Looking back over nine years of Madre‑sitting, I see how the culture has been both teacher and trickster. She’s offered small miracles and equally theatrical disasters, a few of them so absurd they can only be laughed at now.

Was it a gentle nudge from the Mother herself that pulled me into all this? Or simply the thrill of my taste buds encountering something astonishingly alive for the first time? I can’t say. But I do know that what began in my kitchen soon became something far larger, propelled by that same mixture of curiosity and compulsion that defines most fermenters I know.

There’s always been tension in building a business around a living thing. The Mother resists control, and monetising her gift can feel at odds with her natural abundance and the spirit of sharing that fermentation has always embodied. Historically, these cultures - sourdough starters, dairy kefir, kombucha, and others - were passed from neighbour to neighbour, gifts that carried both nourishment and connection. So to commercialise one felt, at times, like a contradiction, as though I were trying to claim something that belonged to everyone, and to no one.

Still, the drive to share is powerful. At first, I was fermenting in simple 5‑litre glass jars. The culture’s growth, sometimes nearly 50% increase in a two‑day ferment, quickly pushed me to 100‑litre vessels. Every surface disappeared beneath jars and bottles; the kitchen table vanished entirely. Dinner was eaten off our knees. Two second‑hand commercial fridges arrived, parked back‑to‑back in the side alley under a homemade roof. Against all advice about ambient temperature, one of them is still running seven years later.

Exploding bottles, sluggish ferments, mysterious moulds, debates about bags or no bags, the eternal question of glass v metal v plastic—these were daily puzzles. Water kefir’s acidic nature raised longer‑term concerns: what would it do to plastics over time? And then there were the subtler influences for example the fruit on the counter, the trees in the garden, even the potential pollution in the air. Every element seemed to touch the Mother’s mood. Feed, rest, and rhythm all mattered, and each change felt like part of a long conversation.

That’s the heart of it, really. Fermenting at scale became a deeply relational act. A conversation that’s practical, sensory, emotional, and at times, spiritual. It demands the same things all good relationships do: attention, patience, and respect for difference.

When it came to upscaling, I always saw the grains as royalty - sensitive yet resilient. We began exploring pharmaceutical‑grade glass assemblies, which now look absolutely mad in hindsight—beautiful but unworkably complex. Eventually, ancient wisdom pointed the way. The amphora, those clay vessels used for millennia to hold wine, inspired our final choice: handmade ceramic eggs crafted for us in Byron Bay, Australia.

Though we no longer brew in the eggs, they remain symbols of that period of experimentation. At least one has found a poetic second life with fellow fermenters at Flux Fermentation, not far from its original London home in Hackney.

As for me, I’ve come full circle: back to small‑scale home ferments, three‑litre jars sitting quietly on the counter. The lessons remain the same—listen to your Madre, respect her rhythms, and she’ll continue to teach you things no spreadsheet or thermometer ever could.

Continue for a water kefir recipe to quench the summer thirst…

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Welcome to a journey through my mind picking a single ingredient and making the very most out of it.

I’ve worn a lot of hats in my food journey. Pastry chef, baker, fermenter, forager, teacher, traveller, writer, photographer, but I prefer to focus on what’s in front of me.

Right now I’m into food waste projects, stretching boundaries and seeking for more knowledge every day. Here is what I’m focussed on right now:

WILD BLACKBERRIES. I am in love with them. They may be small and painful to pick, but they are packed with flavour! Not just the one-dimensional sweetness of the store bought ones but an overall well-balanced acidity and astringency. AND THEY ARE FREE. PLUS THEY ARE LITERALLY EVERYWHERE.

I love to work with them and last year was particularly great, the sun was on fire for many months and turned most of the blackberries into juicy, sweet, sticky little gems. My friends and I picked about 40 litres worth, and I was planning several projects with them. But most exciting is always the zero-waste one.

1. Wild Blackberry wine

Recipe:

• Wild black berries 4kg

• Water 4L

• Caster Sugar 1kg

Kit:

• 10L bucket

Method:

1. Put your delicious blackberries in a big (10L) bucket and smash them all up.

2. Dissolve your sugar in warm water, wait for it to cool to below 40C then add to your berries (if it’s too hot it will kill the wild yeast present on the berries).

3. Close the lid and let nature do its thing for 2 weeks. This can be achieved with the most simple of kit (A bucket). If you are feeling fancy, get your self a demijohn with a bung and air lock.

4. After 2 weeks, strain your beautiful amber coloured liquid, enjoy your vino di casa and show off to your friends.

Keep your blackberry solids and use your clever brain to turn them into many more wonderful things.

For simplicity, you can turn it into a jam.

2. Blackberry Jam

Recipe:

• leftover blackberry wine lees (~2 kg)

• apples (5, cut into pieces)

• Jam Sugar 45% of the juice from your blackberry solids.

