The Fermentary

My mother changed her name from Anje Zuidema to Anne Kathleen Green as a child, without telling her parentss - trying to survive an Australian schoolyard as a new immigrant. By the time she had her own children, Dutch language and food traditions had disappeared - fermentation, preserving food was something immigrants did when they were poor, not a heritage that was celebrated.

So I didn't inherit making sauerkraut. I discovered it, and had to kind of reclaim it and piece together an identity from old family recipe books. I took pieces and fragments from places I'd lived in - Malaysia, Denmark, Japan, Chicago, Seattle, Brussels.

What started as an interest, a hobby for and need for a longer term project, and for a nod to my heritage ended up becoming my life's work and bringing meaning when fermented foods began to play an important part in my daughter's health.

Fourteen years later, The Fermentary supplies retailers across Australia, and the cultural question has shifted from "Why buy sauerkraut?" to "How do I eat it?"

That's the work now - helping people integrate living foods into daily life, keeping traditional knowledge alive.