Ferment Radio

Migrating birds, shipwreck survivors, extraterrestrial bodies, distant seeds washed ashore, outsiders in love, forgotten memories, and rare ingredients that become staple foods. This is Hiiumaa, an island in the Baltic Sea, 22 kilometers from mainland Estonia: a field laboratory to investigate “what is foreign”. In collaboration with plants, flavors, human voices, and insular soundscapes, we ferment a sonic journey to discover what it means to become a local.

This is the 1st episode of the World in a Pickle, Ferment Radio’s mini-series focused on understanding geopolitical complexities through fermented foods.

You enter a restaurant in a historical art nouveau building, right in the center of Helsinki, Finland. You sit down and a person wearing a stylish uniform, made of discarded textiles, pours water into a glass that is made out of a used bottle. You look around and wait for your food. There’s not a single trash bin. Instead, there is a stainless steel, sci-fi-looking piece of furniture, which turns out to be a composter nicknamed Lauri. Finally, your dish comes on a plate made from waste clay. It looks and it tastes delicious. Your food is waste-free too.

Welcome to Nolla, the first zero-waste restaurant in the Nordic countries. In this episode, we chat with one of its founders Albert Franch Sunyer about establishing and running a zero-waste restaurant, with a little help from microbes, of course.

Two hundread years ago, the very first illustration of prehistoric times –in a scientific context– was brought to light. It was painted by British geologist and palaeontologist Henry De la Beche, who was inspired by fossils collected by Mary Anning. The artwork, known as “Duria Antiquior, a more ancient Dorset”, cuts through costal waters to depict the epic – and strangely simultaneous– battles between different marine species.

But, hey, wait a minute! Did these species ever meet? Why are they so violent? How come there are no depictions of cyanobacteria “dominating” the planet 3 bilions years ago? Maybe this representation tells us more about humans than about prehistoric animals.

Welcome to a brand new episode of Ferment Radio full of stories to be retold, deep time, cyanobacteria, and the inevitable fate that awaits all species: extinction. We are guided by Björn Kröger’s expertise in marine paleoecology, paleobiology, and his interest in the history and philosophy of Earth sciences. Björn is also the Curator of the Paleontological Collections at the Finnish Museum of Natural History in Helsinki, and a docent at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Let´s take a trip in time!

Bacteria are often considered ugly and stinky; something dangerous that wants to get on us, and that we need to protect ourselves from. Fermentation is one way to overcome that prejudice and find pleasure and beauty in what many people fear, misunderstand, or even loathe. Another way is art, which can utilize microorganisms as metaphors and aesthetic experiences. But, do things need to be pretty so they can talk to us?

In this episode of Ferment Radio,  we go on a journey through the artistic work of Anna Dumitriu. Her interdisciplinary practice merges art, science, and technology to explore issues around health, disease, and the societal impact of scientific progress. Anna collaborates closely with scientists and historians, incorporating biological materials like bacteria and DNA into her installations, sculptures, and performances. Through her work, she invites viewers to reconsider common perceptions of the natural world.

We choose our tools, and in return, our tools shape us. Tools can be an opening to new possibilities, but also a limitation. What makes the workspace of a fermenter? What tools are there available? How do these tools influence the process?

In this episode, we sneak peek into the kitchen of David Zilber, chef, fermenter, food scientist, and author of The Noma Guide to Fermentation. Guided by David’s voice, and powered by imagination, we stroll around his lab at Chr. Hansen in Hørsholm, Denmark.

This is the second part of our interview with David Zilber. Check out episode 36 to learn more about the importance of  “little” ferments in the “big” food system.

It looks like a square, monochromatic, glass slide photo, and not only because of the material it is made of, but also because it could belong to a different time. It feels as if the face that emerges from there and gazes at you must have posed for a very long time for the exposure to do its job. Only if you could stare at it uninterruptedly for days, or years, would you be able to notice that the image is in constant change. It is alive. It comes from nowhere, and disappears into what comes next. It is called yeastogram.

Yeastograms are living images made of yeast cultures growing on agar plates and carved with UV light. One of the people who have mastered this technique is Johanna Rotko, a visual artist based in Lahti, Finland. Yeastograms are a lot about fine-tuning the technology. But it goes beyond that. It is also about bringing the imagery of deceased people back to life, waiting for the uncontrollable to do its job, killing and letting live. In other words, it is about time. It is about patience.

She asks the plants for permission before foraging them. She sings to her fermentation jars. She prepares funerals for her kombucha scobies. She gives names to her ferments. She observes the moon cycles. She’s a witch. But what does it mean to be a witch today?

I asked this to Paulina Gretkierewicz, a forager, a fermenter, and a witch. She transforms seasons and landscapes around Copenhagen, Denmark into edible and drinkable experiences. She calls this “Applied Poetry”, which is also the name of her business, focused largely on handpicked, fermented, and oxidized teas.

Let’s ferment our way into becoming a witch.

Have you ever heard of slime mold?

These organisms might not have a nervous system or even a brain, but they have impressive problem-solving abilities. Slime mold can navigate through mazes and find the most efficient routes to find food. Some researchers have already been inspired by them to design more efficient transportation networks, urban planning, and solving optimizational problems. However, they are shrouded in a haze of mystery. They are hard to like, observe, and classify.

In this episode, together with Heather Barnett, an artist and university professor at Central Saint Martins University of the Arts London, working with natural phenomena, complex systems, and playful pedagogies, we look at slime mold beyond their instrumental features and focus on their intrinsical importance as a remarkable lifeform. Instead of thinking: What can we extract from these species? We want to ask ourselves: What can we actually learn from them?

Join us in this fascinating and meandering, or shall we say, “slimemoldesque” conversation.

A healthy food system encourages the production and consumption of foods that support a balanced gut microbiome. It reduces food waste and gives preference to natural preservation methods. It uplifts food, not only for its nutritional value but also as cultural heritage and an expression of diversity. It is also mindful of the energy spent in order to process food.

All these characteristics of a healthy food system sound very much like the definition of fermented foods. It may seem like a simple solution, but diagnosing and improving the complexity of the food system, which is both global and fragmented,  is a huge challenge.

There are not that many people in the world who can say they have extensive hands-on experience working in different areas of that vast system. David Zilber is definitely one of them. From a butcher shop in Toronto to the Fermentation Lab of the acclaimed restaurant Noma, Copenhagen, and to the labs of Chr. Hansen, a giant bioscience company in Hørsholm, Denmark, David Zilber has garnered multiple and fascinating perspectives on food and the system around it. Ferment Radio had the pleasure to talk with David in his own lab, where we reflected more about this incredible journey and his ever-evolving views on the food system that we are all part of.