A Quick Interview with Sandor Katz

By Marko Starinac
Event Photos by Ulrik Klaussen

Sandor Katz is a fermented foods and beverages writer and educator based in Tennessee, United States. Marko Starinac sat down with Katz to chat about his journey to fermentation.

Sandor Katz speaks about fermentation to ArktiskMat 2022

Marco: So let's start off in theme with the festival origins. How did your journey into fermentation begin?

Katz: What got me to begin investigating fermentation and learning how to ferment things myself is that 29 years ago, I moved from New York City where I was born and raised to rural Tennessee, and I started gardening. In the first year in the garden, we had a really nice row of cabbages and knew that sauerkraut had something to do with preserving cabbage. By looking at some books we learned how easy it is to make sauerkraut. I made some sauerkraut, it was delicious, and made me want to experiment and try different ferments. I went down the rabbit hole and fermentation. But even before then, my grandparents were all from Eastern Europe, we always had pickles in our refrigerator, I love the flavor of pickles. So before I was even thinking about fermentation, I was very drawn to some of the flavors.

So it was mostly self-taught?

Completely self-taught, with a lot of help from books. Along the way, I met people with more experience that I learned from. But all the early learning was from books.

Did you have any idols throughout your life that inspired you on their journey?

I've met lots of people who have inspired me. But I couldn't say that there was one central figure. My parents both love to cook. And I grew up in a family where I was encouraged to experiment in the kitchen and learn how to make things from scratch, rather than prepared foods from a box. So my parents were a big inspiration. In terms of fermentation, there was no single central form of inspiration, but lots of different ones.

You mentioned a lot of examples of fermented food from many different countries around the world. Did you travel a lot? And were there any highlights in your travels?

I've talked about fermentation in about 30 countries. And so that's given me lots of opportunities to try distinctive fermented foods and beverages in different places. And even before that, I did quite a bit of traveling. China really stands out. China has just a huge diversity of fermentation traditions, and I learned a lot in a very short visit to China. But so many places. I mean here in Norway, I've had the opportunity to try some really interesting, traditionally fermented things. The other night, I had some rakfisk. One of the wonderful things about fermentation is it's so universal. And in every part of the world, people have really distinctive ways.

How did you discover the festival arc this month? And do you plan on coming again next year?

Someone in Oslo saw that I was going to be teaching in Iceland last weekend, and you know, I've asked if I would consider coming to Norway. And then you know, she organized this tour and she reached out to the organizers of this event, I didn't even know about this event. But then you know, they seemed excited to have me. Before this, I was in Oslo and Trondheim. Now I'm gonna go to Kvitnes. And then on Monday, I'm going to Zurich, Switzerland and then teaching in Switzerland. So I don't know about next year yet. But this is a great event and I'm meeting really wonderful people and learning a lot. So I'd be happy to come again.