Of Cabbages and Kimchi

A playful and accessible guide to fermenting at homeJames Read is on a mission to smuggle bacteria into our kitchens. In Of Cabbages & Kimchi, he takes the ten greatest 'living' ferments - fermented foods that are neither cooked nor pasteurized - and places them under the microscope, before cooking with them in all their delicious versatility. From the fiery funk of kimchi to the velvet tang of kefir, James describes the microbial process, then shares his recipes for recreating these wonders in your own kitchen - no specialist equipment required. Alongside his recipes, James investigates the extraordinary cultural and historic backgrounds of fermented foods, exploring how the microbes that bring them to life have developed alongside our culinary evolution. Featuring over fifty recipes - including Mushroom and Sauerkraut Pierogi, Chilled Radish Noodle Soup and Green Chilli Fermented Salsa - and packed to the brim with Marija Tiurina's gastro-surrealist watercolour illustrations, Of Cabbages and Kimchi will help you create, understand and appreciate fermentation's bubbling magic.

Lovely... delightful... enchanting, One of the most user-friendly fermented food books out there, A fantastically thorough introductory guide to the wild wonderland of fermentation. Through his own journey with kimchi, and then literally everything else, James Read captures the unbridled joy of discovery, a joy that he contagiously passes on with scores of fun, feasible recipes, while Marija Tiurina's accompanying illustrations bring this magical microbial world to life with imagery that would make Lewis Carroll proud. I give Of Cabbages & Kimchi 5 out of 5 crockpots, A fizzing global tour of the magic and mysteries of fermentation, from sauerkraut to yoghurt, soy sauce to kombucha. Packed with cultural, historical and scientific insights, James Read's debut book is both a fascinating read and a practical kitchen guide. I am clearly going to have to start making my own soy sauce!, Delightfully enthusiastic ... James Read writes about these "fizzy foods" with a spirit of humorous exploration, an atmosphere reinforced by the book's surreal illustrations from Marija Tiurina ... There are already several excellent books about fermentation, but Read brings a freshness to the subject, which gave me an itch to do more of it... This one is a hit

James Read is the founder of Kim Kong Kimchi, a company that's made tens of thousands of jars of kimchi distributed through hundreds of stores across Europe. Kim Kong Kimchi has given James the opportunity to build his own walk-in remotely-monitored fermentarium, write an array of fizz-related spreadsheets and address audiences from London's Chinatown to Copenhagen on the wonders of fermented foods. He adores research, reading peer-reviewed papers on microbiota, hunting out ingredient origin myths and running A/B tests on fermenting pineapple cores.