Book Review: Our Fermented Lives, A History: How Fermented Foods Have Shapes Cultures and Communities by Julia Skinner

• Title: Our Fermented Lives, A History: How Fermented Foods Have Shapes Cultures and Communities
• Author: Julia Skinner
• Year: 2022

I received this book as a gift, and thanks to life interferences have slowly but surely read it over the past few months. This worked to my advantage, since Our Fermented Lives is an impeccably researched work that addresses a lot of difficult matters head-on. Featuring a 21-page, small-type bibliography, the book not only unveils the history of fermentation around the world but also its relationship to issues such as colonialism, gentrification, and intersectional identity politics.

This is a history and social commentary, not a cookbook. Skinner does include a few recipes in the book, but while they’re decent I feel they distract from the otherwise academic and thought-provoking text. The book would have been as valuable without them; with them the purpose of the work feels muddied. For the most part, I feel they’d have been better placed in an appendix, an online companion work, or in a completely separate book.

That nit aside, this book was a good read that I recommend to anyone who wishes to consume and create more mindfully.