Bilger, Burkhard. "Nature's Spoils." New Yorker, November 22, 2010. An excellent profile of Sandor Katz and the underground food movement.

Jacobsen, Rowan. American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields. New York: Bloomsbury, 2010. Especially the chapters on cheese and wine.

Katz, Sandor Ellix. The Art of Fermentation. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2012. With a foreword by Michael Pollan. Sandor Katz's magnum opus and indispensable to anyone interested in fermented foods.

---. "Fermentation as a Coevolutionary Force." In Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010. Devon, England: Prospect Books, 2011.

---. Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Food. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2003. An exhilarating if somewhat rough-edged manifesto for fermentos.

Lewin, Alex. Real Food Fermentation: Preserving Whole Fresh Food with Live Cultures in Your Home Kitchen. Minneapolis: Quarry Books, 2012.

Margulis, Lynn, and Dorion Sagan. Dazzle Gradually: Reflections on the Nature of Nature. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007.

---. Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors. New York: Summit Books, 1986.

Mintz, Sidney W. "The Absent Third: The Place of Fermentation in a Thinkable World Food System." In Cured, Fermented and Smoked Foods: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2010. Devon, England: Prospect Books, 2011.

Steinkraus, K.H. "Fermentation in World Food Processing." In Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, Vol. 1 (2002). Published by the Inst.i.tute of Food Technologists. A comprehensive survey of fermented foods and beverages from around the world.

Trubek, Amy B. The Taste of Place: A Cultural Journey into Terroir. Berkeley: University of California, 2008.

On Vegetable Ferments

Andoh, Elizabeth. Kansha: Celebrating j.a.pan's Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2010. See especially the chapter on tsukemono, j.a.pan's extraordinary pickling tradition.

Fallon, Sally, with Mary Enig. Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats. Washington, DC: New Trends Publishing, 2001.

Haekyung, Chung. Korean Cuisine: A Cultural Journey. Seoul: Korea Foundation, 2009.

Lee, Chun Ja. The Book of Kimchi. Seoul: J=Korea Information Service, 1999.

Madison, Deborah. Preserving Food Without Freezing or Canning: The Gardeners and Farmers of Terre Vivante. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2007.

Pederson, Carl. S., and Margaret N. Albury. The Sauerkraut Fermentation. Geneva, NY: New York Agricultural Experiment Station, Bulletin 824, December 1969.

Plengvidhya, V., F. Breidt, Z. Lu, and H. P. Fleming. "DNA Fingerprinting of Lactic Acid Bacteria in Sauerkraut Fermentations." Applied and Environmental Microbiology 73, 23 (2007): 7697702.

Yoon, Sook-ja. Good Morning, Kimchi!: Forty Different Kinds of Traditional and Fusion Kimchi Recipes. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym, 2005.

On the Human Microbiome

Start with the National Inst.i.tutes of Health's Web site for the human microbiome project: http://www.hmpdacc.org/. It has links to many academic articles on the subject. The articles below I found particularly helpful:

Ainsworth, Claire. "I Am Legion: Myriad Microbes Living in Your Gut Make You Who You Are." New Scientist, May 14, 2011.

Bengmark, D. "Ecological Control of the Gastrointestinal Tract: The Role of Probiotic Flora." Gut 42 (1998): 27.

Benson, Alicia, et al. "Gut Commensal Bacteria Direct a Protective Immune Response Against Toxoplasma gondii." Cell Host & Microbe 6, 2 (2009): 18796.

Blaser, Martin J. "Who Are We? Indigenous Microbes and the Ecology of Human Disease." European Molecular Biology Organization, Vol. 7, No. 10, 2006.

Bravo, Javier A., et al. "Ingestion of Lactobacillus Strain Regulates Emotional Behavior and Central GABA Receptor Expression in a Mouse Via the Vagus Nerve." www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1102999108.

Desiere, Frank, et al. "Bioinformatics and Data Knowledge: The New Frontiers for Nutrition and Food." Trends in Food Science & Technology 12 (2002): 21529.

Douwes, J., et al. "Farm Exposure in Utero May Protect Against Asthma." European Respiratory Journal 32 (2008): 60311.

Ege, M.J., et al. Parsifal study team. "Prenatal Farm Exposure Is Related to the Expression of Receptors of the Innate Immunity and to Atopic Sensitization in School-Age Children." Journal of Allergy Clinical Immunology 117 (2006): 81723.

Floistrup, H., et al. "Allergic Disease and Sensitization in Steiner School Children." Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology 117 (2006): 5966.

Gershon, Michael D. The Second Brain: Your Gut Has a Mind of Its Own. New York: Quill, 1998.

Greer, Julie B., and Stephen John O'Keefe. "Microbial Induction of Immunity, Inflammation, and Cancer." Frontiers in Physiology, Vol. 1, article 168 (January 2011).

Hehemann, Jan-Hendrik, et al. "Transfer of Carbohydrate-Active Enzymes from Marine Bacteria to j.a.panese Gut Microbiota." Nature. Vol. 464 (April 8, 2010). This is the study that found that genes from a marine bacterium had been taken up by gut bacteria among the j.a.panese, allowing them to digest carbohydrates in seaweed.

Jung, Ji Young, et al. "Metagenomic a.n.a.lysis of Kimchi, a Traditional Korean Fermented Food." Applied and Environmental Microbiology (April 2011): 226474.

Kaplan, Jess L., et al. "The Role of Microbes in Developmental Immunologic Programming." Pediatric Research, Vol. 69, No. 6 (2011).

Karpa, Kelly Dowhower. Bacteria for Breakfast: Probiotics for Good Health. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2003.

Ley, Ruth E. "Worlds Within Worlds: Evolution of the Vertebrate Gut Microbiota." Nature Reviews, Vol. 6 (October 2008).

O'Keefe, Stephen J.D. "Nutrition and Colonic Health: The Critical Role of the Microbiota." Current Opinion in Gastroenterology 24 (2008): 5158.

Parvez, S., et al. "Probiotics and Their Fermented Food Products Are Beneficial for Health." Journal of Applied Microbiology 100 (2006): 117185.

Perkin, Michael R., et al. "Which Aspects of the Farming Lifestyle Explain the Inverse a.s.sociation with Childhood Allergy?" Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Vol. 117, No. 6.

Robinson, Courtney, et al. "From Structure to Function: The Ecology of Host-a.s.sociated Microbial Communities." Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews (September 2010): 45376. A landmark article seeking to apply the lens of ecology to the microbial communities inhabiting the human body.

Song, Yeong-Ok. "The Functional Properties of Kimchi for the Health Benefits." Food Industry and Nutrition 9, 3 (2004): 2728.

Turnbaugh, P.J., et al. "An Obesity-a.s.sociated Gut Microbiome with Increased Capacity for Energy Harvest." Nature 444 (2006): 102731.

---, et al. "The Human Microbiome Project." Nature 449 (2007): 80410.

---, et al. "A Core Gut Microbiome in Obese and Lean Twins." Nature 457 (2009): 48084.

Walter, Jens. "Ecological Role of Lactobacilli in the Gastrointestinal Tract: Implications for Fundamental and Biomedical Research." Applied and Environmental Microbiology (August 2008): 498596.

Zivkovic, Angela M., J. Bruce German, et al. "Human Milk Glycobiome and Its Impact on the Infant Gastrointestinal Microbiota." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, No. suppl 1 (March 15, 2011): 465358.

On Cheese and Cheese Making