"Fermentation is a metaphor, a preservation process, a culinary delicacy, a transformative microbial experience, a practice rooted in soil and the garden, and a hard science-it is also an art, and a magical collaboration between people and bacteria. Written by the author of bestselling books Wild Fermentation and The Art of Fermentation (winner of the James Beard Award and a New York Times bestseller, with more than a quarter million copies sold), comes a poetic, lyrical, avant-garde, philosophical, scientific, and soil-based inquiry into the history and roots of fermentation, a process, a concept, and a way of life, rich with biological and cultural evolution, useful in health and nutrition, and practiced all over the world. Small in stature but big in concept, this is a book-length extended essay driven by the authors passionate inquiry and lifelong research and collaboration"-- Provided by publisher.