The Oxford Handbook of Food Fermentations

Book excerpt: Fermentation, as a chemical and biological process, is everywhere. Countless societies throughout history have used it to form a vast array of foods and drinks, many of which were integral and essential to those cultures; it could be argued that the production of beer and bread formed the basis of many agriculture-based civilizations. Today, nearly every person on the planet consumes fermented products, from beer and wine, to bread and dairy products, to certain types of meat and fish. Fermentation is a nearly ubiquitous process in today's food science, and an aspect of chemistry truly worth understanding more fully. In The Oxford Handbook of Food Fermentations, Charles W. Bamforth and Robert E. Ward have collected and edited contributions from many of the world's experts on food fermentation, each focused on a different fermentation product. The volume contains authoritative accounts on fermented beverages, distilled beverages, and a diverse set of foods, as well as chapters on relevant biotechnology. Each chapter embraces the nature of the product, its production, and its final composition. The text also touches on the raw materials and processes involved in producing packaged foodstuff, and the likely future trends in each area. In the conclusion, Bamforth and Ward present a comparison between the various products and the diverse technologies employed to produce them. Fermentation is a multifaceted process that affects a wide variety of products we consume, and The Oxford Handbook of Food Fermentations is the definitive resource that captures the science behind fermentation, as well as its diverse applications.