Dr. Johnny Drain is a rare blend of scientist, chef, and explorer, armed with a PhD in materials science from Oxford, he has collaborated with world-class kitchens like Noma’s Nordic Food Lab and championed sustainability through projects like Win‑Win (producers of cocoa‑free chocolate) Co‑founder of MOLD Magazine, occasional TV presenter, and hands‑on fermentation teacher, Johnny Drain brings both expertise and effervescent storytelling to Adventures in Fermentation.

Part cookbook, part travelogue, Adventures in Fermentation is a joyful, intelligent ode to microbes as collaborators, storytellers, and guardians of taste. With a scientist’s curiosity and a chef’s palate, Drain demystifies fermentation, celebrating its ancient legacy and its modern power to shape food, health, and sustainability.

In this conversation, Drain reflects on what inspired the book, reveals his most eye-opening laboratory (and Noma) surprises, and explains why fermentation is more than a culinary trend – it is a way forward for food, culture, and community.

What inspired you to write Adventures in Fermentation—and why now, and how is it different from other fermentation books?

I wanted to write the book I wish I’d had when I started – not just how-to recipes but why-to stories. Adventures in Fermentation blends science, travelogue, cultural curiosity, and context – it’s a love letter to microbes, what they do, and what they might do in the future, for us as well as to the producers who work with them. Why now? There’s a much greater interest in fermentation and gut health now than there was ten years ago.

What’s one chapter or story that surprised even you while writing it?

The one where I nearly called Danish emergency services after licking something I probably shouldn’t have at Noma’s Nordic Food Lab. (All of my own creation and creating, I should hasten to add).

You’ve travelled extensively – how do different cultures’ approaches to fermentation influence the way you think and write about it?

Fermentation is a global language spoken in many dialects. Experiencing this first-hand on my travels has taught me there’s no one “right” way, just a deep, ancient, shared instinct to transform and preserve the food we have around us, and an appetite to play with those techniques to create thrillingly flavourful new things.

What makes fermentation so magical for you?

It’s the taste of time! And radically so: with fermentation, you can summon notes of burnt toffee, honey, banana and pineapple from a humble soybean with the addition only of fungi, salt and water. Few other cooking techniques offer such profound transformation.

 

You’ve described fermentation as a way of “cooperating with microbes.” How do you see that metaphor extending into other areas of life or food culture?

Cooperation over domination – it’s a mindset we could all do with. Whether it’s what we eat, the technology we use, our social structures or how our governments work and work together, the microbial model reminds us that complexity works best through collaboration, not control.

How do you view fermentation’s role in building a more sustainable food future?

It helps us create new delicious things, waste less, use more, and eat more vegetables. Fermentation is slow food, smart food, and future food, all in one. And above all, tasty.

What’s the most unexpected ingredient or technique in the book?

Smen – a fermented butter from North Africa that smells and tastes like blue cheese. It’s fabulously pungent and utterly unforgettable.

Have you had any memorable fermentation “fails”? What did they teach you?

Plenty. Exploding jars, mouldy ferments, ones that smell like hot bin juice or death. Each failure reminds me that the world is complex and you can’t always get what you want.

How can fermentation help reconnect us with nature and time, especially in such a fast-paced world?

Fermentation forces us to slow down. It makes us wait, observe and trust! It invites us into an intimate relationship with a largely invisible ecosystem, one that we soon see is merely a sub-section of all other living things.

Do you think fermented foods still carry a certain stigma? How can books like yours change that?

Many make the mistake of thinking that all fermented foods are sour. Or that they all smell (bad). So yes, they do still carry a certain stigma. This book helps demystify and destigmatise them, at least in part, simply by pointing out that many of the world’s favourite flavours – wine, beer, chocolate, coffee, soy sauce, cheese, butter, bread – are all fermented. Everyone already enjoys fermented foods, they just don’t realise it!

Where do you see the future of fermentation heading – in kitchens, labs, and beyond?

In kitchens, I see it becoming as common as toasting, roasting, chopping, and refrigerating; just another tool at your disposal. In labs, I see it helping design the next generation of nourishing, sustainable ingredients. And beyond? If we ever venture into space, then we will need to cooperate with microbes when it comes to feeding ourselves. But fixing the food system on Earth is a higher priority right now.

Is there a particular fermentation tradition or region that you’re currently obsessed with?

I’ve just returned from Tokushima in Japan, so I have a recency bias. The breadth and depth of ferments there is astounding. I visited an 18th-generation soy sauce producer, Kamebishi, where, for example, the press, a huge thing the size of a lorry, used to squeeze the soy sauce from the mash was 270 years old! Of course, their products are incredible, but more than that, it was fascinating to see how stitched into the physical space ‘their’ microbes are: in the wooden-framed room where they make the koji, the koji spores completely cover the wood. They have lived there and have done for hundreds of years.

If you could share a fermented dish with anyone (living or dead), who would it be and what would you serve?

It would be with David Lynch. We’d eat a selection of Richard Hart’s bread with my cultured butter. He loved milkshakes, so I’d make him a kefir milkshake too. And coffee, of course. Lots of coffee. He’d want to smoke too: tobacco is ‘cured’, with some microbial action thought to be involved, so that would fit right into the theme!

What do you hope readers will feel, think, or do after reading Adventures in Fermentation?

I hope they feel joy, curiosity and hope. I want them to think differently about food and microbes. And do something bold—whether that’s fermenting a cabbage, savouring a segment of chocolate a little more deeply, or just slowing down to watch some bread dough bubble.

Adventures in Fermentations is available at Waterstones and many other bookstores.