compounds. Vinegar, pickled food, It's

814
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 1: can be great. I like them sometimes, but they are

815
00:45:02,760 --> 00:45:05,880
Speaker 1: fairly one note. Fermented foods, on the other hand, or

816
00:45:06,520 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 1: very often described as funky and complex because of these

817
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:14,680
Speaker 1: wide ranges of of different flavorful compounds that come out

818
00:45:14,719 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 1: of the microbial metabolism. Just one example, and there are

819
00:45:18,680 --> 00:45:22,280
Speaker 1: tons of them. But for example, the cabbage fermentation process

820
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:26,120
Speaker 1: in many kinds of kim chi produces not only lactic acid,

821
00:45:26,239 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: but compounds like diocetl which in other contexts. Diocetl is

822
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,720
Speaker 1: known to produce a distinctly buttery taste. Sometimes, for example,

823
00:45:34,719 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: it's used as a flavoring in popcorn quote butter um.

824
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: But this is one of the reasons that fermented vegetables

825
00:45:42,600 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 1: like kim chi can sometimes take on these counterintuitively dairy

826
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: reminiscent flavors buttery, nous, cheesiness, despite having no dairy content. Uh.

827
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 1: And you might have encountered a similar flavor crossover from

828
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:58,680
Speaker 1: alcoholic beverages like wine, like if you ever had a

829
00:45:58,680 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: a chardonnay that tay stood strangely like butter Uh. There

830
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,000
Speaker 1: could be multiple reasons for that, but a major one

831
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:09,640
Speaker 1: is diocetle. Diocetle from the metabolic processes of lactic acid

832
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:13,080
Speaker 1: bacteria in the wine could be partly responsible for that

833
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:16,880
Speaker 1: buttery flavor. And anyway, it's it's all of these metabolic

834
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:21,359
Speaker 1: byproducts of the lactic acid bacteria that that create this

835
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:25,280
Speaker 1: richness and complexity of flavor that comes along with lacto

836
00:46:25,360 --> 00:46:28,320
Speaker 1: fermented vegetables like kimchi. Okay, we need to take a

837
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:30,360
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, I'm going to

838
00:46:30,400 --> 00:46:35,879
Speaker 1: be chatting about vegetable fermentation with Dr. Esther Miller. Thank

839
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: thank We are back and now we're going to head

840
00:46:39,760 --> 00:46:42,760
Speaker 1: straight into my chat with Dr Esther Miller, who studies

841
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 1: fermentation and microbial ecology at a center called the Wolf

842
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 1: Lab at Tufts University. Here we go. Esther Miller, thanks

843
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,480
Speaker 1: so much for joining us today. So to start off,

844
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:57,439
Speaker 1: could you talk a bit about your background and how

845
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: you got into studying microbial ecology. Sure. Yeah, So I

846
00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:05,640
Speaker 1: did a sort of wandering path to get into a PhD.

847
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: So I started doing research at Oxford University on insight

848
00:47:11,320 --> 00:47:14,960
Speaker 1: and locust warming, and I moved to Sydney and looked

849
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:19,680
Speaker 1: at locusts in Australia. And then I became a high

850
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: school teacher but with science, and then did work in

851
00:47:23,880 --> 00:47:26,880
Speaker 1: a biotech company that also looked at the insect. So

852
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,600
Speaker 1: I did a sort of diverse range of things before

853
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,560
Speaker 1: um coming to do a PhD at Tough University. And

854
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: it toughs you do rotations, and I did a bit

855
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,960
Speaker 1: of a project in the Wolf Club and I loved it,

856
00:47:40,040 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 1: and I loved that it's uh ecology and so you're

857
00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:48,760
Speaker 1: looking at how communities interact and how different populations interact

858
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:51,200
Speaker 1: is but it's very small. I can do it in

859
00:47:51,239 --> 00:47:54,280
Speaker 1: the lab. I don't have to go across Australia gathering

860
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:57,240
Speaker 1: locust or anything like that. It's just on a blade

861
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 1: in the lab. It's very simple. But it's also in food,

862
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:05,720
Speaker 1: and I really love food, and it was in cheese UM,

863
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:07,920
Speaker 1: and I love cheese, and you know, I moved to

864
00:48:07,960 --> 00:48:11,400
Speaker 1: America from the UK and I didn't have access to

865
00:48:11,440 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: good cheese. So the lab was a great place for

866
00:48:13,920 --> 00:48:17,279
Speaker 1: um getting cheese. But I wanted to keep on with

867
00:48:17,360 --> 00:48:21,160
Speaker 1: the plant research and that sort of background. So I

868
00:48:21,239 --> 00:48:23,879
Speaker 1: asked Professor Wolf. I'm in the Wolf Lab. I asked

869
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,800
Speaker 1: Professor Wolf if I could start looking at microbial ecology,

870
00:48:27,920 --> 00:48:30,279
Speaker 1: so the same things in the same questions that he

871
00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 1: was asking, but in um, sauer kraut and fermented vegetable products,

872
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 1: and and he'll at me and it's um. It was great.

873
00:48:38,239 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 1: So from there I started developing ecological questions in this

874
00:48:42,120 --> 00:48:46,279
Speaker 1: fermented vegetable world. So one thing I can't leave off.

875
00:48:46,280 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you had done research with locusts. I

876
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 1: was reading in another interview with you that I think

877
00:48:50,719 --> 00:48:53,880
Speaker 1: was in Cooke's Illustrated a few years ago, that you

878
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: you said that part of that research involved tickling the

879
00:48:56,600 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 1: legs of locusts. But I was curious what what that

880
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:01,880
Speaker 1: was in service of studying. What were you trying to

881
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:06,560
Speaker 1: find out by tickling locust legs? Yeah, so, um, the

882
00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,320
Speaker 1: desert locus, the cycle gagaria, which all of your listeners

883
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,360
Speaker 1: will know if they've ever been to a pat shop

884
00:49:12,400 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 1: and looked at the lizard food. So the yellow and

885
00:49:15,000 --> 00:49:17,920
Speaker 1: black locusts that hop around and you feed them to

886
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:22,359
Speaker 1: your lizards, that's the desert locusts. And they come in

887
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,720
Speaker 1: that dusky like they're sort of dark when they're adults,

888
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 1: but they also come in bright green and it's the

889
00:49:28,280 --> 00:49:31,759
Speaker 1: exact same species. It's the same thing. It just has

890
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: a phase change where it goes from a solitary, beautiful

891
00:49:35,080 --> 00:49:39,080
Speaker 1: grasshopper that's all alone eating, not hiding anybody, and then

892
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 1: there can be a shift, um, and it's a serotonin

893
00:49:42,280 --> 00:49:46,560
Speaker 1: spike that shifts until it becomes gregarious and they start swarming.

