Welcome to Emergence Magazine's podcast. I'm Emanuel Vaughn Lee, executive editor of Emergence

Magazine, located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Mewalk people of present-day

Marin County. Each week, we feature a new interview, narrated essay, or story, exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.

Sandor Katz is a world-renowned leader in the field of fermentation, and the author of numerous books,

including the acclaimed New York Times bestseller,

The Art of Fermentation.

I recently spoke with Sandor about his new book,

Fermmentation as Metaphor,

and the liberating and connecting experience

offered through engagement with microbial communities.

He shares that this simple act of fermentation can give rise to deeply into the moments of connection

with the magic of the invisible forces that transform our foods and our lives, generation by generation.

You describe yourself as a fermentation revivalist.

So I wonder if we could start by having you share a bit about what that means to you.

Well, sure.

I mean, the reason I started calling myself a fermentation revivalist is just, you know, my sense at how common fermentation has been in the not too distant past. And it's so integral to all of our food traditions. Like, you know, whatever part of the world our ancestors

came from, you know, fermentation is an essential part of how people make effective use of whatever

food resources are available to them. But in the last several generations and at different

paces in different parts of the world, you know, people have become

increasingly distanced from the production of food and all of the processes that we use to

transform the raw products of agriculture into all of the foods that people eat and drink.

And it so happens at the same time period where,

...