Talks and Essays

A bubbling, stinking, compendium of the history, cultures, sciences, and preparation of rotten-delicious foods and drinks.

A brief primer on carefully controlled rot

Aviaja Hauptmann, an Inuk microbiologist, discusses the role that Inuit fermentation has played and has the potential to play in the future.

Examining the story of yeast and how it reminds us about and elucidates the workings of evolution and natural selection more generally

Origins of bread have been associated with the development of farming communities that cultivated and domesticated cereals in the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago. However, recent discoveries show that bread was not a product of farming, but perhaps something which fueled it.

Exploring the beginnings of milk fermentation using ancient protein analyses at ancient archaeological sites in Turkey, Mongolia and elsewhere

Vivian Howard will tell the story of her ride from a small North Carolina city to New York and back, a story that is far from over and features a wildly successful television show, a growing number of restaurants and a starring role in the transformation of Kinston.

In this presentation, Neil Rusch draws on the archaeological record in support of a long-term chronology involving bees and cognitive development. A deep time perspective also accounts for the occurrence of bees in the ethnography, rock paintings and mythology of the region.

Rob Dunn discusses the intersection between fermentation and flavor, focusing on the ways in which smell and taste may have allowed our ancestors to begin to distinguish safe ferments from dangerous ones long before they could even speak.

A conversation on Neanderthal cooking, tastes, and the extent to which Neanderthals had local culinary cultures.

For 6,000 years–since breads were first baked in the Fertile Crescent until the end of the 19th century–the staff of life was made by hand from only four ingredients: flour, water, salt, and a sourdough culture of wild yeast and bacteria.

Sally Grainger walks us through her experimentations with garum and how to differentiate ancient sauces (including rare Mediterranean survivals, namely colatura de alici and pissalat) from the modern forms in the east.

From regional pickles to apples fermented in pumpkin puree, an exploration of Ukranian traditional recipes

In this talk, Patricia Jurado Gonzalez, Gojko Barjamovic and Pia Sörensen from Harvard University will introduce the history and science of the recipes, as well as their team’s efforts interpreting and reproducing them.

Cheesemaking is an ancient means of preserving milk. But is cheese made from raw milk inherently riskier than cheese made from pasteurized milk?

Explore the foods and, especially, the fermented foods of ancient Mesopotamia. A look at ancient recipes, royal inscriptions, administrative records, archaeological remains, artistic works, and more on our culinary tour through the famous “land between the rivers."

Learn about the illustrious history of fermented vegetables, the science behind it, and how simple it is to ferment vegetables yourself at home.

Joshua Evans will talk about experiments with novel misos he has conducted among chefs and fermenters in some of Copenhagen’s leading kitchens.

Here Katie shares data describing patterns of fermented food consumption in primates and link it to the existing fermentation literature to provide new insight into the evolution of fermented food consumption by humans.