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Handbook of indigenous fermented foods
Bioresource Technology62 (1997) 131 © 1997 Published by Elsevier Science Limited All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain 0960-8524/97 $17.00 ELSEVIER
PII:S0960-8524(97)00106-5
Book Review Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods. K. H.
the role of lactobacilli in infant, as well as adult, nutrition which stands out. The multifarious beneficial effects of these organisms are given due weight in the text. The seriousness of infantile diarrhoea, as a worldwide killer disease, cannot be overemphasised. Nor can the current spate of outbreaks of food poisoning, against many of which the lactobacilli are a potent defence, be ignored. One noteworthy feature is the warning in the text of the danger of adopting short-cuts in these acid fermentations. Designers of food process lines are ubiquitously on the lookout for methods of shortening the processing times. In spite of the widespread turmoil in Africa, it is gratifying to see that local authors are contributing reports on the upgrading and developing of fermented sorghum, maize, root crops and tuber-based foods, this development, still in its early stage, is of particular value for furnishing safe foods for infant feeding and is just one of the many examples of the contribution these traditional fermented foods can continue to make to providing pathologically safe foodstuffs in environments in which a high risk of food and water related disease is prevalent. One normally views the whole range of fermented foods as acid and alcoholic, but Steinkraus's own contribution, citing recent work from Africa (a topic not in the 1st edition), is a valuable inclusion. He has assiduously continued to amass references to the whole subject. This is a book to browse, as well as for reference. The diversity of these foods is so great and the range they occupy so large that a feature of the new work, to aid browsing, is that it has a good general index. Sadly, the price of $150 may put the volume out of reach of the many who would benefit from the contents, but this is the only adverse note whilst otherwise applauding the text.
Steinkraus (1996) (Second Edition, Revised & Expanded) Marcel Dekker, Inc.: New York, Basel, Hong Kong, pp. 776, hardback $150.00. ISBN 0-8247-9352-8. In this era of cultural correctness it seems to come as a shock to the layman that fermentation plays such a widespread part in the preparation of food. There is a false aversion to microbes, akin to that of spiders and bats. Yet, like spiders and bats, many microbes perform very useful roles. The analogy breaks down only in so far as man cannot live without microbes. He might arguably live in a world in which other creatures had usurped the bat and spider niches. 'Living with the microbial world' was the philosophical theme of the UNESCO conference on applied microbiology, held in Bankok, Thailand, in 1967. It was as a part of the organisation of that conference that Professor Steinkraus generated the ideas of a definitive handbook on indigenous fermented foods and this theme was incorporated within the conference as a specific element, viz indigenous fermented foods. Professor Steinkraus had to overcome many difficulties, principally lack of support and funds, before he finally succeeded in having the papers published in 1983. The mere act of digesting and ordering the papers from the symposium was, as Dr De Silva points out in the foreword to the book a Herculean task. He is to be especially congratulated in persevering to produce this revised and immensly improved second edition. Although this new work has benefited from the widespread use of the first edition, it is nevertheless a vast improvement on its predecessor. New material is included which will make this present volume the definitive work for many years to come. What are the new elements? In the reviewers opinion it is the steady rise in acknowledgement of
Robert Stanton
131
PII:S0960-8524(97)00106-5
Book Review Handbook of Indigenous Fermented Foods. K. H.
the role of lactobacilli in infant, as well as adult, nutrition which stands out. The multifarious beneficial effects of these organisms are given due weight in the text. The seriousness of infantile diarrhoea, as a worldwide killer disease, cannot be overemphasised. Nor can the current spate of outbreaks of food poisoning, against many of which the lactobacilli are a potent defence, be ignored. One noteworthy feature is the warning in the text of the danger of adopting short-cuts in these acid fermentations. Designers of food process lines are ubiquitously on the lookout for methods of shortening the processing times. In spite of the widespread turmoil in Africa, it is gratifying to see that local authors are contributing reports on the upgrading and developing of fermented sorghum, maize, root crops and tuber-based foods, this development, still in its early stage, is of particular value for furnishing safe foods for infant feeding and is just one of the many examples of the contribution these traditional fermented foods can continue to make to providing pathologically safe foodstuffs in environments in which a high risk of food and water related disease is prevalent. One normally views the whole range of fermented foods as acid and alcoholic, but Steinkraus's own contribution, citing recent work from Africa (a topic not in the 1st edition), is a valuable inclusion. He has assiduously continued to amass references to the whole subject. This is a book to browse, as well as for reference. The diversity of these foods is so great and the range they occupy so large that a feature of the new work, to aid browsing, is that it has a good general index. Sadly, the price of $150 may put the volume out of reach of the many who would benefit from the contents, but this is the only adverse note whilst otherwise applauding the text.
Steinkraus (1996) (Second Edition, Revised & Expanded) Marcel Dekker, Inc.: New York, Basel, Hong Kong, pp. 776, hardback $150.00. ISBN 0-8247-9352-8. In this era of cultural correctness it seems to come as a shock to the layman that fermentation plays such a widespread part in the preparation of food. There is a false aversion to microbes, akin to that of spiders and bats. Yet, like spiders and bats, many microbes perform very useful roles. The analogy breaks down only in so far as man cannot live without microbes. He might arguably live in a world in which other creatures had usurped the bat and spider niches. 'Living with the microbial world' was the philosophical theme of the UNESCO conference on applied microbiology, held in Bankok, Thailand, in 1967. It was as a part of the organisation of that conference that Professor Steinkraus generated the ideas of a definitive handbook on indigenous fermented foods and this theme was incorporated within the conference as a specific element, viz indigenous fermented foods. Professor Steinkraus had to overcome many difficulties, principally lack of support and funds, before he finally succeeded in having the papers published in 1983. The mere act of digesting and ordering the papers from the symposium was, as Dr De Silva points out in the foreword to the book a Herculean task. He is to be especially congratulated in persevering to produce this revised and immensly improved second edition. Although this new work has benefited from the widespread use of the first edition, it is nevertheless a vast improvement on its predecessor. New material is included which will make this present volume the definitive work for many years to come. What are the new elements? In the reviewers opinion it is the steady rise in acknowledgement of
Robert Stanton
131