894
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:51,400
Speaker 1: So the research there it was Professor Steve Simpson was

895
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:55,680
Speaker 1: looking at how what is that shift, what is triggering

896
00:49:55,680 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: that serotonin spike, and he found a few like agitate

897
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: if they're jostling, if you sort of have them in

898
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,359
Speaker 1: a crowd, and they start knocking against each other. That's

899
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 1: when that chemical shift happens. So it was simulating locust

900
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:16,439
Speaker 1: knocking against one another. So particularly yeah, yeah, you said

901
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: you use the paint brush to tickle their news. So

902
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 1: you tickle a locust leg for five seconds every minute

903
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:25,920
Speaker 1: for eight hours, and then it will have a completely

904
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:30,239
Speaker 1: different behavior. So the the parents takes a generation to

905
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:33,080
Speaker 1: come through, and it will be brown and yellow later on.

906
00:50:33,600 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: But the behaviors, it goes from being uh, scared of

907
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: locusts and running away to wanting to aggregate and like

908
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:45,640
Speaker 1: moving together. Did you have any interest in fermentation as

909
00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 1: food before you got into the science of it, particularly,

910
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:51,879
Speaker 1: I like, I like food, and so I think that's

911
00:50:51,880 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: what drew me to the lab, as well as the

912
00:50:54,560 --> 00:50:59,319
Speaker 1: strong emphasis on outreach. So it's very hard to get

913
00:50:59,360 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 1: people excite did about bacteria and people are just like, oh,

914
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: it's a disease, or wash your hands of of the

915
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,640
Speaker 1: use of antibiotics. But this is something that I can

916
00:51:09,680 --> 00:51:12,239
Speaker 1: take a cheese or a jar of kimchi and talk

917
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: to somebody about it, and I think, um, it became

918
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: important to me to be able to talk to the

919
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:21,440
Speaker 1: general public about research. I think from a teaching background,

920
00:51:21,960 --> 00:51:26,480
Speaker 1: finding a way that you can easily explain complex scientific

921
00:51:26,520 --> 00:51:29,160
Speaker 1: ideas by being like, Hey, this cheese is like this,

922
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 1: and why is it like that? And what is going

923
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:34,759
Speaker 1: on with this microbe and that microbe? Oh that's great. Yeah,

924
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:37,399
Speaker 1: this is like the sour krout can be a foot

925
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: in the door to a to a broader view of

926
00:51:39,520 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: the microbiological world. Yeah, and the cheese as well, Like

927
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:47,360
Speaker 1: you can you can take cheese anywhere and people will

928
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:51,760
Speaker 1: be excited because it stinks like it's immediately draws people

929
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: in because you're like, hey, smell this, and then they're like, Okay,

930
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: that's really growth. Um boy. I suppose you can do

931
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,560
Speaker 1: that with kimchi as well. Um. And so they have

932
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: like smells and textures that are exciting, you know, totally. Um.

933
00:52:06,200 --> 00:52:09,439
Speaker 1: So maybe you could start off by giving me sort

934
00:52:09,440 --> 00:52:13,800
Speaker 1: of a character sketch of lactic acid bacteria as a group.

935
00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: What are these organisms, like, what do we know about them?

936
00:52:17,239 --> 00:52:21,360
Speaker 1: And how do you think about them? So laticasi bacteria

937
00:52:21,560 --> 00:52:25,400
Speaker 1: are a whole group and as many different species in

938
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 1: this group. And then for the most part they are

939
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 1: called grass generally regarded as safe. So the FDA doesn't

940
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:34,799
Speaker 1: really care about them. Um, there are in so many

941
00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:37,800
Speaker 1: food products. The more you study, the more you find,

942
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,640
Speaker 1: So there's hundreds and you know, so they're not gonna

943
00:52:40,680 --> 00:52:42,719
Speaker 1: go around saying this one is safe and this one

944
00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: and this one. They're just as a blanket they're safe.

945
00:52:45,640 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 1: Um there are in so many foods. Um And as

946
00:52:49,600 --> 00:52:53,520
Speaker 1: a rule, they take sugars and they ferment them into

947
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: lactic acid. That's pretty much the basics. Some of them

948
00:52:57,560 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 1: are a little more complex, and they'll turn things into

949
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 1: actic acid and um acetic acid and CEO two and

950
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,480
Speaker 1: so those are the hatero fomentius. They do more than

951
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:10,200
Speaker 1: one thing, so you sort of think they're making two

952
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: different assets, whereas the home of fermentus they're just doing

953
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: one thing. They're just making lactic acid. And that's the

954
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 1: two big groups when you're thinking about lactoc acid. And

955
00:53:20,840 --> 00:53:23,720
Speaker 1: if I ever call them LBS, it's laptic acid vecteria.

956
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: So we know that lactic acid bacteria are one of

957
00:53:26,960 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 1: the major players in uh in vegetable fermentations like kim

958
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:32,560
Speaker 1: chi or sauer kraut. But could you give us a

959
00:53:32,600 --> 00:53:36,200
Speaker 1: broader picture about what's going on in the whole life

960
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:41,680
Speaker 1: cycle of a of a microbial ecosystem inside a vegetable fermentation.

961
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:43,879
Speaker 1: So if you take like a jar of freshly made

962
00:53:43,960 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 1: kim chi and it starts to ferment, who else is

963
00:53:46,760 --> 00:53:50,040
Speaker 1: in this microbial cast of characters and what do the

964
00:53:50,080 --> 00:53:54,239
Speaker 1: struggles for dominance look like inside that jar? So I'm

965
00:53:54,280 --> 00:53:58,759
Speaker 1: sure you and your lessons have maybe started experimenting during

966
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:02,400
Speaker 1: COVID with fermentation, so you know that. Um, if anyone

967
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: started on souer cut, I think souer crt is under

968
00:54:05,719 --> 00:54:09,279
Speaker 1: utilize compared to sour dough. But if you've done any

969
00:54:09,280 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: fermenting of soun cut, which I think is shared, um,

970
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: do you know that you don't add a starter So

971
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:17,040
Speaker 1: that's sour door. When you first do the starter culture,

972
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:19,880
Speaker 1: you're just relying on the natural who is there to

