Zymes 11
A recap of some published posts for paid subscribers. A selection from Issue #1 of Zymes 11 (Sept. 2025).
The Taste of Heritage - Burghul and Kishk
Smoking Twigs and Stems
No Coincidence, No Story
Buckwheat Pierogi Dough (with GF Filling)
Floral Ferments
When Life Gifts You Lemons
Banana Bread with Ginger Kankoji and Sprouted Fenugreek
Nama Matcha Chocolates
Strawberry Pomegranate Panna Cotta
Democratizing Biscuits
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Tea: Empire, Gender Roles, Class, and Ritual
Black and Fermented Tea
Fermented Tea and Brilliant New Science
Unboxed - Returning to Wild Bees
Active Cultures Nut Cheese with Preserved Lemon
Koji Oil Infusion: Mint
Mint Preserving
Mint Powder
The name Zymes 11 means each issue of our new digital quarterly has at least 11 topics of our focus areas covered. Each of our recent posts, all posts going forward, and previous posts at some point, have Questions for Review and Answers below them, perhaps after a few pictures or videos or references. Sometimes specific posts on Substack are a test before inclusion in Zymes 11.
The Taste of Heritage - Burghul and Kishk
Wheat, Barley, Sorghum, Buckwheat. The Tradition is Community and Survival.
Introduction: Traditional Foods
Overview of burghul, kishk, and kishk al fouqara
Making Burghul
Traditional harvest and preparation
Boiling, drying, sieving, and storing methods
Cultural significance and adaptability
Nutritional value of burghul
Kishk: Fermented Savory Powder
Ingredients
Fermentation and drying process
Storage and culinary uses
Historical class-based applications
Labnet al Burghul: Vegan Cheese
Origin of labnet al burghul
Confusion with kishk al fouqara
Preparation method and preservation in oil
Kishk al Fouqara and Kishk al Omara: Two Desserts
Story of Prince Ali Azid ibn Muhallab and muhallabiyya
Origins of kishk al omara (prince’s pudding) and kishk al fouqara (poor’s pudding)
Differences in ingredients and symbolism
Summary: Culinary and Cultural Intersections
Burghul, kishk, labnet, and dessert variations
Links between class, preservation, and memory
Practical Guide: Homemade Burghul and Fermented Variants
How to make burghul from whole grains (wheat, emmer, spelt, buckwheat, millet, barley)
Cracking, drying, and storing methods
Dairy-Based Kishk
Method for fermenting with yogurt
Drying and grinding for long-term use
Vegan Kishk al-Fuqara
Fermentation using brine or starter cultures
Shelf-stable powder form
Grain Notes and Substitutions
Flavor, texture, and fermentation tips for alternative grains
Labnet al-Burghul vs. Kishk al-Fuqara
Recipe for labnet al burghul
Method for kishk al-fuqara
Distinction between vegan cheese and vegan kishk powder
Review Questions and Answers
Questions for self review and comprehension that covers food processes, ingredients, and cultural background
Cultural Framing
Statement tying together preservation, history, and food identity
Fresh or dried mint twigs and stems, especially when they’re tender or only lightly woody, have many practical uses beyond being tossed in the Bokashi. Actually, some of the thicker stems are sometimes better than the thinner ones when grilling or smoking something. Unless you are stripping the stems, you'll usually have some leaves left on them anyway. If you are concerned about color, they can, like the leaves, darken things. Fermented Vegetables with Mint Stems, Charred Garlic, and Hot Pepper (Recipe)
Tea is about place—microbes, climate, sustenance, cultures, and history.
With 107 Questions. Recipes by Naomi Duguid. Video (21:05)
The interwoven nature of tea fermentation, personal and cultural memory, microbial ecology, and culinary creativity is explored. From attempts to grow Camellia sinensis in New Jersey to crafting Burmese fermented tea leaf salads and aging cheese with green tea catechins, tea becomes a living medium connecting land, microbes, and people. Wild fermentations like laphet and the compost-like pile fermentations of Pu’er offer insight into microbial succession, aroma development, and cultural continuity. Recipes for laphet thoke and niang ko adapted from Naomi Duguid’s Burma highlight how fermented tea leaves remain central to many countries cultural and culinary heritages. Traditional and modern, home-scale and industrial practices show how tea carries memory, sustains microbiomes, and flavors foods as diverse as salads and cheeses.
