Preserving Memories Through Fermentation w/ Rachel de Thample
·
01:02:41
|
Rachel de Thample is the head fermenter at River Cottage in Devon, where she teaches fermentation and gut health courses. She has worked in food, health and sustainability for more than twenty-five years, including as Head of Food at the organic retailer Abel & Cole, and her River Cottage Fermentation handbook won a Guild of Food Writers award. Her new book, The Fermentation Year: Everyday techniques and recipes to rewild your microbiome, is published by Bloomsbury and comes out today September 24, 2026.
Rachel explains why a jar of vegetables packed straight from the field is one of the safest things in your kitchen, and why the life in that jar depends on the soil the vegetables grew in and how recently they were picked.
We talk about why a salt-brined pickle beat a vinegar pickle in a blind tasting of 120 people, what her grandmother meant when she said a recipe just happens, how she rewilded her own gut microbiome, and why she'd trust an old forgotten ferment from the back of the cupboard over a fresh bag of salad. We also get into a heritage seed project where the seeds learn from every season they're grown through, a trip in Sicily where guests taste wines next to the soils they came from, and how a jar of preserved lemons always brings her back to a moment with her mother.
SUPPORT THE SHOW This season, like the first, is ad-free and listener-funded. You can make a one-time or recurring donation through our fiscal sponsor, tax deductible in the US: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/gardens-of-earthly-delight Or subscribe to the newsletter for $7 a month and get the extended notes for every episode, plus the parts of these conversations that did not make the recording: https://gardensofearthlydelight.substack.com
Episode 11
