day two of Biochymickal Arts 2013

maja kuzamnovic

• spelling - intentionally from a period when language was in flux, pre-formation of modern science
• shift in rituals
• demystification → modern science
• in a time when a new form of demystification, access, opening processes, learning without 'initiation' into x
• need for new metaphors. industrial/mechanical → biological/living
• rethinking “growth”. linear economics view → cyclic, fermentation, death, transformation
• being open to understanding technical foundations to find new metaphors
• “arts” from a period when more entangled with craft, science and society
• meaningful art is often about something other than itself, about the wider world, not just the 'medium'
• art and design can help us ask 'better questions' rather than finding solutions to the 'wrong problems'

flow of the day

• morning. wider context of fermentation, stories of fermentation, some of the science behind it.
• lunch.
• afternoon. openspace

keep notes, take photos, put stuff on the libarynth

maria tarantino

• overview of texts - “Wild Fermentation” (WF) and “Art of Fermentation” (AoF)
• quote from first page of AoF
• experiments in finding how widespread fermented veg are, taste is familiar in many cultures
• fermentation is very simple “45 grams of salt for 2 kilos of vegetables” as basic rule
• very obvious signals if veg. fermentation go 'wrong', others are not so obvious (e.g. almond taste → cyanide, prussic acid)
• only lactobacteria can thrive in such a concentration of salt
• ancestral practice
• Korean text on fermentation with ~1000s of years of written history
• video MAHJONG.dv
• in japan. fish that is neither raw, nor cooked, at that point didn't know much about fermentation. put the fish in a doll box. LHR→BRU
• developed a strategy to find out what this fish is.
  • went to .jp restaurant (“just throw it away”)
  • went to .jp supermarket (“some special fish” discovered it was fermented)
  • asked around, pointed to well know .jp chef from inada (ancient technique, needs green tea (unfermented) to be poured over it, had never tasted it himself)
  • had grown into the shape of a legend, by the time it was served
  • taste wasn't so special, red fish, fermented rice, sour
  • returns to japan, contacts expert in fermented sushi (funazushi), able to make it at home
  • visit people making it, tasted it, was wonderful
  • taste of 'parmesan' to Italian, like 'Roquefort' for a Frenchman
  • possible origins in Vietnam/Laos 'pla ra', spread to CJK
  • funazushi ~1300 AD near kyoto, keeping fish in salt to deliver to emperor packed with cooked rice. during that period, rice was more important than fish. fish used to enhance the rice. body of fish (usually with eggs) filled by the mouth with cooked rice and kept for ~1yr prototype for contemporary sushi

• foods often exist in a specific biotope, does it make sense (or even work) to create them in another. e.g. rice straw in making funazushi
• rice straw very important for making natto
• what bacteria is in the straw? can the ancestral practice be 'translated' into another culture? e.g. carp → tench
• 6yr old sample → tastes 'fine'
• not about quantity, but intensity of taste
• “discover the nutritional value of wild foods” chart/table Robert Shosteck

http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/wild-foods-zmaz86jazgoe.aspx#axzz2erI1WwdO

• Korean cuisine (wide range of fermentation (short hot summer, long cold winter), proximity of sea and mountains e.g fish & chestnuts) as masters of architecture of flavour
• various cuisines as situated on a time line of fermentation
• kiosk. Lebanese wild fermentation of bulgour
• vocab. 'trigger' rather than culture or innoculum. something able to start the fermentation. “starter” in brewing. (SCOBY is an acronym for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast)
• 'seed culture' for milk and 'root culture' → bread

brian degger & general discussion

• citric acid cycle with aconitate
• fermentation of liquids to produce safe/palatable drinking 'water'
• sugar, yeast, water
• alcohol producing fermentation → self sterilising → alcohol production kills bacteria
• (biotech as method to maintain selection pressure)
• fermentation as method to produce insulin,
• where is the line between metabolism and fermentation
• veg. fermentation - usually anaerobic
• spontaneous → relying on wild yeast & bacteria
• controlled → specific introduced
• what category distinctions are useful?
  • fermentation as a metabolic process
  • […]
• possible to manipulate 'environment' in which fermentation occurs to favour particular organisms or products (e.g yeast and sugar in beer/wine production)
• harmful bacteria == “bacteria that can eat you”
• fermentation in food production as method to favour selection of productive rather than harmful bacteria
• microbiology relying on 'law of excluded middle' quite heavily

• GFP as basis for many diagnostics
• GFP yogurt as 'Hello World' for biohacking
• ascorbate sytheisis pathway is 'broken' in humans, most mammals have metabolic pathway to produce vitamin C as end product. “how can you reboot the ascorbate synthesis pathway?”
• establish artificial symbiotic relation with human microbe to produce missing enzyme?
• modify one of the 'yogurt making bacteria' to produce missing enzyme
• early days of 'microbiome engineering'
• x.ref MetacCyc “L-abscorbate biosynthesis IV”
• check metacyc for link between Lactobacillus and asorbic acid production
  • L-ascorbate biosynthesis I, L-ascorbate biosynthesis II

continued at biochymickal_arts_20130915