Wild Fermentation

The Book That Started the Fermentation Revolution

Sandor Ellix Katz, winner of a James Beard Award and New York Times bestselling author, whom Michael Pollan calls the “Johnny Appleseed of Fermentation” returns to the iconic book that started it all, but with a fresh perspective, renewed enthusiasm, and expanded wisdom from his travels around the world. This self-described fermentation revivalist is perhaps best known simply as Sandorkraut, which describes his joyful and demystifying approach to making and eating fermented foods, the health benefits of which have helped launch a nutrition-based food revolution.

Since its publication in 2003, and aided by Katz’s engaging and fervent workshop presentations, Wild Fermentation has inspired people to turn their kitchens into food labs: fermenting vegetables into sauerkraut, milk into cheese or yogurt, grains into sourdough bread, and much more. In turn, they’ve traded batches, shared recipes, and joined thousands of others on a journey of creating healthy food for themselves, their families, and their communities. Katz’s work earned him the Craig Clairborne lifetime achievement award from the Southern Foodways Alliance, and has been called “one of the unlikely rock stars of the American food scene” by The New York Times.

This updated and revised edition, now with full color photos throughout, is sure to introduce a whole new generation to the flavors and health benefits of fermented foods. It features many brand-new recipes—including Strawberry Kvass, African Sorghum Beer, and Infinite Buckwheat Bread—and updates and refines original recipes reflecting the author’s ever-deepening knowledge of global food traditions that has influenced four-star chefs and home cooks alike. For Katz, his gateway to fermentation was sauerkraut. So open this book to find yours, and start a little food revolution right in your own kitchen.

Praise for Sandor Ellix Katz and his books:

“The Art of Fermentation is an extraordinary book, and an impressive work of passion and scholarship.”—Deborah Madison, author of Local Flavors

“Sandor Katz has proven himself to be the king of fermentation.”—Sally Fallon Morell, President, The Weston A. Price Foundation

“Sandor Katz has already awakened more people to the diversity and deliciousness of fermented foods than any other single person has over the last century.”—Gary Paul Nabhan, author of Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land

“The fermenting bible.” — Newsweek

“In a country almost clinically obsessed with sterilization Katz reminds us of the forgotten benefits of living in harmony with our microbial relatives.” — Grist