Kit:

• Jelly bag

• large pan

Method:

1. Cook your blackberry lees with your apples till they all turn to mush, then spoon the whole thing into a jelly bag and let it drip into a bowl overnight.

2. The next day, weigh your juice and add 45% sugar (for 100g of juice that would be 45g of sugar).

3. Bring it to a boil for 15-25 minutes till you see it starting to set.

4. To test if it will set put a tsp on a plate and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

Voila, pour it into jars and let it beeeee!

What’s next?

3. Blackberry curing salt

Recipe:

• Blackberry lees .00g

• Salt 3% (27g)

Kit:

• 1L Jar

Method:

Sprinkle 3% salt on your strained wine lees, place it in a jar and let it sit on your kitchen counter. By doing so, you will invite some sexy lactobacillus to munch on the leftover sugar scraps they can find.

After 5 days this will turn your Blackberry solids partially acidic.

Once it is suitably tangy, dehydrate, powder it and use it as a seasoning.

This will yield about 90g of powder.

Mixing it with sugar and more salt can be a wonderful rub for wild meats.

Mix in an equal ratio, total weight of dehydrated solids: Sugar: Salt = 1:1:1 (e.g. 90g:90g:90g).

4. Blackberry-cured Venison

Ingredients:

• Venison loin 500g

• Blackberry curing salt (From above) 100g

• Spices: 10g black pepper, 5g Szechuan peppercorn, 3 x cloves , 4g chilli flakes.

Method:

1. Blend your spices and add them to your blackberry curing salt.

2. Clean your meat and rub it with your spice & salt blend.

3. Let it sit in the cure in the fridge for 48 hours.

4. Wash the cure off and cover the hardened meat with more spice mix.

5. Wrap in a breathable cloth and hang in a corner with good air flow and the temperature is between 15C and 22C.

6. In a month you should have a lovely venison ‘jamon’.

There is still more you can do!

5. Blackberry-kasuzuke

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I was born and raised in India and went to school in South India. Food was never abstract or romanticised — it was everyday, practical, and deeply tied to climate, preservation, and time. Fermentation, spice, heat, and patience weren’t ideas; they were simply how food worked, and how different families treated it.

I came to the UK to train as a chef and entered the world of classical, high-pressure kitchens. Over the years, I worked at Gordon Ramsay, Claridge’s, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons, The Cinnamon Club, and Galvin Bistrot. Those kitchens gave me structure, discipline, and technical confidence. They also showed me how narrow cooking can become when everything revolves around service speed, repetition, and refinement for its own sake.

Eventually, I burned out — mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially.

I stepped away from professional kitchens entirely and took a year off. That year became my own version of eat, pray, love. I became less interested in dishes and more interested in process — how flavour develops, how cultures preserve food, and how time transforms ingredients.

Out of that year came That Hungry Chef.

That Hungry Chef began as a way to work outside traditional restaurant structures. It grew into a platform for supper clubs, private dining, fermentation-led menus, and long-form food projects. The focus was never just what was on the plate, but why it was there — the techniques, the histories, and the decisions behind it. Fermentation naturally became central to that work because it aligned with how I wanted to cook.

What mattered most was telling stories, exploring the migration of flavour, and experimenting with traditional food sciences to create contemporary outcomes.

Here Is Something I Ferment

Gochujang is one of the great fermented pastes of the world. It isn’t about heat alone; it’s about balance — sweetness, salt, umami, and spice working together over time. What interested me wasn’t copying it, but understanding its logic: its patience, its structure, and its restraint.

Chile-jang is my hybrid ferment inspired by traditional Korean gochujang, but rooted in my own culinary journey and long-standing love of Mexican flavours.

My connection to Korean food began early. While at school in South India, I shared a room with a Korean classmate named Lee. Through him and his family, I was introduced to Korean cooking in the 1990s, long before it became globally recognised. His mum’s food — kimchi, gochujang, and other fermented staples — offered my first real insight into a cuisine shaped by quiet routines and long timelines. Fermentation wasn’t explained; it was simply lived.

Even after school, Lee and I stayed in touch. He went on to become a chef and open restaurants in Seoul, while I pursued my own path in food and fermentation. We still exchange ideas, particularly around how gochujang can be used beyond strictly Korean contexts. What has always stood out is his openness. Innovation, for him, is a way to honour tradition, not dilute it.

Alongside that influence, I’ve always been drawn to Mexican cuisine — especially its treatment of chilli. Mexican cooks use fresh and dried varieties to build flavour in layers: smoky, bitter, fruity, earthy, bright. Heat is just one component, not the goal. I wanted to bring that depth into a Korean-style ferment, while making it gluten- and soy-free, and accessible to more people.

Chile-jang is the result.

