Kirsten K. Shockey: Choose Your Own Fermentation Adventure

Connection and community are served alongside sauerkraut at the Reedsburg Fermentation Fest.

The fall colors of Sauk County

By the time the volunteers and I had swept all the cabbage shreds off the tables, chairs, and floors of the church basement, the perfume of sauerkraut had wafted slowly up the stairs. I wondered briefly if the parishioners would crinkle their noses when they entered the sanctuary the following morning, the ghost of fermentation smell lingering over the scent of polished wood and wax candles. (When sharing my jars of ferments, I often see people with puzzled looks and scrunched-up noses. The best faces are those in a bookstore from the folks who did not come to learn about kraut.)

The participants for this class had come from Chicago, Milwaukee, and many small towns near Reedsburg, Wisconsin. They’d come with the awareness that they would be learning to ferment vegetables. I, however, had arrived the day before from my home in southern Oregon and had no idea what to expect from the Wormfarm Institute’s Fermentation Fest.

From the event’s website I knew that I was headed to “A Live Cultural Convergence.” I sensed it was bigger than a celebration of grapes to wine, milk to cheese, and, in my case, veggies to kraut. Yet in my mind it was still like holding onto the proverbial slippery fish. I understood that this celebration was about cultivating a rural economy and connecting people with farms and their food, and that the underlying theme was art, but I couldn’t visualize how it pieced together. Now that I have been to the Fermentation Fest, I recognize it as an opportunity to choose your own (fermentation) adventure.

The bones of the fest really lie in public art installations, food carts, entertainment venues, and educational stops along the Farm/Art D’Tour, a 50-mile loop over an idyllic autumnal countryside. Classes, speakers, and events dispersed throughout the town of Reedsburg punctuate this route.

On Saturday and Sunday morning my aromatic wares and I met many people — confident, seasoned fermentistas as well as people tasting fresh fermented veggies for the first time. My ferments and I made new friends. On Sunday afternoon I had time to take the D’Tour, and that’s when I ultimately put it all together.

Too Much Pig by Brian Sobaski, St. Paul, MN. This massive straw wild swine is one of two representing the invasive species encroaching on the farmlands of southwestern and central Wisconsin.

Sylvan Chapel by Peter Krsko, Washington, DC. Live wood and harvested wood blend to create a sacred space along the roadside.

This microbe art was created by children in a stop along the way called the Taste Lab, where they were invited to discover the biology of fermented foods using all their senses. The lab was created by Andrea Polli with students from the University of New Mexico’s Art and Ecology Program.

Invasive Species by Isabelle Garbani, Brooklyn, NY. This was one of my favorite pieces. Species introduced into an environment for benign reasons can become invasive. Plastic has invaded our lives. In this piece we see thousands of kudzu leaves crocheted from plastic shopping bags. Wow, right?

This festival is about our connections. It is about land — dirt and microbes, sky and weather. It is about us all: farmers, musicians, cooks, artists, writers, kids, brew masters, fermentistas, cheese makers, poets, vintners, chefs, sausage makers, herbalists, canners, and anybody who eats and breathes and enjoys.

This last stop was created by Vierbicher and Friede & Associates, located on a third-generation farm owned by Steve and Gail Schulenburg.

Photos by Kirsten K. Shockey

Kirsten K. Shockey is the co-author of Fermented Vegetables. Find more from Kirsten on her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.