Book Review: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods

I highly recommend The Complete Idiot's Guide to Fermenting Foods by Wardeh Harmon for those who have never considered making their own probiotics, those who have only dabbled in it, and those who are interested in learning more about it.
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I've experimented a little with fermenting foods, producing a little yogurt, maintaining kefir grains, killing water kefir grains (evil chloramine in our city water!), failing at gluten free sourdough, and reusing Bubbies pickle juice to transform homegrown cucumbers into probiotic pickles. I wanted to read this book because I find the author's blog extremely informative and am striving to improve the nutritional value of all the food my family eats. I was going to browse the book, but instead followed Wardeh's plea to read it from the beginning. Despite all I thought I knew before opening the book, I learned a great deal about why I should make fermentation a priority and gained a lot of confidence in my ability to succeed at it before even trying any of her recipes.
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The book includes a large number of recipes to try out for those of us who want to start with something tried and true even while understanding that the nature of fermenting fresh products means the results will not always be the same. The purpose of it is truly to teach how to ferment anything, rather than to follow a particular recipe. And I have gained a lot from it in learning how to ferment and why to ferment. I have tried only the mild salsa so far, with cherry tomatoes instead of romas and omitting the cilantro. After fermenting I had to drain the salsa because it was so juicy (part of that may have been from the tomato variety). But after draining it, I had better salsa than I've ever tasted, leaving me waiting impatiently for more of my tomatoes to ripen so I could make another batch.
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I am extremely glad that I read this book. It has already had an impact on the products that emerge from my kitchen and has encouraged me to invest a greater portion of my efforts on other probiotic foods. I think it's time to try out the water kefir again (but not with our city water, since now I know what killed the grains last time) and to experiment with pickles, chutneys and relishes.
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This post is an unsolicited review. The book link goes to my Amazon Affiliate, so I could potentially receive compensation if you choose to click on it and buy anything from Amazon. However, the other links are not to affiliates and I chose to review this book without any expectation of financial compensation from anyone.
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