Buckwheat Pierogi Dough
Zuza Zak makes a gluten-free dough for a gluten-free filling. (Video 7:53)
Zuza Zak demonstrates how to make a gluten-free pierogi dough from her cookbook Pierogi, using just buckwheat flour and boiling water—no specialist ingredients. She stresses working quickly and in small batches, as this dough becomes harder to handle as it cools. Her filling here is also gluten free, and extremely tasty. The process is practical, fast-paced, and focused on accessibility for home cooks using simple ingredients
Floral Ferments
A Master Class in Fermentation Techniques. Video (27:00)
Tea, flowers, and fermentation aren’t separate practices—they’re expressions of how we relate to the plants around us. Dr. Julia Skinner weaves together stories of elderflower, afternoon tea, rose-fermented carrots, butterfly pea brines, and goldenrod vinegar. It’s part historical reflection, part technique session, and all rooted in the idea that food can be both healing and expressive. From color-changing pickles to herbal sugars, Julia shows how ferments reflect where we live, what we love, and how we share.
Recipes and Techniques
Elderflower Cordial
Fermented Carrots with Rose Petals
Color-Changing Pickles
Goldenrod Vinegar
Goldenrod Salt
Herbal Salts and Sugars
Floral Shio Koji
Decoctions and Infusions
Applications and Suggestions
When Life Gifts You Lemons
To Ferment or Not Ferment. There are 20 Questions.
Fermentation is intentional technique. Lemon acidity became both constraint and opportunity. Recipes balance enzyme activity, pH thresholds, and salt content to create multiple shelf-stable ferments, from savory citrus pastes to enzyme-rich amakoji with brown rice. A comprehensive range of techniques for preserving lemons.
Recipes/Techniques Included
Salted Lemon Peels
Sugar Macerated Salted Lemons
Lemon Powder
Lemon Syrup
Spiced Lemon Paste
Lemon Toasted Millet Shio Koji
Banana Bread with Ginger Kankoji and Sprouted Fenugreek
Vegan or Not, Whole Grain or Not, This is an Organoleptic Festival
This vegan (or not, but still eggless) banana bread is a slow-developed, aromatic bake that relies on deeply caramelized bananas, ginger kankoji, and sprouted, roasted fenugreek seeds for depth. The thick batter creates a moist, long-keeping crumb.
This bread improves over time. What comes out of the oven as rich and fragrant evolves over several days into something layered and savory. It’s a loaf shaped by caramelized bananas, fenugreek sprouted and roasted, and koji coaxed into a sweet-umami bread or cake.
Nama Matcha Chocolates
生チョコレート - Use What Makes You Happy
Vegan or Not. Chocolate or Not.
Soft and chilled like ganache, Nama Matcha Chocolates (生チョコレート) are a Japanese confection with just a few key ingredients—but many variations. Traditionally made from white chocolate, cream, and matcha, these chocolates are easy to personalize: plant-based creams, tea infusions, nut pastes, and subtle changes in fat or sugar can reshape the entire experience. Read about what each ingredient does, why it matters, and how to bend the formula toward your own taste—without losing that melt-in-the-mouth texture. Whether you're starting from cocoa butter and any number of ingredients for the recipes included, the concept stays the same: richness, clarity, and structure in balance.
Strawberry Pomegranate Panna Cotta
Crazy, Sexy, Cool.
A panna cotta made from thick strawberry amakoji. Also works with Peaches and Other Fruits. Dairy free. No starch or gums. Fermented rice sweetness, set and served cold — even frozen into ice cream.
Democratizing Biscuits
Digestives for the People
A Dozen Biscuits: Malted Barley and Bran Digestives (Recipe)
Dawn Woodward is the Owner and Founder of Evelyn's Crackers in Toronto. She is also the author of Flour is Flavour, A wholegrain baking book. You can order the book from her website, The Grain Project at www.flourisflavour.com
Phone: 647 778 8164 or email: evelynscrackers@gmail.com
Bread and biscuits have always existed across class lines—but the types of flours used, the milling practices, and their cultural meanings have shifted with industrialization. As refined white flour and factory-made biscuits became dominant, older grain varieties and localized baking knowledge were often pushed aside. Dawn Woodward brings that knowledge back to the forefront. This post includes a home-scale recipe for Malted Barley and Bran Digestives—adaptable, rich, and full of texture - by Dawn. It’s a biscuit that honors the farmers who grow the grains, the grains themselves, and the people who take the time to bake with care.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen
Cream of Tartar, Leavening, and The Shade of Refinement
Cream of tartar is a curious pantry relic. It’s a quiet hero of chemical leavening and an old British way to throw shade at those they consider themselves to be culturally superior. An acid salt derived from wine sediment helped usher in a new age of precision baking, shifting scones and biscuits from variable hearth creations to elegant, reliable fare. Almond Yogurt and Brown Rice Amakoji Scones (Recipe) plus video of Noël Coward.
