Fermentation, Reconsidered

A discipline, not a trend

For most people, fermentation begins with wine.

Not because it is the oldest fermented food, or the most complex, or the most universal—but because it is the one fermentation we are taught to take seriously. Wine is granted patience. Wine is allowed to fail. Wine is discussed in terms of weather, sugar, acidity, vessels, time, and restraint. No one is surprised when a vintage differs from the last. No one expects speed. No one believes control is absolute.

Wine is fermentation with dignity.

That familiarity matters, because it reveals something quietly unsettling: we already know how fermentation should be treated. We simply forgot to apply that standard elsewhere.

Fermentation Before It Was Fashion

Fermentation did not emerge from curiosity. It emerged from necessity.

Long before refrigeration, preservation was not optional. Abundance arrived in brief windows—harvests, hunts, seasons—and survival depended on extending those moments forward. Fermentation solved that problem by allowing food to transform rather than rot. It slowed spoilage, deepened flavor, altered texture, and—critically—introduced time as an active ingredient.

This discovery happened everywhere, independently. Grapes became wine. Milk became cheese. Soybeans became miso. Fish became garum. Cabbage became sauerkraut. Grain became bread and beer. Different inputs, different microbes, same laws.

Fermentation was never about novelty. It was about continuity.

What Is Actually Doing the Work

Fermentation is not magic, though it often feels like it. It is biology under constraint.

Yeasts convert sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Lactic acid bacteria consume sugars and produce acidity. Molds break down proteins and starches into amino acids and sugars, creating depth and savor. These organisms are always present. Fermentation is not about introducing life so much as deciding which life is allowed to thrive.

That decision is made through environment: salt, sugar, water, temperature, oxygen, time.

Wine makes this explicit. Sugar levels are measured. Temperatures are monitored. Oxygen exposure is managed. Vessels—stainless steel, concrete, oak—are chosen deliberately. When fermentation stalls or runs hot, consequences follow.

In many contemporary fermented foods, that rigor disappears. Fermentation is treated as an aesthetic rather than a system. The microbes are expected to behave, even when the conditions are careless.

They don’t.

Salt, Sugar, and Control

Salt is not seasoning in fermentation. It is regulation.

Salt slows microbial activity, suppresses unwanted organisms, and creates space for others to dominate. Too little, and fermentation races toward spoilage. Too much, and it arrests entirely. Sugar functions similarly—not as sweetness, but as fuel. Without enough, fermentation starves. With too much, it overwhelms balance.

Water matters just as much. Water activity determines texture before flavor ever emerges. It dictates how quickly salt penetrates, how microbes move, how cell walls collapse or hold.

Wine culture respects these levers instinctively. Sugar is measured at harvest. Water dilution is debated fiercely. Adjustments are controversial because they alter the system, not just the taste.

Elsewhere, ratios are often treated casually. Recipes replace observation. The result is food that tastes fermented without understanding fermentation.

Time: The Variable That Cannot Be Replaced

Time is fermentation’s most unforgiving requirement.

There is no shortcut that produces the same outcome. Speed alters chemistry. Short fermentations emphasize acidity and freshness. Long fermentations develop umami, roundness, integration. Neither is superior—but they are not interchangeable.

Wine again provides the clearest lesson. Young wines taste of fruit and structure. Aged wines taste of transformation. No amount of technique can substitute for waiting. And waiting carries risk: oxidation, volatility, microbial deviation.

That risk is the price of depth.

In modern kitchens, fermentation is often rushed to meet service cycles. The result is sharpness without complexity, funk without balance. Time is simulated through acidity, smoke, or additives. The illusion works briefly. It never lasts.

Environment Still Wins

Fermentation is inseparable from place.

Temperature dictates speed. Humidity shapes surface activity. Airflow determines mold development. Vessels influence evaporation, oxygen exchange, and microbial colonies. A cellar behaves differently than a walk-in. A winter ferment behaves differently than a summer one.

Wine has always acknowledged this. Growing season, sun exposure, diurnal shifts, harvest timing—all shape fermentation before it begins. The cellar merely responds.

Food fermentation is rediscovering this truth, often clumsily. Controlled environments promise consistency but flatten character. Uncontrolled environments promise authenticity but invite failure. The discipline lies in knowing which risks are acceptable.

Place is not romance. It is physics.

Failure as Teacher

Fermentation fails more often than it succeeds. That is not a flaw—it is the curriculum.

Off aromas, surface molds, textural collapse, bitterness, excessive gas: these are not mistakes so much as signals. Experienced fermenters trust smell, touch, and taste over timers and charts. They learn when to wait and when to discard.

Wine culture accepts loss as part of the work. Entire vats are dumped without apology. Vintage variation is not hidden; it is documented.

Elsewhere, failure is disguised. Fermented foods are trimmed, acidified, sweetened, or blended until defects are muted. The result is safety, not excellence.

Fermentation demands humility. It does not reward confidence.

Tradition, Misused

Traditional fermented foods evolved slowly because they had to. Kimchi was not designed for menus. Miso was not meant to be a garnish. Shoyu, garum, vinegar—these were daily tools, not statements.

Modern reinterpretations often strip fermentation of its context. Techniques are borrowed without the systems that supported them. The result is flavor without foundation.

Fermentation adds depth when it serves a purpose. It becomes noise when it exists only to signal effort.

Taste, Finally

When fermentation is done well, the mouth knows immediately.

Acidity is rounded, not sharp. Umami arrives quietly, then lingers. Texture softens without collapsing. Aromas feel integrated rather than loud. The food tastes alive—not because it is trendy, but because it is balanced.

Wine drinkers recognize this instinctively. Balance matters more than intensity. Integration matters more than novelty. The same palate logic applies everywhere else.

Fermentation does not guarantee pleasure. It only makes it possible.

Why It Returned Now

Fermentation did not return because it is new. It returned because industrial food removed time from the equation. Refrigeration preserved freshness but erased depth. Scale demanded predictability. Flavor flattened.

Fermentation reintroduced uncertainty—and with it, meaning.

But meaning is fragile. Without discipline, fermentation becomes another aesthetic. Without patience, another shortcut. Without restraint, another performance.

Wine has already taught us how this ends. Respect the process, or the bottle tells the truth.

What Fermentation Actually Demands

Fermentation asks very little and requires everything.

It demands observation instead of control. Acceptance instead of certainty. Willingness to lose product in exchange for understanding. It rewards attention, not authority.

We already know this. We’ve always known it. We just confined that knowledge to wine and forgot the rest of the table.

Fermentation is not a trend to follow.

It is a standard to meet.

And it has been waiting patiently for us to remember.

For a sensory exploration of what time leaves behind on the palate — texture, balance, and restraint — see The Taste of Time.