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Kitchenculture

Oakland resident’s book says fermentation furnishes valuable nutrients

Kitchenculture

Oakland resident’s book says fermentation furnishes valuable nutrients

Page 8, The News-Review Roseburg, Oregon, Currents—Thursday, March 29, 2012ON THE COVER

Yeast, moldsand bacteriaare used toproduce fer-mented foodssuch as theseseen in jars atWardeh Har-mon’s homenear Oakland.

MICHAELSULLIVAN/TheNews-Review

MICHAEL SULLIVAN/News-Review photos

Fermented foods are not only good for the body but also promote eating foods in season, according to Har-mon, who prepares a batch of sauerkraut in her home last week.

Kitchenculture

RYAN IMONDIThe News-Review

OAKLAND — Wardeh Harmonpreaches the powers of fermen-tation. Pickles, sauerkraut andbread, all cultured on her farm

outside Oakland, represent a life-improv-ing necessity for her.

She networks with fermentation com-munities in Eugene and operates onlinecourses called GNOWFGLINS, whichstands for God’s Natural, Organic, WholeFoods, Grown Locally, In Season.

“I love it because it’s easy and becauseit’s healthy,” she said.

Harmon will have another outlet forsharing that love when her book, “A Com-plete Idiot’s Guide to Fermentation,” isreleased Tuesday.

The guide was a three-month projectHarmon wrote last summer. It was con-tracted by The Complete Idiot’s Guideseries, a line of books that provides intro-ductory overviews to numerous topics,including nearly every hobby in existence.

Brook Farling, senior acquisitions editorfor the company, said he had consideredother, more established authors to write thebook. He decided on Harmon after visitingher website and being impressed by herfervor and her willingness to promote abook.

The book has 150 recipes with picturesand plenty of explanation on the benefitsof eating fermented food. Harmon found itchallenging to collect and organize

Oakland resident’sbook says

fermentation furnishes valuable

nutrients

“I love it because it’s easy and because it’s healthy.

Wardeh HarmonOakland ”Please see FERMENTING, page 9

The News-Review, Page 9Roseburg, Oregon, Currents—Thursday, March 29, 2012

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ON THE COVER

materials for her first bookwhile also managing her web-site. She said any free timewas spent contributing to thebook.

“It was quite the rigorousproduction schedule. It reallydid take over,” she said.

Cheryl Owens, owner ofBooks Gallery in Sutherlin,said Harmon’s practicalknowledge is more accessibleto consumers than an academicapproach.

“She’s worked really hardon her own,” said Owens,whose bookstore will hostHarmon on April 14 to cele-brate the release. “She wentthrough a lot of different dietsand traditions.”

Harmon became familiarwith the topic while research-ing healthy lifestyles for herfamily. Books such as “Wild

Fermentation” by Sandor EllixKatz convinced Harmon thather three children could livehealthier lives growing up on adiet rich with fermentation.

Now Harmon, 37, said shehopes to spread her discoveriesto a larger audience, one madeup of people who probably arelargely unfamiliar with howfermentation works.

She explained that yeast,molds and bacteria are used tocreate foods such as pickles,sauerkraut, yogurt, milk and

bread, as well as beveragessuch as wine and beer. It takesorganisms that are alive to cre-ate these foods.

Harmon said fermented foodis “good for the gut and body.”The organisms improve diges-tion by increasing enzymeconsumption, increasing vita-min consumption and allowingthe body to absorb more nutri-ents from food. She said it alsopromotes eating food that’s inseason, among other benefits.

Gerard Van Assche of theUmpqua Valley Brewer’sGuild is an example of a hand-ful or people who understandthe concept and have used fer-mentation, in his case to makebeer, Harmon said. Otherwise,she said, the practice has“unfairly” fallen out of publicinterest.

Fermentation found a stableexistence in homes for genera-tions. According to Harmon,evidence of the process hasbeen found in ancient civiliza-

tions such as Egypt, Babylonand pre-Hispanic Mexico.Those traditions, tweaked overthousands of years, were stillin use in households in the late19th and early 20th centuries.

“Back in the day they wouldput vegetables in a can and letair and heat do all of thework,” Harmon said.

Then came the modernsupermarket of the mid-20thcentury that touted selection,convenience and, most impor-tant, items with long shelflives. Canned foods wereexpected to last in kitchen cup-boards for more than a year.Refinement and processingruled supermarket shelves.

Harmon said this conceptpushed fermentation out ofsupermarkets. Fermentedfoods could not be mass pro-duced. In addition, the productwas not always consistent. Itsrelatively short shelf life madeit commercially unappealing.It became “something my

mom used to do” and soon“something my grandma usedto do,” Harmon said.

She added that people don’trealize the ramifications ofchoosing convenience overbacteria that’s crucial for goodhealth.

Still, Harmon said she’s see-ing fermented foods makesomething of a comeback.Sherm’s Thunderbird in Rose-burg has a small section devot-ed to them, while certainrestaurants offer the food.

Harmon said her book does-n’t bring anything ground-breaking to the topic. But shedoesn’t think that’s necessaryfor a practice that’s beenaround for thousands of years.

Perhaps her book will helpfermentation provide nutrientsfor a couple centuries more.

• You can reach reporterRyan Imondi at 541-957-4211or by email at rimondi@nrto-day.com.

If you go...WWHHAATT:: Oakland-area author

Wardeh Harmon signs copies of “AComplete Idiot’s Guide to Fer-menting Foods”

WWHHEERREE:: Books Gallery, 220 Elk-ton-Sutherlin Highway, Sutherlin

WWHHEENN:: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Satur-day

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FermentingCONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

LONDON (AP) — At last,Harry Potter’s adventures areavailable electronically.

The seven novels about J.K.Rowling’s boy wizard are forsale as e-books and audiobooks on the author’s Potter-more website, the site’s cre-ators announced Tuesday.

The books are currentlyavailable in English, in U.S.and U.K. editions, priced at$7.99 or 4.99 British poundsfor e-books and $29.99 or17.99 pounds for audio ver-sions.

The site says French, Italian,German and Spanish editions

will follow in the comingweeks.

The books are available onlythrough the website, whichsays they are compatible withmajor electronic e-readers,including Amazon’s Kindle,Sony’s Reader and Barnes &Noble’s Nook, as well as withtablets, mobile phones andGoogle’s Play digital store.

The Harry Potter novelshave sold 450 million copies,but Rowling for years resistedmaking the books available indigital form,

She announced last year thatPotter e-books would be sold

through the Pottermore site, aninteractive portal into Harry’smagical world.

The full site, which com-bines elements of virtual ency-clopedia, computer games,social network and onlinestore, is set to open in earlyApril.

Its launch, originallyannounced for October, wasdelayed after testing with alimited number of usersshowed changes were needed.

Rowling’s final Potter novel,“Harry Potter and the DeathlyHallows,” was published in2007.

Harry Potter adventures go on sale in e-book form