MICROBIAL FERMENTATION

Fermentation is one of nature's best tools and has very notable functions including the recycling of organic nutrients and assisting with the availability of phosphates for plants and animals. Fermentation technology helped to sustain our species during the millennia when our sense of social culture was developing and valuably helped us to preserve food items in ways that did not depend upon merely drying and salting. Our knowledge of making bread has a history of at least 14 000 years. We have traced the history of fermented beverages as far back in time as 9000 years ago, and the history of cheese extends to perhaps 8000 years ago. Fermented food would have seemed a miraculous means of preserving the freshness of vegetables and fruits during those ancient times. It still seemed a miracle during more modern times before the development of canning technology and the common availability of refrigeration. We also have learned to use fermentation for preserving as silage the food for our ruminant livestock, to ferment tobacco as a way of changing its aroma and flavor, and composting our society's organic wastes. Many of the chemicals, enzymes, and pharmaceuticals that are so valuable to our industries, our health, and the health of our animals, similarly are produced by fermentation processes. This chapter describes the miracle of microbial fermentations in nature and as designed processes. I also have included some extensive data tables that list examples of the archaea, bacteria, fungi and oomycetes that are found in designed fermentations.