The Noma Guide to Fermentation: Including koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, vinegars, garums, lacto-ferments, and black fruits and vegetables (Foundations of Flavor)

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However, some of the fermentation projects listed can be considered fairly complicated and not ideal for beginners. For example, making Koji, Garum, or Shoyu will probably be too much for a complete beginner. I sneak a little bit of that into the book in the miso chapter, when I equate this Korean idea of son-mat (or hand-taste, meaning each fermenter’s product will taste a bit different each time) to chaos theory. There are parallels between the way fermentation happens and the way the universe happens and I think it’s beautiful,” he says before stopping himself. “Is that too much?” I did some weirrrrd projects,” Zilber says about what helped earn his promotion from chef de partie to director of the lab in 18 months.

Alcohol: Noma often ferments sugar into alcohol, but it’s not for drinking. It’s the first stage of their vinegar creating process. Instead of brewing in-house, they happily leave the work to brewers and winemakers, and “don’t pretend to be masters of their domain”. Whether our frenzied society is really capable of adopting the slow methods of fermentation or not doesn’t seem to matter to Zilber. “It’s just shared knowledge,” he says. “But if people do it, they will become more invested in what they eat. How it’s going to change cuisine going forward and people’s understanding of what cooking is when people understand that all those traditional [fermentation] recipes are toolboxes they can then use to further manipulate the world of food into whatever direction you want.” People that are interested in more casual fermentation recipes may not find The Noma’s Guide to Fermentation very useful as many of the recipes can be fairly complicated. The science lab at Noma is the perfect culinary incubator to take on an in-depth study of fermentation. I am thrilled that Redzepi and Zilber have given us access to their diligent research as they offer us the recipes for their most successful, and delicious, results!"

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Each section begins with an overview of the process and how it works and then offers several different recipes. There is also plenty of information and step-by-step directions with pictures.

Reveals] the foodie secret of the world’s top chef. . . . Promises to be the canonical western work on microbial terroir.” Reveals] the foodie secret of the world's top chef. . . . Promises to be the canonical western work on microbial terroir." Noma didn’t start out as a fermentation-forward restaurant, but over the years Redzepi has found growing inspiration in the process’s elements of wildness and unpredictability. In the book, Redzepi writes passionately of “microbial terroir”—the unique character added to any fermentation project by the yeasts and bacteria of a specific region, a concept very much in keeping with Noma’s obsessive focus on Scandinavian ingredients and terrain. Last year, the restaurant briefly closed, for a move and a creative hiatus; at the new Noma, Redzepi told me, every dish served has a fermented element, whether it’s slices of abalone pan-fried in rice koji flour or lacto-fermented mushrooms, dehydrated, candied, and dipped in dark chocolate, delivered as the valedictory note of a dozen-course meal. The Noma Guide to Fermentation,” from the chefs René Redzepi and David Zilber, draws new inspiration from an ancient process. Photograph by Evan Sung / Foundations of Flavor: The Noma Guide to Fermentation The science lab at Noma is the perfect culinary incubator to take on an in-depth study of fermentation. I am thrilled that Redzepi and Zilber have given us access to their diligent research as they offer us the recipes for their most successful, and delicious, results!”All instructions are very straightforward, clear, and easy to follow. Whenever a question would pop up in my mind, the authors would answer it almost immediately. The Noma Guide to Fermentation gathers detailed recipes for the restaurant's most successful discoveries, documents the current state of the craft they've helped advance, and offers a superb introduction for chefs and home cooks alike to the practicalities and pleasures of cooking with microbes."

In "The Noma Guide to Fermentation," René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of Noma, and David Zilber, the chef in charge of his renowned fermentation lab, share unique techniques used to produce the restaurant's vast pantry of ferments. In the detailed, intelligent Noma Guide to Fermentation . . . accessibility is the goal. . . . What's astounding about this book, coming from Noma, is that the recipe for lacto fermented blueberries is simple, easy, well laid out, presented with options (like many of the recipes here) based on your preferences or available equipment. Most recipes are followed by suggestions that seem delicious, and again, astoundingly sane."Good quality ingredients! Or as the French say, “ matière première”. Your ferments are only as good as the products that go into them. Sourcing the best apples you can will yield you the best apple kombucha; the best legumes you can find will produce the best miso you can make. What a lot of people often fail to understand is that fermentation IS cooking, it just happens more slowly.