Handbook of Indigenous Foods Involving Alkaline Fermentation

This book describes the history, culture, production, microbiology, biochemistry, nutritional value, and roles of the diet of indigenous alkaline fermented foods of the world. The rise in pH during the production of these foods results in an environment that makes the substrate unsatisfactory for the growth of undesirable microorganisms and determines what microorganisms can survive, multiply, and carry out the fermentation. This book emphasizes the microbiological and biochemical processes in the fermentations and the factors that influence the development of the characteristic microbiota and the biochemical and organoleptic changes induced by them.

Prabir K. Sarkar has been a professor at the University of North Bengal, India since 2000. He earned his bachelor’s (1972), master’s (1974), and doctoral (1981) degrees in botany, with specialization in microbiology, from the University of Burdwan, India. He carried out his postdoctoral research on food fermentation at the University of Reading in the UK, Queensland Health Scientific Services Laboratory in Australia, and Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He has 34 years of experience in teaching microbiology, and has published approximately 70 research articles in impact journals. His research focus is fermentation and microbiological safety of indigenous foods.

M. J. Robert Nout graduated as a food technologist at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in 1970. His interest in food fermentation evolved during his career of university teaching and research in several African and Asian countries. He defended his doctor’s thesis at Wageningen University in 1981 on the topic of "indigenous fermented beverages of Kenya." Since 1983, he was an associate professor at Wageningen University, a visiting professor at China Agricultural University since 2005, and has published over 250 scientific articles. Retired since 2011, he is now a consultant in the area of food fermentation research.