My macro- and micro- food writing life

Fitting the universe into a jar, or onto a page

Last year, I wrote about flowerkraut and tea-based kraut. In a recent conversation, I noted that the process of making and writing about these foods also made me think about reciprocity and creativity, how those concepts interweave into my work.

Our concept of food connecting to everything doesn’t have to be just emotional or historical: These connections are rooted in the physical world, and thus those emotional, historical, and community connections are too.

Science tells us, for example, that we, and the food we make, all contain star stuff (to paraphrase the famous quote from Carl Sagan). We also know that the microbes we work with in our kitchens evolved alongside us, and we evolved from microbes, connecting our culinary and fermentative practices back deep in time.

This is why I and others often refer to fermentation as a universe in a jar: You are connected to space, and time, to all the hands that made that food before you, to the microbes of whatever place you’re in: Your jar contains microcosms and macrocosms.