Shepherd of Microbes: An interview with Payal Shah
A Stroll through Culturing Cultures with the founder of Kobo Fermentary
Written by Shar Nair, co-host of the Barely Researched Facts podcast, a lifelong content creator and visualizer who particularly enjoys creating literary landscapes.
Higgledy-Piggledy Punch: It contains 400ml of green tea kombucha mixed with Indian limes fermented in sugar, 1 apple (but I’d leave that out, it doesn’t add anything), fermented ginger honey, quince compote (which took this to the next level!) and the dregs of the following: Cheapie white wine for cooking, Pomegranate wine from Armenia, Ginger wine from Coorg, Old Monk rum.
Image Source: Kobo Fermentary Instagram
We had the pleasure of chatting to Payal Shah, self-styled Shepherd of Microbes and founder of Kobo Fermentary for this issue of Probably Relevant. Since channelling her passion and setting up a business in 2018, she has gained a steady following of first-time fermenters, enthusiasts, and lurkers within the small but fervent fermentation community. Starting off with posting content on social media took her into a successful stint with workshops for the curious. But post-pandemic and post-realisations have brought Payal to where she is now - creating and partaking in a community online to further fermentation knowledge and practices.
Payal’s knowledge of fermentation extends outwards like branches from the trunk of an expansive tree. The conversation runs merrily along, often taking turns into delightful offshoots – stories of fermentation experiments, its impact on local and global food systems, and recommendations of proportions and combinations in “non-recipes”. As a listener, it’s easy: you follow along in the wake of her words, drawn in by her passion for the subject as well as the length and breadth of her knowledge of it. Answers to technical questions about fermentation flow as freely and promptly as those to questions related to her personal journey (“So how deep are you into fermentation?” “Far too deep. But also, not deep enough!”)
Payal presenting at Kojicon 2022, a virtual gathering of mold-based fermentation experts sharing the knowledge you need to create delicious food and drinks.
Image Source: Kobo Fermentary Instagram
Her grandmother gets credit for her early interest in the subject. Payal recounts being fascinated when she was quite young.
“I was obsessed with ginger for some reason….I wanted to make ginger beer. I did make it, but it was more like hooch, really.”
The interest was sparked and looking back hasn’t been an option since. She jokes that fermentation has survived her short attention span because she has had an ‘aha’ moment every day. At this point, she branches off into a story about her (successful) experiment using Koji to ferment leftover water from boiling hurli kaalu (horse gram). It’s the first step to her recent potion for a sore throat on a rainy day, she explains.
Koji Mould on rice grains. You don’t eat koji as is. Instead, it is used as a basic ingredient in other ferments, such as shoyu (soy sauce), miso, sake, amazake, and other delicacies.
Image Source: Flickr She senses a negative space where the knowledge should be and pauses her measured soliloquy to explain what Koji is.
“It’s an 8000-year old mould that originated in China and travelled all over.”
It was domesticated by the Japanese and is still used to create all manner of fermented food (miso, soy sauce) and beverages (sake, mirin, shochu). Satisfied that her audience is more informed than before, she carries on listing her process for the potion. “So I just threw in some lacto-fermented tomato paste and ginger, some regular miso, this hurle kaalu, some rasam podi and some very basic tadka that I had in my fridge … to make rasam and it tasted amazing.”
From her free-flowing narration of this “non-recipe” as she calls it, it might as well be alchemy to the casual listener. But then that seems to be the nature of fermentation. At its very core, it is science and alchemy with a healthy dose of exploration thrown in. Payal describes it simply as freedom to, among other things, be creative based on your taste.
“No one in Japan is sitting and thinking – ‘Oh, I want to make rasam from this”
The world of microbes is strewn with endless combinations and possibilities, made more complex by the insinuation of the fermenter’s ideas and their culinary and cultural context.
Image source: @freggiefermentary on Instagram“It rubs me the wrong way when people say, ‘…it’s not authentic. It’s gatekeeping to some extent.”
Supporting the idea of openness, Payal through her Instagram and Youtube, encourages questions and collaboration, stating that after a while of doing this, she knows that, for her, it’s the exchange and sharing of knowledge that keeps her passionate.
Probably Relevant Sidenote: Payal hosts an AMA (Ask Me Anything) over on her Instagram every weekend, where she answers all manner of questions about fermentation. “I don’t believe in gatekeeping information. I’m excited to share what I know, and answer all your fermentation questions!” she says cheerily on her website. If you’re a first-time fermenter, a lurker, or an experienced one, you should head over and take a look!