The base is rice koji and the chillies are a blend: habanero, ancho, guajillo, mulato, and chipotle. Agave replaces rice syrup, while ground rice and malted buckwheat provide body. Salt and water bring everything together.

The name is deliberate. “Chile” comes from chīlli, the ancient Nahuatl word used by Indigenous Mexicans long before the Aztecs. It’s the root of the Spanish chile and the English chilli. “Jang” is Korean for paste — a category that includes gochujang, doenjang, and ssamjang. Chile-jang sits between two cultures, two languages, and two fermentation traditions.

This ferment is more than a condiment. It reflects my own story — growing up in South India, learning from Korean friends, falling in love with Mexican flavours, and finding ways to connect them through fermentation. It’s about honouring the past while creating something new. Fermentation is slow. It teaches patience. It reminds us that transformation takes time.

Fancy trying it out? Get in touch for the recipe.

Read on for the Kimchi Dumpling Slab: Inspired by a traditional Rajasthani dish called Pithaud

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How do I start? Where is the shallow end?

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Here we will be sharing our tasty tales and delicious recipes.

This week we have Jono Hope, on his miso journey at Slow Sauce:

MORNING, It is a beautiful spring day here in Deeside!

(Aberdeenshire for the uninitiated - Royal Deeside for the overcompensating).

We find ourselves at a blessed moment, on the silent threshold between leaf blowers and lawn mowers. The temperature is set to peak at a balmy 18.5 Degrees, the grass is beaming jade green with new life…

It would be on such a day, after much hand wringing and electrician chasing that the miso brewery is finally ready and I am called inside to make the first batch of Koji. (Inaugural Koji!)

I’m Jono, formerly of Kultured. Together with Robin of the Koji kitchen and the assistance of some beautiful organic oats we will be working our tails off to make Scotland into an internationally recognised miso region.

It all started here ^^ asking our Ai overlords to sketch out the perfect miso brewery.

Not sure what is more scary, the shed warm room in the shape of an old hatchback or the roll up garage room leading to nowhere…

So we scrapped that plan. All except for an office in the shape of a bath of course and took over a local funeral directors, next door to the police station.

Before you ask, no it’s not being called the miso morgue, or for that matter the koji crypt.

The last four months have been spent taking down all the internal walls and insulating all the ones that remained. Sandy Gordon, the local joiner has been exercising much patience with me on the building site and trying, for the life of him to teach me an honest trade.

The oak barrels have arrived, and the ovens are finally in, Our plan is to grow koji on gluten free oats and make Miso / Shoyu from a range of heritage British peas supplied by the beautiful people at Hodmedod.

(Shoyu being soy sauce made without soy)

If you ever find yourself north of the wall, feel free to drop in and grow some mould with us!

For today's recipe I’m sharing two simple sides: Minty miso new potatoes & celeriac shoyu remoulade.

For the Tatties:

Ingredients:

New pots - 500g, Oat miso - 1tbs, Garlic - 1/2 a bulb, Olive Oil - 1 glug. Mint - 1 sprig.

Method:

Give your potatoes a quick wash and fill a pan with 2 L of water

Add a fist full of salt, (40g /2% for the academics) feels like a lot but will be grand.

Bring slowly to the boil.

Pick your mint leaves and layer them on top of each other, largest to smallest.

Fold in half and slice as finely as you can with a sharp knife. (AKA the Chiffonade)

Peel your garlic bulbs and squash. Add a sprinkle of fine salt and use the flat side of the knife to press them into a paste.

Once your potatoes are tender and a fork goes through the larger ones easily, drain and return to the pan.

Add a slug of olive oil and a table spoon of oat miso (Can be any miso, if we are being aggressively honest - I also added the final remains of a garlic fava miso from Umami Chef for a double garlic hit!).

chuck in most of the mint - save a little to garnish. Then rummle it all together till you get a good saucy consistency round the tatties, the olive oil will form a kind of emulsion with the miso.

Add to a serving dish then top with the remaining mint and another splash of Olive oil.

For the Celeriac remoulade:

Ingredients:

Celeriac - 1/2, Large carrot - 1, Apple - 1 (your favourite eating variety), Lemon - Juice of 1/2, Olive oil - A splash of , Shoyu - 1 tablespoon (can be any soy sauce).

Method:

Peel then grate a fist sized piece celeriac, a carrot and an apple. Mix together and Add the squeezed lemon juice, olive oil and shoyu.

For a vegetarian meal you could serve these alongside roasted celeriac:

Simply coat the remaining half of celeriac with oil, salt, cumin and coriander seed (in that order) then roast at 200 for 40 mins or until nice and caramelised.

They could equally well compliment a piece of fish cooked on a bed of onions & garlic, with a leafy green salad.

Thank you kindly for having me!

Wish me luck with the Koji please and thank you!

slowsauce.co.uk