Our first 3 events of #FermentsandCultures2021 present techniques such as making shio-koji, using koji as an agent to create foods from otherwise wasted food sources, African spice blends and cultures of the diaspora of Africans throughout the world, the creation of Caribbean and Creole food, Corn fermentation and uses in drinks, baked goods, misos and pickles and a lot more.
$45 for the first 3 events or $20 each unless you are a scheduled presenter for any event, an intern, or event manager. Use paypal.me/FermentsandCultures
Contact us at kojiandpickles@gmail.com to discuss presentations, videos, interviews, talks you would like to create, or to become an intern or volunteer. We are actively soliciting input from people worldwide to share one or more videos for future sessions from April to December.
Each event has a live Zoom event at the following time and dates, Eastern Standard.
• January 31 – 12 PM to 1:30 PM Eastern Time – Diaspora of Africa
• March 21, 2021 – 10 AM to 12 PM Corn, Squash, Root Vegetables – Tempe, Misos, Tempe, Drinks, Sauces and Baked goods
• April 11, 2021 – 10 AM to 12 PM Tonics and Ferments
All videos are always at Vimeo.com/culturesgroup Some may be in a specific showcase, either visible or hidden to anyone without the passcode to get in. Our videos are always password protected. You must have both the showcase address, and the passcode for a specific event.
Continuums, like life.
塩麹の調味特性 by 前橋 健二 and another scientific paper by 塩麹製造での熟成温度が残存酵素活性に及ぼす影響 and another by Maehashi Kenji San et al (大戸亜梨花 ，山本達彦 ，浅利妙峰 柏木 豊) really determined the rate of enzyme production, including which specific enzymes, are produced at a specific salinity level, temperature, and time.
There is no such thing as a traditional way of making shio koji if you accept that it was recently discovered by some woman in Japan, anyway. That’s hagiography. 5% or 10% salt depends on lots of other factors.
There are immutable principles of fermentation that effect if not change the fresh to rotten continuum of all things organic: water, temperature, salt, oxygen, density, time. Of course controlling the actual contained environment makes a big difference.
Covering a ferment can limit exposure to wild yeasts and other organisms not inherent in what you are fermenting. As can contained water. Or what each ingredient contains. Garlic, pepper, alcohol, anything with a specific PH as well.
With filamentous fungus, both the inoculation of whatever you choice as a substrate can be manipulated by the same factors, as can the fermentation created with your enzymatically rich substrates, if the substrate itself is not the final goal (for example, squash and corn tempe or a brined amino sauce).
Want to create a koji with a higher amount of proteases? Reduce access to oxygen. Inoculate at a temperature at least 15 degrees less than you would if trying to produce glucoamylases or amylases. Never exceed 2% sodium. Use the appropriate spores or koji kin.
After you have your finished koji what happens to it depends on where you want your final product to be on the koji continuum. Not only does the substrate for your original inoculation, i.e., rice, legumes, fruits, nuts, tubers, etc.matter greatly, so do water, temperature, salt, oxygen, density – along with time, obviously – and what you ferment with it determine where the fermentation on the koji continuum exists.
People often consider all these factors as part of a recipe, but conceptualizing it as a technique that can be applied to local resources more parallels the actual history of the uses of most microbes.
Recipes are when you can pick what tastes, aromas, textures, colors, enzymes and even microbes exist in your shio-koji, amasake, miso, fish sauce, hangs, pickles, preserved meats or condiments. The ferments of the Sudan and other African countries are especially brilliant at using seasonal ingredients and other otherwise inedible or inaccessible calorie sources.
The preservation or fermentation of food and water contained within to survive during periods of time when the environment determined what could be grown, forged or hunted was the key to survival. Knowing the technique is what matters when you have to survive on what is available, as well as when you cook, ferment, or preserve anything.
