Fermentation expert and author Kirsten K. Shockey joins Lian to explore what we lose when we stop fermenting our own food, why choosing inconvenience is becoming a countercultural act, and what microbes might be running more of the show than we think
Kirsten K. Shockey is a mother and grandmother who loves to plant trees and rescue beavers. When she isn’t playing or helping people to make, enjoy and connect with their food she can be found writing about life and fermentation at fermentingchange.substack from her home in the mountains of southern Oregon.
Kirsten is the author of award-winning Homebrewed Vinegar, coauthor, with her husband, Christopher Shockey, of award-winning The Big Book of Cidermaking; award-winning Miso, Tempeh, Natto & Other Tasty Ferments; Fiery Ferments; and the best-selling Fermented Vegetables and Fermented Vegetables second edition.
She is co-founder of The Fermentation School a women-owned and women-led benefits corporation supporting the voices of independent educators to empower learning and build culture where you can find her online courses.
In this episode, Lian and Kirsten look at ‘friction maxing’, and why so many people are finding themselves drawn back to slower, harder, more hands-on ways of doing things, and what fermentation has to do with it. They talk about what it means to choose inconvenience, how the microbes we co-evolved with for millions of years are still shaping our cravings, our gut, our moods, and possibly even more, and what gets lost when we hand all of that over to a factory and call it progress.
The conversation moves into the fear that stops most people before they even start, the grief of skills that stopped being passed down, and what Kirsten has noticed about what happens to people once they have something alive and bubbling on their counter, how quickly it stops feeling like a hobby and starts feeling like something precious that they didn't know they were missing in their lives.
Listen if you keep finding yourself drawn to slower, older, more hands-on ways of doing things and you're not sure how to make that happen in your busy life, or if you already ferment and have noticed it feels like more than just a hobby, and are wondering what that could mean.
We’d love to know what YOU think about this week’s show. Let’s carry on the conversation… please leave a comment wherever you are listening or in any of our other spaces to engage.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
Why the question fermentation folk keep coming back to is: who domesticated whom, us or the microbes?
How friction maxing can show up as inner or outer inconvenience and discomfort
What a single jar of something bubbling on a kitchen counter might be doing for a person's relationship with the living world
Resources and stuff that we spoke about:
Visit Kirsten’s website https://ferment.works/
Visit The Fermentation School https://www.fermentationschool.com/
Kirsten’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kirstenkshockey/
Fermenting Change Newsletter https://fermentingchange.substack.com
Join UNIO, The Community for Wild Sovereign Souls https://www.unioacademy.com/ : This is for the old souls in this new world… Discover your kin & unite with your soul’s calling to truly live your myth.
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