What food do you miss when you're away from home?

Beer/yogurt/bread/kombucha. Not a complete list of fermentation for consumption. But gas-phase production stands apart as so many have learned.

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If this topic goes flat, we could talk about foods that we never ever miss not having.

 

Years ago, a family member was given, by a colleague at work if I remember right, a cup of Herman.

Herman was a live-culture dough that you could feed in the fridge for a few days and then make into:

1. Cinnamon rolls
2. Cups of Herman to give your other friends
3. More Herman for the fridge, which you could feed for a few days and make into:
   • Cinnamon rolls
   • Cups of Herman to give still other of your friends
   • More Herman for the fridge, which ...

It is a lovely thing until you grow tired of tending Herman in the fridge and of making cinnamon rolls, or finding friends to give some Herman to.

If you grow less attentive to Herman in the fridge, Herman will notice, and coat your fridge shelves and other food items with sticky gloopy dough.

This can be the start of a downward relationship spiral, as Herman's attention-seeking behaviors fall short of rekindling your affection.

It reached the point where family member called it quits on that relationship, poured Herman lock, stock, and barrel into one of those quite robust green glass Gallo wine bottles, screwed the metal cap on tight, and buried him in the trash bag beneath the counter, with the old empty soup cans and all. That showed him.

After the blast, there were flattened soup cans all across the kitchen, and shards of green Gallo glass that took effort to pry out of the walls of the room.

It was just as well we were all in another room when it went.

My yogurt beasties do their work in an Instant Pot, to cater to their delicate thermophilic sensibilities. But the Instant Pot, while capable of being a pressure vessel, is used with the valve open for that job, so they don't get to make any kabooms.

 

Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

 

Not as exciting, but a former boss used work with Aspergillus niger. A fungus important for making citric acid. It can force its way through the gaskets of bolted down bioreactors.

Fortunately, I can have a laid back relationship with kombucha. The worse to happen is the jar over foaming with mixing.

 

Aspergillus niger is very exciting. I am surprised to learn (just now) that it is used for industrial synthesis of citric acid. Along with other useful products.
But dang, aspergillosis can be very bad disease. It's a main reason why I advise students handling soils and leaves (and especially while grinding them) to mask up in lab. Sometimes they do

 

Our SCOBY is now over 20 years old. I don't even remember where I got the very original batch.

We also had milk kefir and water kefir growing in jars for many years. But they are only 5 years old.

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