973
00:54:20,200 --> 00:54:25,359
Speaker 1: inoculate the ingredients. So you take cabbage or if you're

974
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 1: making kimchi, other ingredients, or you can make other fermats

975
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: like adding in carrots or whatever, and the bacteria these

976
00:54:32,400 --> 00:54:35,759
Speaker 1: light to Casa bacteria just present on the surface. But

977
00:54:35,840 --> 00:54:37,920
Speaker 1: the one the first thing that I did in my

978
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:40,920
Speaker 1: project was paid out the cabbages, and I found that

979
00:54:41,000 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: light to Cassa bacteria really low. If you're looking at

980
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: the bacteria present on a vegetable. There are lots and

981
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:53,600
Speaker 1: lots of um proteo bacteria, many many things like pseudomonas

982
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:58,879
Speaker 1: um spinglemona. So these are bacteria that like living on

983
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: plant le and for the most part, they're really beautiful

984
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:07,560
Speaker 1: and colorful because they contain pigments that protect the bacteria

985
00:55:07,680 --> 00:55:10,840
Speaker 1: from UV light. So if you think of a cabbage

986
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,359
Speaker 1: out in a field, it's actually exposed it really really

987
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,239
Speaker 1: high levels of UV light, and it doesn't have a

988
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:20,480
Speaker 1: lot of water accessible on the leaf surface. So leaves

989
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:23,399
Speaker 1: are normally covered in a waxy film, and so there's

990
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:25,480
Speaker 1: not a lot of nutrients, there's not a lot of water.

991
00:55:25,560 --> 00:55:28,799
Speaker 1: It's really hard to survive. And the bacteria that are

992
00:55:28,840 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 1: there have a lot of pigments and ways that they

993
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:34,440
Speaker 1: can adhere to the surface of the plant and help

994
00:55:34,520 --> 00:55:37,320
Speaker 1: them survive. And it's not really the lactic as of

995
00:55:37,400 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: bacteria's way of living. They're not really high but like

996
00:55:41,400 --> 00:55:44,319
Speaker 1: very abundant on the leaf. But when you chop that

997
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 1: leaf up to make your sua crowd, you're releasing those

998
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 1: punch sugars. You're making them like very readily available. And

999
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,000
Speaker 1: then when you add the salt, you further draw out

1000
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:58,560
Speaker 1: those sugars, and you completely change the playing field. So

1001
00:55:58,600 --> 00:56:04,840
Speaker 1: you've gone from a high oxygen, highlight, low nutrient condition

1002
00:56:04,960 --> 00:56:07,239
Speaker 1: to all the nutrients in the leaves are out and

1003
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:11,160
Speaker 1: slashing about. You take away the oxygen when you push

1004
00:56:11,239 --> 00:56:14,160
Speaker 1: it down into a messenger, and you add salt, and

1005
00:56:14,200 --> 00:56:19,440
Speaker 1: this is really really strong abiotic selective pressure that will

1006
00:56:19,520 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: change who can live. And that's when the lactic asa

1007
00:56:22,680 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 1: bacteria really come into their own and they can start

1008
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:30,799
Speaker 1: increasing in abundance. Now I mentioned earlier the two big

1009
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:35,480
Speaker 1: groups of lactic asa bacteria, the petro fermentors and the

1010
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:40,360
Speaker 1: homo fermentors. So at the very start of fermentation, we

1011
00:56:40,520 --> 00:56:43,600
Speaker 1: get a massive increase in the hetero fermentors. So that's

1012
00:56:43,640 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: things like lucona stocks and ver clia um and they

1013
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,560
Speaker 1: really take off and they're super abundant, and they're making

1014
00:56:51,680 --> 00:56:56,000
Speaker 1: lactic acid and acetic acid. Now these two acids start

1015
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: lowering the pH and that makes it easier for the

1016
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 1: homo fomentous to start growing. So you sort of see

1017
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,040
Speaker 1: a true phase. I wish I had a white water.

1018
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,200
Speaker 1: You can draw it out where you have one population

1019
00:57:07,239 --> 00:57:10,960
Speaker 1: that increases and then a second population, so a second

1020
00:57:11,000 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 1: wave UM, and that lower is the pH even more.

1021
00:57:14,719 --> 00:57:19,880
Speaker 1: And as the pH falls um, those proteo bacteria that

1022
00:57:19,920 --> 00:57:23,000
Speaker 1: we're talking about they can't survive, and they won't they

1023
00:57:23,040 --> 00:57:26,440
Speaker 1: won't be present at the end of fermentation. So if

1024
00:57:26,480 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: I'm corrected, this first group the hetero from enters that

1025
00:57:29,880 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 1: produced the multiple byproducts. You said lactic acid and acetic acid.

1026
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 1: So acetic acid would be basically the the acid and vinegar, right,

1027
00:57:38,400 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 1: And lactic acid is also what's coming out of the

1028
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: homo from enters, the lactic acid bacteria that come in

1029
00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:47,680
Speaker 1: the second wave um. And is that am I correct

1030
00:57:47,680 --> 00:57:50,440
Speaker 1: in thinking? That's also the same thing that builds up

1031
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:53,280
Speaker 1: in our muscles when we exercise and start to feel

1032
00:57:53,280 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: the aching and and all that sort of the presence

1033
00:57:55,680 --> 00:58:00,280
Speaker 1: of the lactic acid bacteria causes the pain of exercise. Well,

1034
00:58:00,360 --> 00:58:03,040
Speaker 1: it's the same lactic acid. Oh, I'm sorry, did I

1035
00:58:03,080 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 1: say bacteria. Sorry, I didn't mean to say that. The

1036
00:58:06,880 --> 00:58:11,920
Speaker 1: lactic acid. Yes, yeah, yeah, exactly, yes, And actually lactic

1037
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:16,920
Speaker 1: acid is a less harsh acid. So if it was

1038
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: just fermented by hetero fomentors and it just we ate

1039
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,000
Speaker 1: a sourer krout that was just made with a seedic acid,

1040
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:26,080
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be that nice. It would be very very

1041
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:27,840
Speaker 1: it would be like a very harsh like a pickle,

1042
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:31,919
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't eat all of the pickle juice because

1043
00:58:31,960 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 1: it's very vinegary um. But when you have sour krout,

1044
00:58:36,160 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 1: it should have a softer, buttery flavor. So you have

1045
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:41,160
Speaker 1: to sort of trust me on this one and go

1046
00:58:41,240 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 1: home and eat some and compare it to just straight pickles,

1047
00:58:44,960 --> 00:58:48,360
Speaker 1: which are quite acidic, because that lactic acid has a

1048
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 1: softer um like, it's not as shark. Yeah, that's definitely

1049
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:56,040
Speaker 1: something you notice is a difference between quick pickled foods

1050
00:58:56,120 --> 00:58:58,960
Speaker 1: that you use vinegar to pickle versus fermented foods where

1051
00:58:59,000 --> 00:59:02,600
Speaker 1: it comes from the back to it's a much more soft, round,

1052
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 1: complex kind of flavor. So so normally when you ferment

1053
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:09,720
Speaker 1: vegetables and uh, and you're trying to you know, you

1054
00:59:09,800 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 1: salt them, you make a brine, and you encourage the

1055
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 1: lactic acid bacteria. You said, you see these two broad

1056
00:59:15,320 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: spikes with the hetero fomenters and then the homo fomenters um.

