Fermentation as food pedagogy: insights into how teaching fermentation facilitates engagement with the food system

This paper explores the pedagogical potential of fermentation as a tool to support critical engagement with food systems among urban European consumers. Drawing on the food pedagogy framework developed by Park et al. (2022), the study analyses qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 13 fermentation educators operating across eight European countries. The analysis examines how fermentation workshops may contribute to building awareness about food systems, enabling enjoyment and social connection, encouraging experiential practice in everyday life, and prompting action for change. Our findings suggest that fermentation enables sensorial and reflective learning, allowing learners to not only learn about food preservation and microbial action on food but also about the broader social, environmental, and political dimensions of contemporary food systems. However, this engagement is shaped by contextual and structural factors. Fermentation workshops in European cities seem to primarily attract white, educated, middle-class women, raising questions about access, inclusion, and the reproduction of privilege within alternative food spaces. Drawing on insights from critical food studies and feminist literature, we discuss how fermentation education intersects with discourses of ethical consumption and gendered responsibility related to foodwork and sustainable living. Overall, we observe that while fermentation workshops create space for urban consumers to meaningfully engage with food and food systems, they also mirror broader inequalities that characterise the very same systems. The paper concludes that for fermentation to become a more inclusive and impactful pedagogical tool, attention must be paid to questions of access, representation, and accountability.