Best book on Fermenting foods? page

[DinoHunter]

I was looking for a book on fermented foods & found the following...
Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz
&
Fermenting Food for Health: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen by Alex Lewin

Anyone read these? any good? which ones best? Or is there another book thats better?

[Lewis]

I've got the top one. A fair bit of the book is taken up with vegetarian politics and gay politics, and I guess if one wanted that one would have bought a book on that. To me it was irrelevant digression. (I'm not sure the anecdotes about people with twee and rather self-conscious names add a lot either.) There's a fair bit on the politics of food, too -- which is kind of relevant, but one would probably want to go to a more knowledgable source like Joel Salatin for that. The recipes and directions are competent enough. He got a big gun in for the foreword, too -- the godmother of the ancestral food movement, Sally Fallon.

Yeah, it's OK. It's more a set of musings around the notion of fermented foods with some directions thrown in than a straightforward how-to. I guess there's good precedent for that in the food world. I suppose people don't read Elizabeth David for the recipes. But then this man isn't Elizabeth David. I enjoyed it, but you might want to be aware that it's rather discursive in case that's not what you're looking for.

I don't know the other book. You can probably find quite a lot of information online, if you're not sure you want to spend the money.

[DinoHunter]

Very helpful.
Yeah, If I wanna read on vegi politics & what not.. ill buy a book on it.. I want something that will just straightforward tell me how to do the fermenting for difrent things etc.. Id like a book cause that means I can put it right where im working to refer from...
withought having to keep switching it on (ipad hates me)
Plus theres just something about a book that beats reading online.. probably the knowlage that if I fry another computer. im not going to loose all that info (am on computer #5 in the last 10 years for the record)

[magicmerl]

I don't know either of those books well enough to comment on them. In our house THE fermenting book is 'Nourishing Traditions'.

[DinoHunter]

I don't know either of those books well enough to comment on them. In our house THE fermenting book is 'Nourishing Traditions'.

I saw that one but it looked like it was more general info/recipes with only a small section on fermenting foods

[BestBetter]

Is there anything specific you're looking for in a fermentation book?

I have Wild Fermentation, and I think it's really good if you're looking for some new ideas, he covers a lot of different fermentaton ideas from around the world, lots of stuff I never heard of before, so I think it's especially good if you're looking to experiment, and are tired of basic lacto-fermentation type stuff.

And while I totally understand the preference for books over internet resources, if you're really just looking for some basic lacto-fermentation directions, then a site like this, in my opinion, is more helpful:

Fermented Food Recipes | Paleo Diet Lifestyle

[DinoHunter]

I'm looking for something that give a wide range of fermented food/drinks and straightforward info on how to do it without using technical jargon you need to be a rocket scientist to make sense of.

I think im leaning towards this one (amazon pre-veiw is really helpful when they actually put more than 3 pages on )
Fermenting Food for Health: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen: Amazon.co.uk: Alex Lewin: Books

Plus they talk about making mead ... I love mead (commercial stuff just isent that good though)

[seaweed]

i've got wild fermentation and i like it. i didnt even really notice the vege and gay politics. i find other povs interesting anyways. the recipes are good and he is creative. can you borrow a copy out the library to check out how useful you find it?

[DinoHunter]

The library here is useless, its tiny & dosent have squat unless you wanna read "Twilight..my boyfreinds a psycotic pasty gett".

[seaweed]

2 funny. as i said before, i havent read the second book or even seen a copy but i did like wild fermentation. it does have mead recipes in too. i made some of the ethopian honey wine or whatever it was which was literally just 25% honey and 75% water and leave to ferment. from memory i put ginger in mine and it was super yummy.