Fermented Vegetables Historical PersPective

Historical PersPective The wide variety of fermented foods can be classified by the products of the fermentation, such as alcohol (beer, wine); organic acids, including lactic acid and acetic acid (vegetables, dairy); carbon dioxide (bread); and amino acids or peptides from protein (fish fermentations and others) (35, 56, 96, 97). Food fermentation is one of the earliest technologies developed by humans. Littoral foragers in Asia during the primitive pottery age (8000 to 3000 b.c.) are believed to have fermented vegetables prior to the development of crop-based agriculture (57). Dairy fermentations in the Middle East likely followed the domestication of cattle around this time. It is likely that the first product of fermentation to be discovered was alcohol from fermented fruits. More sophisticated fermentation skills using cereals to make alcohol were developed around 4000 b.c., with beer produced in Egypt and rice wine in northeast Asia (56). Early written references to fermentation technology in Asia are found in the historic Chinese book of poems Shijing (1100 to 600 b.c.), which celebrates “the thousand wines of Yao,” a reference to a kingdom in China from 2300 b.c. It is believed that cucumbers were first fermented around 2000 b.c. in the Middle East. Early written records of cucumber pickles come from paper fragment remains of a play (The Taxiarchs) by the Greek writer Eupolis (429–412 b.c.), and pickles are also mentioned several times in the Christian Bible. Korean-style fermented cabbage, kimchi, is thought to have originated in the primitive pottery age from the natural fermentation of withered vegetables stored in seawater (56). Early references to kimchi include the Korean poem “Gapoyugyeong in Donggugisanggukjip” by Yi Kyu-Bo (1168-1241 a.d.). European-style sauerkraut is thought to have originated in China, and the technology may have been brought to Europe during the Mongol invasion of central Europe in the 13th century. Today, industrial vegetable fermentation is carried out on a massive scale. In the United States, companies producing cucumber pickles can have at one location as many as 1,000 fermentation tanks of 40,000-liter capacity, totaling 40 million liters. Food Microbiology: Fundamentals and Frontiers, 4th Ed. Edited by M. P. Doyle and R. L. Buchanan © 2013 ASM Press, Washington, D.C. doi:10.1128/9781555818463.ch33