This week, Robin spoke to Rebecca Ghim, co-founder of The Ferm, a vegan, zero-waste Korean fermentary in East London. Her business upcycles overlooked ingredients like cauliflower leaves and broccoli stems from restaurants and farmers into kimchi and other pickles.

Rebecca explained the logistical challenges of sourcing "waste" materials, highlighting the difficulty in convincing suppliers and farmers to work with her. She shared her love of recipe development, and the particular challenges of transforming bitter waste materials into palatable products, and how this often required making adjustments to traditional fermentation techniques (thinly slicing cauliflower leaves to ensure even fermentation and reduce bitterness, for example).

She discussed the many challenges she's faced, from building new waste-processing supply chains to the difficulties of working with patented vegetables, like tenderstem broccoli, and convincing the British public that fermented vegetables should be in pouches rather than jars.

You can follow The Ferm on Instagram and find Rebecca's ferments in many independent shops, as well at at Stroud Green Farmers Market in North London every Sunday.

Hosted by Robin Sherriff.

Original music & editing by David Craigie.

This week, Robin spoke to Kirsten Shockey, author of Fermented Vegetables (now out for 10 years!) and co-founder of The Fermentation School. We covered everything from germ theory to making a living in publishing, and Himalayan gundruk to tempeh as a secret food.

Reaching all the way back to our fermenting ancestors, and the knowledge they've passed down, but which now terrifies us, because we've become disconnected from food systems. Speaking of the food system, Kirsten also discusses the role of factory bread in bringing women into the workforce, and whether fermentation can fix the inherent wastefulness of the food-industrial complex.

We explored the origins of Kirsten's Fermentation School and its woman-run courses, as well as how Kirsten herself started out as a school teacher and then got into fermentation because she wanted her children to be connected to food (and how her son became a goat midwife and cheesemaker).

Kirsten's books, Fermented Vegetables, Fiery Ferments, Homebrewed Vinegar, and Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments are available in all good bookshops, and you can also read her more recent thoughts on fermentation and other things on her Substack, and find her courses on The Fermentation School.

Hosted by Robin Sherriff.

Original music & editing by David Craigie.

Robin is joined this week by James Read, author of Of Cabbages & Kimchi and founder of Kim Kong Kimchi, to discuss the process of writing a book about fermentation, the challenges of research and how to find an audience.

Together, we dive into culinary evolution, the koji process, and crap bats, as well as trying to research in other languages, divining ferment origin stories and the truth about kefir. There's a brief foray into spontaneous vs starter-based ferments and the ginger bug liminal space, before we move onto the challenge of finding the right audience between enthusiasts and lay-people and justifying the jacket price.

Finally, we finish with a brief chat about how the food system is fundamentally set against unpasteurised ferments and how we can fix that. Unfortunately there was no time to expose the kahm hoax, so that will have to wait for another episode.

James Read's book Of Cabbages & Kimchi is available in all good bookshops now, his paper 'Living Fermented Foods and Drinks' is available online, and you can find him on Instagram and BlueSky.

Hosted by Robin Sherriff.

Original music & editing by David Craigie.