1057
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:21,040
Speaker 1: But even within that, you're still going to see a

1058
00:59:21,080 --> 00:59:24,680
Speaker 1: lot of different species involved, right, that there can be

1059
00:59:25,120 --> 00:59:29,400
Speaker 1: widely different profiles of what exact lactic acid bacteria are

1060
00:59:29,480 --> 00:59:32,919
Speaker 1: taking over. Is that correct? Yes, there's a lot so

1061
00:59:33,120 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: UM looking at who's there, there's just some big players,

1062
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: so they'll be like lacto, basilis, bravis in basically everything

1063
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: at a really high percentage, and then there'll be a

1064
00:59:42,880 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 1: lot of UM low numbers of many other ones. So

1065
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,920
Speaker 1: we've just recently done a survey of North American fermented

1066
00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:55,240
Speaker 1: vegetable products UM, which I was really excited about because

1067
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:59,320
Speaker 1: there's a lot of research on UM Asian products. So

1068
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:03,800
Speaker 1: there's a whole research institute of kimchi in Korea, and

1069
01:00:03,840 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 1: there's UM a lot of research in Europe. But this

1070
01:00:07,320 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: is the first United States Sauer Kraft survey and we

1071
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:15,160
Speaker 1: found on average teen point eight species of lactic gas

1072
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 1: of bacteria her jar. But most of them are some

1073
01:00:19,120 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: of the really common laticas of bacteria. They take they

1074
01:00:23,640 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 1: take up the bulk. So would you find any noticeable

1075
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:32,640
Speaker 1: differences in in like aromas or flavors produced depending on

1076
01:00:32,840 --> 01:00:37,600
Speaker 1: what the microbial ecosystem in the fermented jar vegetables looks like?

1077
01:00:37,960 --> 01:00:41,360
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven't done any specific research on that,

1078
01:00:41,720 --> 01:00:44,880
Speaker 1: but I haven't myself noticed anything. I think there can

1079
01:00:44,920 --> 01:00:48,840
Speaker 1: be a big difference between kimchi and sauerkraut, which is

1080
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:52,040
Speaker 1: hard to measure in terms of the bacteria that are

1081
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: present because there's so many other flavors going on. So

1082
01:00:56,360 --> 01:00:59,520
Speaker 1: some kim cheese are fermented at a lower temperature, and

1083
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:02,440
Speaker 1: when you of fermenting in a really cool temperature, like

1084
01:01:02,720 --> 01:01:08,800
Speaker 1: between ten to fourteen degrees celsius, you're promoting those hetero fermenters,

1085
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:11,400
Speaker 1: so you get a different flavor. So there can be

1086
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:15,160
Speaker 1: a lot of asalia in kimchi, which is less prevalent

1087
01:01:15,360 --> 01:01:17,760
Speaker 1: in souer crawl like, They'll still be there but in

1088
01:01:18,240 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: lower numbers. But it's very hard to compare the flavors

1089
01:01:22,400 --> 01:01:25,960
Speaker 1: and attribute that to the bacteria when you've also got garlic, ginger,

1090
01:01:26,080 --> 01:01:29,560
Speaker 1: red pepper and everything else. That's one thing I found

1091
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 1: hard in doing the survey is that every producer might

1092
01:01:34,760 --> 01:01:37,440
Speaker 1: have different vector, but they all have like their slight

1093
01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:43,240
Speaker 1: tweaking of recipes, so some had like caraway seeds or

1094
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:47,880
Speaker 1: they throw in an apple just like So you mentioned

1095
01:01:47,960 --> 01:01:51,560
Speaker 1: that that the lactic acid bacteria tend to be found

1096
01:01:51,560 --> 01:01:55,040
Speaker 1: in very low numbers. If you just takes a raw

1097
01:01:55,200 --> 01:02:00,000
Speaker 1: leaf of cabbage from the farm before fermentation. So we're

1098
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:04,320
Speaker 1: do we have any idea about where these microbes generally

1099
01:02:04,360 --> 01:02:07,280
Speaker 1: come from. Is it just something that's probably there on

1100
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,520
Speaker 1: a leaf of cabbage even though it's in very small numbers,

1101
01:02:10,600 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 1: and then the fermentation environment helps those numbers bulk up

1102
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:17,520
Speaker 1: over time, or there are other possible vectors. Yeah, So

1103
01:02:17,560 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 1: I went out to farms or common gardens um in

1104
01:02:23,600 --> 01:02:28,400
Speaker 1: the summer of sen and tried to find environmental sources

1105
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:30,960
Speaker 1: of Lactica Sa bacteria. So I took soil and leave

1106
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:34,440
Speaker 1: examples and not cabbage leaf um, wead leaves and things

1107
01:02:34,520 --> 01:02:37,840
Speaker 1: that were just growing next to crop plants um, and

1108
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,280
Speaker 1: I found that they had pretty low levels of lactic

1109
01:02:40,360 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 1: as bacteria. So I didn't find like a big environmental

1110
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:48,720
Speaker 1: reservoir of these bacteria, which I think it's pretty incredible

1111
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:52,000
Speaker 1: that we know so much about them in the human

1112
01:02:52,480 --> 01:02:56,040
Speaker 1: micro like the human got microbiome and in probiotics and

1113
01:02:56,120 --> 01:02:59,720
Speaker 1: probiotics and fermented foods, but very little is known about

1114
01:02:59,720 --> 01:03:04,360
Speaker 1: their pology, and I couldn't find too much. I think

1115
01:03:04,640 --> 01:03:07,360
Speaker 1: I definitely talked about it in the in a previous

