Ancient Indian Fermentation Practices: A Lab Notebook

What idli batter, koozh, and kanji can teach a modern food-chemistry classroom about microbes and memory.

Our third-year Home Science students spent a semester replicating traditional fermented preparations in the food-chemistry lab — idli batter, koozh, kanji, and a Coorg-region bamboo shoot pickle.

The science was more interesting than we expected. Wild-yeast populations varied by household in ways that predicted rise time and sourness far better than any commercial starter.

The pedagogical lesson was as valuable. Students who had considered these preparations 'grandmother's food' returned to their families with respect: for the microbiology, and for the hands that had carried it forward.

A short paper is under review. The lab, meanwhile, smells wonderful.