STORY BY MAHMOOD FAZAL, PHOTOS PROVIDED BY THE FERMENTARY

A seed is really something spiritual as much as it is something material,” writes the ecologist Gary Paul Nabhan. “It contains a life spark that allows the regenerative process to happen. We need seeds because they are the physical manifestation of that concept we call hope.”

In fermentation, life forms in the absence of air. At Daylesford’s The Fermentary, Australia’s foremost expert on the process, Sharon Flynn, exercises the ancient art with mouth watering precision. She ferments in small-batches, naturally culturing food and drinks, slowly and with minimal intervention. 

“I always think, what did we do before all of this? It’s sort of the basis of everything we do with fermenting,” says Sharon. “You could have done this exactly the same way, a long, long time ago. It’s about connecting. A connection to your ancestral past. To your DNA.”

During the industrial revolution, we discovered that killing the bacteria mould extended the shelf life of a food. “So we stopped fermenting,” explains Sharon. “Killing the life is a form of preservation. We chose that method because it made the food easy to ship. It was something like the beginning of the end of our food system.”

In her early twenties, Sharon moved to Mt. Takao in Japan to work as a teacher. On her days off, she met some older women who taught her how to harvest. “This was in a little valley. My apartment was just above it. I'd look down and take photos with my disposable camera and then walk by and sit with them. They showed me not just how to garden, but how to preserve a harvest. I learned to make my own tsukemono, pickles in a miso bed, made mochi at the temple in the winter, and joined a food club where I learnt to make miso, nattō, and all manner of Japanese home cooking.”

When her Japanese friends would come over, they would pass comments about how Sharon’s apartment reminded them of their grandmothers. When asked about a lesson she preserved from those early days in Japan? Sharon quipps, “I think simplicity. To be able to see something simple in action.”

“As my family grew, due to my husband’s work, we moved and had to set up homes wherever that took us - Tokyo, Sydney, Chicago, Seattle and Brussels.” It was in Brussels that Sharon’s five-year-old daughter suddenly began feeling ill. 

“It went on for months and months, beginning with a virus and then it grew into something nobody could diagnose." After many months of strong antibiotics, Sharon decided to put the bacteria back into her daughter's system that had so obviously been wiped out. “I saw a clear and direct line through all of my hobbies and realised they were all fermenting - the foods that could help her were on that list.” And her kitchen became a lab, and ferments became their lifestyle. "Ferments need to be eaten as part of our regular diet. On the table, in our lunches - small amounts of different ferments regularly " says Sharon.  

Within months of hitting the shelves of the Woodend health food store, culinary icons like Alla Wolf-Tasker of The Lake House and Andrew McConnell of Cumulus were ordering directly from Sharon. “There were bakeries, butchers, greengrocers, fish and cheese mongers. Where were the fermentaries? I wanted to be that.” 

Whether it’s rose water kefir, kimchi, a Phillipine dinosaur egg salt, sauerkraut or miso making kits - The Fermentary in Daylesford has you covered. Underpinning the bursting flavours is the story of life being preserved by the living. Or as the philosopher George Santayana frames it, “A soul is but the last bubble of a long fermentation in the world.”

The Fermentary

03 5348 1370

11/57 Leitches Creek Rd, Daylesford 

info@thefermentary.com.au 

www.thefermentary.com.au