1116
01:03:07,360 --> 01:03:11,439
Speaker 1: podcast about maybe they're being affected in by insects. If

1117
01:03:11,480 --> 01:03:14,600
Speaker 1: you are USU papers where honey bees have let to

1118
01:03:14,640 --> 01:03:17,280
Speaker 1: gas a bacteria and that guy um and they're very

1119
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:21,360
Speaker 1: specific two bees though, I think because bees taken nectar

1120
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:23,960
Speaker 1: and then the sugars in the nectar can get broken

1121
01:03:23,960 --> 01:03:26,880
Speaker 1: down by lack to gas of bacteria. But I haven't

1122
01:03:26,960 --> 01:03:30,200
Speaker 1: yet found any evidence that the insects and the insect

1123
01:03:30,240 --> 01:03:33,240
Speaker 1: droppings go on to be the source of lack to

1124
01:03:33,280 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 1: Gasa bacteria and fermented vegetables. So perhaps a very small

1125
01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:40,720
Speaker 1: amount of lack to Gasa bacteria in soil can then

1126
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:46,040
Speaker 1: try and like dispersed onto cabbages repeatedly, and then maybe

1127
01:03:46,080 --> 01:03:50,000
Speaker 1: it's just low levels everywhere it's it's still a puzzle.

1128
01:03:50,440 --> 01:03:52,520
Speaker 1: Is it possible also that some amount of it just

1129
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:56,600
Speaker 1: comes from the kitchen environments or other environments where this

1130
01:03:57,120 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 1: where fermentations are prepared, that it's on jar as, it's

1131
01:04:00,360 --> 01:04:03,200
Speaker 1: on spoons and all that kind of stuff that's been

1132
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: sort of talked about a lot, and I'll have to

1133
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,000
Speaker 1: look up the name for you, but there was a

1134
01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:10,880
Speaker 1: recent paper where they looked at a saddle crowd facility,

1135
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 1: so they I think it was at one facility in

1136
01:04:13,200 --> 01:04:16,280
Speaker 1: Rhode Island. They went to this one place and they

1137
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:20,400
Speaker 1: sampled fridges, doors, walls, everything, and they didn't find like

1138
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 1: to cast a bacteria in the environment. They only found

1139
01:04:24,920 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 1: levels on the cabbage. But if you're thinking about making

1140
01:04:28,760 --> 01:04:32,200
Speaker 1: sadle crowd in a facility, you're gonna have tons of cabbage.

1141
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,400
Speaker 1: So even if you put together like ten cabbages in

1142
01:04:35,480 --> 01:04:37,640
Speaker 1: one giant fact, there's a lot of cabbage and you

1143
01:04:37,680 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 1: only need a tiny bit of the bacteria to make

1144
01:04:40,720 --> 01:04:43,360
Speaker 1: it to get it to take off. Whereas if you

1145
01:04:43,360 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: think if you were making it at home and use

1146
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:49,480
Speaker 1: half a cabbage, then just by probability, by chance, you

1147
01:04:49,560 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 1: might make one that didn't have enough or didn't have any.

1148
01:04:53,040 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: But if you multiply the amount of ingredients, I think

1149
01:04:56,080 --> 01:05:00,080
Speaker 1: you always have some amount of l to casper to

1150
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:03,120
Speaker 1: you now, was I reading that previously you did some

1151
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:07,520
Speaker 1: research with trying to grow sterile cabbage in order to

1152
01:05:07,520 --> 01:05:10,360
Speaker 1: to inoculate it with bacteria and see how the bacteria

1153
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:12,840
Speaker 1: did on it. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. It It

1154
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 1: came out in the Journal of Visualized Experiments, and then

1155
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,840
Speaker 1: I couldn't film because of COVID. But they will be

1156
01:05:18,840 --> 01:05:21,920
Speaker 1: coming in on Wednesday. Um, but I managed to grow

1157
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:26,080
Speaker 1: cabbages and I can send you pictures. Um, I managed

1158
01:05:26,120 --> 01:05:31,600
Speaker 1: to grow cabbages in glass tubes and they are sterile

1159
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:33,720
Speaker 1: as far as I can tell. Like you know, maybe

1160
01:05:33,760 --> 01:05:37,560
Speaker 1: there's some media that one bacteria could grow on, but

1161
01:05:37,720 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 1: as far as we can tell, they're completely sterile, and

1162
01:05:40,040 --> 01:05:44,360
Speaker 1: they're happy, and they're growing in calcined clay. You can

1163
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: articulate that. So if you put in the articlave, high heat,

1164
01:05:47,320 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 1: high pressure, will be sterile at some nutrient broth and

1165
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:53,840
Speaker 1: they're really happy. And now did that research involve you

1166
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:58,920
Speaker 1: trying to see what kind of environment those previously sterile

1167
01:05:58,960 --> 01:06:02,480
Speaker 1: cabbages would make for different microbes or was that just

1168
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:05,439
Speaker 1: to study the cabbage itself and how it could how

1169
01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:08,280
Speaker 1: well it did without a microbiome. No. I wanted to

1170
01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: do actual competition experiments with large caste bacteria and the

1171
01:06:13,600 --> 01:06:17,400
Speaker 1: philosphere microbiome. So the philosphit is the community of bacteria

1172
01:06:17,480 --> 01:06:20,520
Speaker 1: living on a leaf. So I wanted to say, well,

1173
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:23,680
Speaker 1: maybe like to cast a bacteria in low abundance because

1174
01:06:23,720 --> 01:06:27,960
Speaker 1: they need a particular microbe to grow with, or there's competition.

1175
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:31,720
Speaker 1: So I made all of this sterile cabbage. It took

1176
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:35,520
Speaker 1: me years and then I inoculated it with lead casa

1177
01:06:35,520 --> 01:06:38,560
Speaker 1: bacteria and they don't grow. Like if you just spray

1178
01:06:38,760 --> 01:06:42,800
Speaker 1: a cabbage with lack to caste bacteria and it's happy.

1179
01:06:43,560 --> 01:06:45,960
Speaker 1: You don't put any other thing in there to compete

1180
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: with it, it won't grow. The cabbage are the lactic

1181
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:54,040
Speaker 1: acid bacteria. The cabbage is fine. The cabbage I wasn't interested.

1182
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:58,880
Speaker 1: I haven't done any measuring of cabbages or their growth. Um,

1183
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:02,400
Speaker 1: they do fine with or without a microbiome. I sprayed

1184
01:07:02,480 --> 01:07:06,600
Speaker 1: some yeast on cabbages once and they didn't enjoy that.