Tea : Empire, Gender Roles, Class, and Ritual
Dr. Julia Skinner's Book, Afternoon Tea
Dr. Julia Skinner is a Food writer, culinary educator, writing coach. Her book, Our Fermented Lives, is out now. Other writing and endeavors at : juliacskinner.com / @bookishjulia / rootkitchens.substack.com The Culinary Curiosity School: @culinary.curiosity.school / culinarycuriosityschool.com Writing coaching + support for creatives: rootsandbranches.squarespace.com / @yourrootsandbranches / yourrootsandbranches.substack.com and Food and history-focused research and consulting: root-kitchens.com / @rootkitchens / rootkitchens.substack.com
In Julia Skinner’s Afternoon Tea, the origins and evolution of the ritual are traced through British imperialism, labor exploitation, and the changing rhythms of domestic life. From aristocratic salons to working-class factories, afternoon tea emerged not only from privilege but also from shifting global economies, industrial production, and gendered social expectations.
Black and Fermented Tea
A Primer on Tea Types, and an Intro to Fermented Tea
Revisiting flavor and preservation, reflecting on culinary intention. Highlighting fermentation as a cultural act, with practical instruction on prepping fermented tea leaves for seasoning pastes, savory spreads, or pickled bases. Technique and microbial intent are central, as is respect for tradition without replication.
Fermented Tea and Brilliant New Science
Microbes, Again.
Fermented teas—like Burmese laphet, Chinese pu’er, and Kenyan kombucha variants—are being re-examined through microbiological, nutritional, and metabolomic lenses. Unlike brewed tea, fermented whole-leaf products retain polyphenols and develop distinct microbial populations. Their interactions generate acids, alcohols, and functional compounds that influence flavor, preservation, and health outcomes. These are foundational texts for experimental fermenters, with citations and methodological caution.
Unboxed: Returning to Wild Bees
Wild Bees, Wild Ferments — on freedom, flavour, and microbial kinship
by Karin Sternberg wildbees.co.za
Twelve years ago, bees lived in hives and made honey. That was the whole story—until I lay on the ground and watched wild honeybees vanish into a rock crevice. That encounter changed my life.
Since then, I’ve tracked bees across parts of South Africa, from fynbos to the arid Karoo. I’ve documented solitary bee nests and wild honeybee colonies in abandoned aardvark burrows. I’ve seen resilience: aestivation through desert heat, migration in drought, the creation of microbial-rich, resin-lined ecosystems underground. I’ve also witnessed the cost of boxing bees—the flattening of their wild diversity into uniformity. Wild colonies, once rich in local adaptations, are reduced to pollination tools, to domesticated and managed assets under a homogenised system of beekeeping.
Unlearn. Watch bees on their terms, and see what they build when we don’t interfere. From brood cells sealed in petals, to grape juice fermented into shelf-stable fruit syrups, bees teach us preservation, protection, and patience.
Let’s leave the honey to the bees, and learn to create sweetness in other ways.
Active Cultures Nut Cheese with Preserved Lemon
Because there was no kimchi brine to be had. Video (5:27)
What microbes are actually involved in making plant based - or dairy based - cheeses, and where they come from, is extensive. Just about anything, almost. But, obviously some things work better than others, for plant based cheese or dairy based cheeses. Sometimes all you need are live cultures from another ferment. Other times, you should use a pre-made culture or backslop . I will show you how to make cheese using plant based substrates like nuts, seeds, beans, vegetables, and fruits.
Anne-Marie Bonneau (https://zerowastechef.com/) demonstrates how she starts with soaked cashews and uses preserved lemon and kimchi brine to inoculate the cheese with live cultures. A flavorful, bubbly cashew cheese perfect for spreading on crackers or using in pizza. This approach highlights the beauty of fermenting with existing live cultures and keeping batches small to maintain freshness.
Koji Oil Infusions: Mint
Koji oil infusions are a flavor-rich, shelf-extending method for preserving herbs like mint. This version combines dried mint with toasted or dried koji and neutral oil, gently heated to extract enzymatic and aromatic compounds. It’s a versatile base for plant-based ferments, legume dips, and glazes. Proper straining and refrigeration ensure safety and flavor retention. For long-term use, freeze in small portions and thaw as needed.
Mint Preserving
From Shio Koji to Pickles
This describes how to preserve mint through freezing, salt packing, amazake or shio koji infusion, oil infusion, drying, pickling, or steam distillation. Each method affects mint’s texture, color, and flavor profile differently, with uses ranging from smoothies to condiments to teas. Koji and amazake techniques contribute fermentation depth, while pickling and hydrosols enhance brightness and longevity. This resource helps match preservation methods to culinary or cosmetic (non-toxic) goals, while emphasizing food safety and proper storage.
Freezing
Salt Packing
Amazake Infusion
Shio Koji Infusion
Drying
Oil Infusion
Hydrosols
Pickling
The leftover pulp after straining fresh mint juice is composed of fibrous plant solids, trace volatile oils, and residual moisture. Though discarded in many kitchens, it can be preserved and repurposed as a seasoning, aromatic powder, or thickening agent. It can also be used as incense, or to smoke.