Our common nature is a musical journey with Yo-Yo Ma and me, Ana Gonzalez, through this

complicated country.

We go into caves, onto boats, and up mountain trails to meet people, hear their stories,

their poetry, and of course, play some music, all to reconnect to nature and get closer to the things we're missing.

Listen to Our Common Nature from WNYC, wherever you get podcasts.

Now, what about the culture?

I can use a yogurt, would be a plain yogurt, right, that I buy in the store. Yeah. I mean, you could use any

plain yogurt as a starter. The problem is that that'll be great for one batch. It'll be pretty

good for the second batch. By the third, fourth, fifth generation, it will be less and less

yogurt-like. After wondering about this, you know, kind of paradox for some

years, because of course, how could a food have gotten passed down for generation after generation

if it didn't really have the ability to effectively perpetuate itself? I finally got a hold of

what I would call an heirloom yogurt culture, which is really different than the ones that are

in use by commercial manufacturers. The commercial manufacturers are using starters based upon

isolated bacterial strains, a couple of them added together, whereas the traditional heirloom

cultures were literally these evolved communities of bacteria that have a structure to them.

And part of that structure is really defense strategies to sort of protect themselves as a community from other random bacteria in the environment.

So these heirloom cultures, which are available online if you search for them, you know, really can give you something that you can use over and over and over again.

And I would estimate that I've done about 60 generations from the Bulgarian heirloom culture that I've been using.

Can you control that flavor and texture with the kind of culture that you use?

Or is it the amount of fat in the yogurt?

Or is it the time?

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