1185
01:07:06,640 --> 01:07:10,880
Speaker 1: The cabbagies went brown and just with it. But bacteria

1186
01:07:11,120 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 1: fine on cabbage. They don't influence the cabbage. But yeah,

1187
01:07:14,560 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 1: I did twenty bacteria that you just naturally find on

1188
01:07:18,960 --> 01:07:23,320
Speaker 1: a cabbage and things like the uh pseudomonist that I mentioned,

1189
01:07:23,400 --> 01:07:25,760
Speaker 1: So things like that, I sprayed them on the cabbage

1190
01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: and they will increase. You will see like they're happy

1191
01:07:29,400 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 1: growing on a cabbage. The lattic as a bacteria tank.

1192
01:07:32,720 --> 01:07:36,120
Speaker 1: So it's very hard to do an experiment with something

1193
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:39,520
Speaker 1: that won't grow, like I mix it with other things.

1194
01:07:39,720 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: They grow Bacteria gus wow, Uh, so we know that

1195
01:07:45,520 --> 01:07:48,200
Speaker 1: obviously these lactic acid bacteria are the main player and

1196
01:07:48,320 --> 01:07:52,160
Speaker 1: vegetable fermentations, but there are fungal microbes like yeast, so

1197
01:07:52,280 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: we've mentioned a little bit that are major players and

1198
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 1: other kinds of fermentation of course, in like bread or

1199
01:07:57,120 --> 01:08:00,840
Speaker 1: in wine or beer. Did you mention over our email

1200
01:08:00,960 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 1: that um that in looking at store bought preparations of kimchi,

1201
01:08:05,920 --> 01:08:08,440
Speaker 1: you've found yeast in some of them. That seems kind

1202
01:08:08,440 --> 01:08:11,959
Speaker 1: of surprising. Yeah, So I tried really hard to find

1203
01:08:11,960 --> 01:08:14,360
Speaker 1: some literature on this, and you only see a few

1204
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:19,639
Speaker 1: papers from a long time ago stating that yeaster um

1205
01:08:19,880 --> 01:08:23,760
Speaker 1: sometimes found as spoiler organisms. But when I did this

1206
01:08:23,920 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 1: North American sour krout survey or fermented vegetable product survey,

1207
01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:30,360
Speaker 1: so it is sour kart's and kim cheese, I found

1208
01:08:30,400 --> 01:08:34,640
Speaker 1: over half of them had yeast, like a lot a

1209
01:08:34,720 --> 01:08:37,799
Speaker 1: lot of yeast, Like some of them had more counts

1210
01:08:37,800 --> 01:08:41,800
Speaker 1: of yeast than bacteria, which was really surprised by. So

1211
01:08:42,000 --> 01:08:44,240
Speaker 1: the back the use that I found is safe. There

1212
01:08:44,240 --> 01:08:48,080
Speaker 1: are things like kazakhstania, which you do find in sour dough,

1213
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:51,479
Speaker 1: so they're not they're not toxic. But everything that you

1214
01:08:51,520 --> 01:08:55,120
Speaker 1: read says there undesirable and fermented vegetable products because they

1215
01:08:55,120 --> 01:09:00,519
Speaker 1: give musty, yeasty, sort of dankish flavors, I guess, and

1216
01:09:00,600 --> 01:09:02,840
Speaker 1: they can form a film, which I think it's pretty

1217
01:09:02,840 --> 01:09:05,920
Speaker 1: offputting if you're trying to create a new product that's

1218
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:09,519
Speaker 1: covered in a yeast film. Yeah, you want your cut

1219
01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:15,320
Speaker 1: smell like skunky beer. No, definitely not. It's already yes,

1220
01:09:15,479 --> 01:09:17,960
Speaker 1: a tough sull. I when I had this, I had

1221
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:21,200
Speaker 1: fifty one jars and I was delighted and I was like, hey,

1222
01:09:21,360 --> 01:09:23,680
Speaker 1: who wants some? And I would open I opened and

1223
01:09:23,720 --> 01:09:27,320
Speaker 1: sampled them all in the conference room. It's smaller rooms

1224
01:09:27,320 --> 01:09:30,200
Speaker 1: and they's a tough and people were not happy. They

1225
01:09:30,240 --> 01:09:33,120
Speaker 1: were like, wow, the whole rooms stank for a week.

1226
01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:36,000
Speaker 1: I think it's just in an enclosed space. Opening fifty

1227
01:09:36,000 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 1: one jars of sauer kraut and kimshi was a little much,

1228
01:09:39,160 --> 01:09:41,640
Speaker 1: but yeah, and I tried to eat them all, but

1229
01:09:41,760 --> 01:09:45,840
Speaker 1: I I really couldn't. That's that's a lot. But you

1230
01:09:45,840 --> 01:09:49,640
Speaker 1: couldn't eat fifty jars of kimchi by yourself, or sauerkraut

1231
01:09:49,640 --> 01:09:52,960
Speaker 1: and kimchi. No, I tried so hard. I can do it.

1232
01:09:53,760 --> 01:09:55,559
Speaker 1: And part That's why I wrote the grant. I was like,

1233
01:09:55,680 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 1: now I can get to eat all of it. If

1234
01:09:57,240 --> 01:10:02,040
Speaker 1: I write a grant that says I need to buy them, well,

1235
01:10:02,080 --> 01:10:05,840
Speaker 1: that makes me think you you correctly guessed that. One

1236
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:08,559
Speaker 1: of the things that got me interested in talking about

1237
01:10:08,600 --> 01:10:11,479
Speaker 1: kimchi on our podcast is that I had been trying

1238
01:10:11,479 --> 01:10:13,639
Speaker 1: to make it at home for the first time recently.

1239
01:10:14,360 --> 01:10:17,680
Speaker 1: Uh and one thing that has so I've loved kim

1240
01:10:17,720 --> 01:10:20,960
Speaker 1: chi for years, and I've always put off trying to

1241
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:25,160
Speaker 1: make it because it seemed like a scary, daunting, potentially

1242
01:10:25,280 --> 01:10:28,160
Speaker 1: dangerous procedure if you're fermenting things and you don't know

1243
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:32,000
Speaker 1: what you're doing. But honestly, i've I've found it easier

1244
01:10:32,040 --> 01:10:34,639
Speaker 1: than I expected it to be. So I guess one

1245
01:10:34,640 --> 01:10:37,240
Speaker 1: thing a lot of people are probably wondering is how

1246
01:10:37,320 --> 01:10:40,320
Speaker 1: safe is it to experiment with making sauerkraud or kim

1247
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:43,719
Speaker 1: chi or some other lacto fermented vegetable. Is this something

1248
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:46,160
Speaker 1: that's probably gonna poison you if you screw it up,

1249
01:10:46,280 --> 01:10:49,519
Speaker 1: or is it pretty forgiving. That's a great, great question

1250
01:10:49,520 --> 01:10:51,639
Speaker 1: because I think people are really scared and when people

1251
01:10:51,680 --> 01:10:53,800
Speaker 1: come over there, because I have a lot of fim

1252
01:10:53,880 --> 01:10:58,160
Speaker 1: it's on my friends these days, but they're actually pretty safe.

