Making his first appearance at the 21st Abergavenny Food Festival was American food writer and DIY food activist, Sandor Katz.
Katz has taught hundreds of food workshops around the United States and was on hand to promote the benefits of fermentation in food processing at the 21st Abergavenny Food Festival. He explained why fermentation was popular.
Abergavenny Food festival CEO Aine Morris at the press launch with guest speakers, Sandor Katz and Asma Khan. Photo: Entertainment South Wales
“People embracing fermentation, wanting to figure out how to incorporate this into their kitchens is really part of a much larger process. People are wanting to reclaim their food and some power of their food.
“I would say one of the big narratives of the 20th century was the idea that food production became more centralised. In a way, people embraced this because it meant fewer people had to be involved in direct food production.
“In the last couple of decades, people are realising that something important has been lost. Mass production is producing foods that are making us sick, they are destroying the earth and accelerating climate change. They are wasteful in their packaging; they are wasting water.”
Sandor Katz speaking about fermentation at the 21st Abergavenny Food Festival on Saturday. Photo: Entertainment South Wales
Katz also highlighted why locally produced foods needed to be celebrated.
“There’s been this embrace of locally produced foods, people wanting to support farmers that they know, people wanting to understand how their food is produced, this is the most important food movement of our time. People wanting to support local food production.
“We are enriched by Global exchange, but it also creates a certain level of vulnerability when our food is coming from faraway places. This idea of celebrating the food we are producing and focusing on, expanding and diversifying of local original production really has practical benefits for us!”
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