Succumbing to fears of fickle attention spans on the internet, we prod Payal with the “What’s the weirdest fermentation non-recipe you’ve tried or will never try again?” question and she delivers smoothly. She talks casually about the bottle of “ant garum” in her kitchen. One of those words doesn’t make sense and in combination with the other, it’s further perplexing, so Payal helpfully fills the void yet again.
Garum, she explains, is the old roman word for what would have been a fish sauce in the coastal areas of what is now Italy. Its primary ingredients were fish intestines, along with salt. She bemoans the fact that she can’t eat much of the ant garum thanks to her shellfish allergy, reminding us that insects are evolved crustaceans and the two arthropods have similarities in exoskeletons.
Probably Relevant Sidenote: In our chat, Payal mentions Seamus Blackley, best known as one of the minds behind the Xbox. He is a hardcore amateur baker and Egyptologist. He negotiated access to 4,500-year-old Old Kingdom vessels used to bake bread and make beer. The team then injected a nutrient solution into the ceramics, which reawakened dormant yeasts. The team extracted the yeasty liquid. While most of the yeast was sent off to a laboratory for study, Blackley took one sample home, setting out to recreate the taste of ancient Egypt by baking with its yeast.
So, we know Payal’s strong on the science, but how much artistry is involved in fermentation? “It’s so multifaceted and levelled …there’s science, history, culture on so many levels…there’s geography, there’s anthropology. And it’s also a lens to look into the future, like plastic-eating bacteria, vegan leather and so much more. It’s artistry but it’s also so much more.”
As we follow the branch of vegan leather for a brief time, Payal explains how Kombucha leather is…a thing. Fascinatingly, Kombucha leather is biologically based, from bacteria and yeast. Growing a SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) is the first step in this unusual process. It creates a pellicle. This pellicle is often referred to as bacterial cellulose in scientific papers and is the purest form of cellulose on the planet. It is 100% biodegradable. What follows is a process of dehydration, assembly, and sewing. Just one story among the many that came up during our chat to Payal.
That ain't SFX kids!
Image source: @freggiefermentary on instagramProbably Relevant Sidenote: If you’re ever in Amsterdam, Payal recommends Micropia – a museum dedicated to microbes and microorganisms. Look out for the impressive and colourful display of Petri dishes with various bacteria as well as everyday household objects and what microscopic friends inhabit them!
It’s evident that fermentation is a deep-running vein through Payal’s life and she confirms that it is.
“I think about it every day. It’s way beyond a problem now,” she laughs.
So, what’s the fermentation community like? “Micro-people are the best people. Just like microbes, you can’t do anything alone. We’re like family, we’ve been through so many life events together over the last few years alone. I swear I couldn’t do any of it without them. The realization hits me constantly that we are so small compared to the world of microbes. It really humbles you and makes you think that it’s the microbes that really rule the world….and possibly the universe. Browse through the hashtag #justfermentation to go deeper into that community.”
As we wound down the conversation we wanted to end with some words of inspiration from Payal and she didn’t disappoint, perking up to give encouragement.
“You don’t need elaborate equipment or cultures to start your fermenting journey. Just pick something that you already love and find parallels of fermentation with it. If you like fizzy drinks, there are ferments for that or if you’re into pickles, or sauerkraut or kimchi, there are always parallels to be drawn. At worst, it’s a hobby that will last you a lifetime; at best, it’ll help with your health and open up doors to a community and science that are waiting to be explored.”
Thanks to Payal for the engaging chat! If you’re interested in starting your fermenting journey, visit @kobofermentary on Instagram over the weekend and float your questions – amateur or expert – at Payal to get not only your answers but also the opportunity to immerse yourself in a whole new world! Also, Payal’s Youtube channel has more information for a deeper dive.
Probably Relevant Sidenote: Payal will also be making an appearance in a soon-to-be-released episode of Barely Researched Facts - ArtNowThus’ self-produced podcast in its second season now. We cover the vast topic of fermentation with her where you can listen in as Ragini and Shar describe the Inuit’s fascinating tradition of fermenting whole birds in a seal skin for up to six months. Keep an ear out for Payal’s unphased reception of the story as she adds layers to the fact from her vast knowledge base.
Links and References:
Kobo Fermentary:
Others:
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
This Bread Was Made Using 4,500-Year-Old Egyptian Yeast
Make Your Own Vegan Leather
Guano – Black Gold