1253
01:10:58,320 --> 01:11:04,400
Speaker 1: Anything that's anaerobic, um, you're really really making it very

1254
01:11:04,439 --> 01:11:07,439
Speaker 1: hard for things like et coli and my steria to grow,

1255
01:11:07,960 --> 01:11:11,160
Speaker 1: So they're pretty safe if you do get the anaerobic

1256
01:11:11,200 --> 01:11:14,759
Speaker 1: conditions correctly. So sometimes if you're fermenting in a massenger

1257
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:16,519
Speaker 1: and you have like a pocket of air on the top,

1258
01:11:17,000 --> 01:11:19,680
Speaker 1: you'll notice the very top layer of your ferment might

1259
01:11:19,720 --> 01:11:21,479
Speaker 1: be a little off, and then you can just take

1260
01:11:21,520 --> 01:11:24,360
Speaker 1: that off and then push it down so it's submerged.

1261
01:11:24,800 --> 01:11:30,200
Speaker 1: But probably not an official thing to say, so basically,

1262
01:11:30,600 --> 01:11:32,519
Speaker 1: as long as you've got the salt there and the

1263
01:11:32,520 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 1: stuff's underwater, it's it's going to be safe. Yeah. I

1264
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:38,960
Speaker 1: think that's one thing that I found remarkable with everything

1265
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,479
Speaker 1: that I've done, with everything that I've read. I think

1266
01:11:41,479 --> 01:11:44,400
Speaker 1: that's why I just love this project so much, because

1267
01:11:44,439 --> 01:11:48,959
Speaker 1: it seems so haphazard, like you're just taking random ingredients

1268
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:53,480
Speaker 1: and salt, and yet it works so consistently um worldwide.

1269
01:11:53,640 --> 01:11:56,559
Speaker 1: You know, That's what blows my mind. The things that

1270
01:11:56,640 --> 01:11:59,639
Speaker 1: we found in this North American survey are the exact

1271
01:11:59,680 --> 01:12:02,719
Speaker 1: same things that they find in Europe, to the exact

1272
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:05,760
Speaker 1: same things that they find in everything in Asia. So

1273
01:12:05,800 --> 01:12:09,320
Speaker 1: you're like, it's so robust. Broadly, what do you find

1274
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:14,840
Speaker 1: amazing about fermentation? Well, that bacteria that we don't know

1275
01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:17,639
Speaker 1: how they where they live in. We can't find them

1276
01:12:17,640 --> 01:12:21,120
Speaker 1: in the environment get into everything that we eat, and

1277
01:12:21,960 --> 01:12:25,800
Speaker 1: a consistent Like, it's amazing we can't track them. But

1278
01:12:26,560 --> 01:12:29,360
Speaker 1: all over the world there's it's the same species and

1279
01:12:29,439 --> 01:12:32,759
Speaker 1: you can't follow it from a field to a cabbage.

1280
01:12:32,800 --> 01:12:37,840
Speaker 1: You know, that's amazing. That is amazing. Uh, I don't know.

1281
01:12:38,000 --> 01:12:40,000
Speaker 1: It's one of the things we actually love to talk

1282
01:12:40,040 --> 01:12:43,680
Speaker 1: about on this show is kind of the hidden realities,

1283
01:12:43,760 --> 01:12:45,880
Speaker 1: the things that are so important to human culture but

1284
01:12:46,000 --> 01:12:48,479
Speaker 1: that you know, you wouldn't be able to see them

1285
01:12:48,520 --> 01:12:50,200
Speaker 1: looking at I mean, I guess you don't see any

1286
01:12:50,240 --> 01:12:53,200
Speaker 1: microbes with your eyes normally unless they're starting a really

1287
01:12:53,200 --> 01:12:56,240
Speaker 1: big colony. But but even with scientific instruments, like you

1288
01:12:56,280 --> 01:12:59,479
Speaker 1: don't know where all these microbes are coming from. Yeah,

1289
01:13:00,080 --> 01:13:03,040
Speaker 1: it's amazing. Like I was trying to write a review

1290
01:13:03,080 --> 01:13:07,040
Speaker 1: on dispersal, like how do how does the bacteria get

1291
01:13:07,120 --> 01:13:09,559
Speaker 1: from here to that? And you can read about the

1292
01:13:09,600 --> 01:13:13,080
Speaker 1: moving miles and thousands of miles on wind. It just

1293
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:17,880
Speaker 1: gets in the wind and just dispersed. But you you've

1294
01:13:17,920 --> 01:13:20,960
Speaker 1: got no way of really knowing unless you sort of

1295
01:13:21,080 --> 01:13:24,280
Speaker 1: make genetically modified bacteria and release them, which I'm not

1296
01:13:24,400 --> 01:13:26,559
Speaker 1: going to do. But you know, like, how could you

1297
01:13:26,640 --> 01:13:30,840
Speaker 1: know if there's bacterias that, because they're so small, you'd

1298
01:13:30,880 --> 01:13:33,439
Speaker 1: never tracked them. I think it's amazing. So is there

1299
01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:35,920
Speaker 1: anything else you've been working on recently that you wanted

1300
01:13:35,960 --> 01:13:38,640
Speaker 1: to talk about? Well, I was gonna say, and I

1301
01:13:38,720 --> 01:13:43,080
Speaker 1: forgot to mention that I am doing a community assembly experiment.

1302
01:13:43,560 --> 01:13:48,200
Speaker 1: So I've got three yeast and three bacteria that were isolated.

