Kombucha Club
“Are you serious?! How are we supposed to run a Fermentation Club without kombucha?”
“You can ferment anything you want, just not beverages. Parents are concerned you might brew alcohol on campus.”
Maybe this isn’t worth the effort, I thought. We’re just pickling things, is it really all that important? Little did I know just how much fermentation would shape my life.
I came prepared on the first day with Noma’s famous fermentation cookbook. However, club members balked when I insisted that we meticulously follow its 3% salt ratios and sterilization techniques. So the following week I didn’t say anything when we made our miso with the wrong type of mold-inoculated rice. So what if it turned out too watery? I started to learn an important lesson about leadership: people tend to learn better (and have more fun) when they have the opportunity to make their own mistakes.
Along with a more relaxed approach to leadership came a more relaxed approach to school in general. “It smells like something’s dying in there,” my teacher Stephanie complained as she pulled me out of Physics to remove a crock of rotting sauerkraut. It was easy in that moment to laugh at myself and embrace my new identity as the girl who stinks up the Chem Room. That sense of humor soon spread to other aspects of my life. I began associating school with laughter. When I got a less than ideal grade on a test, botched a presentation, or couldn’t handle my homework load, I was able to exhale, stay curious, and try again.
Fermentation also started to bring my academic pursuits to life, deepening my connection with biology, chemistry, and early history. Once we did a lab to measure the alcohol content of a fermented sugar solution. (Much to the administration’s relief, this alcohol was not fit for consumption.) We learned about the process of ethanol fermentation, a type of anaerobic respiration used by single cell organisms long before oxygen was present on Earth 2.5 billion years ago. Watching the alcohol content rise, it felt as though I was witnessing a process which was far greater than myself, or human history. In Fermentation Club, I’m a time traveler, observing ancient worlds.
With fermentation, I’m also able to better appreciate my own family history and our traditions. Like most Romanians in her generation, my mother has vivid childhood memories of fermenting entire watermelons in the fall and rotating fresh air into the vats of green tomatoes in her cellar during the winter. This summer, when I took my first trip to Romania in several years, I found a new way to connect with my grandmother. Borscht. Borscht is a sour vegetable soup made with a cornmeal and barley starter that is—you guessed it—fermented. Seeing my interest, my grandmother called her friends to find a starter for me. We made conversation as she taught me our family’s ancient borscht recipe, which has been passed down from grandmother to granddaughter for generations.
But it’s not just family history I’m investigating, I’m learning about world history too. Did you know that kombucha dates back to the Qin Dynasty, where it is said that Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi enjoyed the health benefits of this probiotic drink? There is even a mention of a fermented vinegar “health elixir” in the Bible (Ruth 2:14). Somehow this seemingly insignificant fizzy drink has woven its way into history and religion. By replicating these recipes in Fermentation Club, we’re not just following a health trend, we’re preserving living history.
Fermentation has allowed me to embrace my connection to science, my culture, and history, and helps me approach stressful situations with more humility and levity. I’m not sure I would have become my school’s student body president if it weren’t for Fermentation Club, and not just because of the reputation I gained after that unfortunate sauerkraut incident.