Of bread and beer

"Fermentation is the process of preserving food and transforming its flavor by subjecting it to beneficial bacteria, or microflora. For Katz, fermentation is an essential culinary technique, a health regimen, and a political act. "We humans are in a symbiotic relationship with single-cell organisms," he writes in Wild Fermentation. "Microflora ... digest food into nutrients our bodies can absorb, protect us from potentially dangerous organisms, and teach our immune systems to function." In a country almost clinically obsessed with sterilization -- with waging war on the trillions of dread germs that permeate air, land, water, and our bodies -- Katz reminds us of the forgotten benefits of living in harmony with our microbial relatives." (Thanks Rania)