1303
01:13:48,760 --> 01:13:51,519
Speaker 1: Most of them were isolated from that Sauerkroud survey. So

1304
01:13:51,600 --> 01:13:54,000
Speaker 1: I took the bacteria that I found in that survey,

1305
01:13:54,320 --> 01:13:57,360
Speaker 1: and I'm competing the yeast and the bacteria together in

1306
01:13:57,479 --> 01:14:02,639
Speaker 1: little jaws of sterile vegetable extract two, and I've put

1307
01:14:02,640 --> 01:14:07,760
Speaker 1: them under different conditions, like different temperatures, different salt concentrations,

1308
01:14:07,840 --> 01:14:11,360
Speaker 1: um and using different cabbage extracts a red cabbage, grain cabbage,

1309
01:14:11,400 --> 01:14:15,000
Speaker 1: and Napa cabbage to see if any of those influence

1310
01:14:15,080 --> 01:14:18,360
Speaker 1: the presence of yeast. And actually, I think it looks

1311
01:14:18,360 --> 01:14:21,600
Speaker 1: like the temperature that I fermented at could be influencing

1312
01:14:22,120 --> 01:14:25,320
Speaker 1: the abundance of yeast. So at higher temperatures, perhaps you

1313
01:14:25,320 --> 01:14:28,360
Speaker 1: get more yeast. So maybe the North American fermenters are

1314
01:14:28,439 --> 01:14:32,880
Speaker 1: using different conditions and that's why the ferments have more yeast.

1315
01:14:33,000 --> 01:14:36,760
Speaker 1: But I'm still working in it. Interesting. So, if if

1316
01:14:36,800 --> 01:14:39,559
Speaker 1: you're making kimchi at home or making sarokrawd at home,

1317
01:14:39,600 --> 01:14:41,559
Speaker 1: and you want to keep the yeast out, a lower

1318
01:14:41,600 --> 01:14:44,639
Speaker 1: temperature fermentation might be a better way to do that. Yeah,

1319
01:14:44,680 --> 01:14:47,080
Speaker 1: So if the temperature in your room is getting sort

1320
01:14:47,080 --> 01:14:49,640
Speaker 1: of like above twenty four degrees, you might want to

1321
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:52,000
Speaker 1: put it in the basement or somewhere a little cooler.

1322
01:14:52,439 --> 01:14:55,240
Speaker 1: And I did notice that if you don't put salt

1323
01:14:55,280 --> 01:14:58,160
Speaker 1: in it, it can go horribly wrong. The pH just

1324
01:14:58,280 --> 01:15:01,400
Speaker 1: doesn't fall as much because tried that, and I was

1325
01:15:01,439 --> 01:15:04,720
Speaker 1: even adding LA to Casa bacteria and the pH wasn't

1326
01:15:04,800 --> 01:15:09,639
Speaker 1: dropping as well as it should with two. But there

1327
01:15:09,720 --> 01:15:11,840
Speaker 1: wasn't a big difference between two and four. So I

1328
01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:14,960
Speaker 1: think sticking at two percent salt is good. Am I

1329
01:15:15,040 --> 01:15:18,759
Speaker 1: understanding the causality right there that the salt essentially makes

1330
01:15:18,960 --> 01:15:22,519
Speaker 1: um makes an environment that's less hospitable for other types

1331
01:15:22,560 --> 01:15:25,240
Speaker 1: of bacteria and microbes to thrive. But the lactic acid

1332
01:15:25,240 --> 01:15:28,559
Speaker 1: bacteria or tolerant of salt is that it is it.

1333
01:15:28,680 --> 01:15:31,880
Speaker 1: That's what I always assumed um and think is right

1334
01:15:32,120 --> 01:15:35,400
Speaker 1: when you have just regular cabbage. But I was using

1335
01:15:35,439 --> 01:15:39,599
Speaker 1: sterile filted vegetable extractures, you know, so just completely sterile

1336
01:15:39,600 --> 01:15:42,599
Speaker 1: media and adding LA to CASA bacteria in the east,

1337
01:15:43,080 --> 01:15:46,840
Speaker 1: So they allowed to Casabactero didn't have that much competition,

1338
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:49,639
Speaker 1: you know, they're there with the East, and yet they

1339
01:15:49,640 --> 01:15:53,479
Speaker 1: still didn't do that well when there's no salt. Mm hmm.

1340
01:15:54,360 --> 01:15:57,960
Speaker 1: So maybe the salt is even helping it in some way.

1341
01:15:58,400 --> 01:16:00,200
Speaker 1: I think there's got to be something going on with

1342
01:16:00,240 --> 01:16:05,240
Speaker 1: the salt as well. M m, well that's very interesting. Alright, Well,

1343
01:16:05,280 --> 01:16:07,280
Speaker 1: I think we have to call it there. But thank

1344
01:16:07,320 --> 01:16:09,479
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. This has been

1345
01:16:09,520 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 1: so great and we really appreciate you sharing your time

1346
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:14,040
Speaker 1: and your expertise. It's been a lot of fun. Yeah,

1347
01:16:14,080 --> 01:16:18,120
Speaker 1: thank you very much for having me. Well, I guess

1348
01:16:18,120 --> 01:16:21,400
Speaker 1: that wraps up this episode, but once again, huge appreciation

1349
01:16:21,479 --> 01:16:24,080
Speaker 1: to Dr Esther Miller for taking the time to speak

1350
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:27,000
Speaker 1: with us. And I will say, though this episode is over,

1351
01:16:27,520 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: there is that whole hidden world flowing into the fermentation jar.

1352
01:16:31,120 --> 01:16:32,880
Speaker 1: So it's possible that we may have to come back

1353
01:16:32,920 --> 01:16:36,240
Speaker 1: and explore other corners of that world again in the future.

1354
01:16:36,680 --> 01:16:38,280
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you would like to listen to

1355
01:16:38,280 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you know

1356
01:16:40,479 --> 01:16:43,120
Speaker 1: where to find us. That is, wherever you happen to

1357
01:16:43,160 --> 01:16:46,320
Speaker 1: get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. Just rate,

1358
01:16:46,360 --> 01:16:48,960
Speaker 1: review and subscribe. Those are just simple things you can

1359
01:16:48,960 --> 01:16:51,360
Speaker 1: do to help out the show huge thanks as always

1360
01:16:51,360 --> 01:16:54,439
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you

1361
01:16:54,439 --> 01:16:56,360
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1362
01:16:56,360 --> 01:16:58,519
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic

1363
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:00,559
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hi, you can

1364
01:17:00,640 --> 01:17:03,320
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind

1365
01:17:03,479 --> 01:17:13,280
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of

1366
01:17:13,280 --> 01:17:15,920
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1367
01:17:16,160 --> 01:17:18,799
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1368
01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:32,080
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.