Fermenting an anti-capitalist community

Earlier this week I read Sharon Flynn's "Ferment for good", a lovely little book about fermentation. It's a kind of cross between a limited memoir and a recipe book. One of the points Flynn made multiple times in different ways is that the most nutritious, tasty and traditional fermented foods simply can't be "scaled up". Fermentation is not conducive to industrial food production. I remember David Zilber said something similar when he was interviewed by Emergence Magazine. Flynn has a business selling fermented products, but she is pointing out that to do things properly, there is a point beyond which the process cannot be hastened, automated, or—the primary point—controlled. Every batch will be slightly different, even when made exactly the same way. Fermented food is literally alive with the environment and situation in which it was made. That's wild bacteria.

It struck me that fermented foods could be said to have anti-capitalist tendencies. They scale badly. They are temperamental and reject industrialisation. At the same time, fermented foods encourage social production (it's a lot easier to make a batch of kimchi with a group of friends), and sharing (people who make their own ferments usually make too many and like to prosletyse by sharing jars of their handiwork).

I'm often not a very good anti-capitalist. But like the wild yeasts and bacteria in fermented foods, we all find ourselves doing our best to survive and thrive in the environment in which we find ourselves. We work together, and find ourselves awash in a frothing mix of opportunity and shit. Sometimes we create fun, colourful new experiences. Sometimes we turn the mundane into the sublime. Sometimes we just make things sour, and occassionally, poisonous. We can't always create sublime experiences. Sometimes it's enough to just avoid turning everything to vinegar.

=> Ferment for good | David Zilber, "Fermenting Culture"