Handbook of Indigenous Foods Involving Alkaline Fermentation details the basic approaches of alkaline fermentation, provides a brief history, and offers an overview of the subject. Devoted exclusively to alkaline-fermented foods (AFFs), this text includes contributions from experts from around the globe. It discusses the diversity of indigenous fermented foods involving an alkaline reaction, as well as the taxonomy, ecology, physiology, and genetics of predominant microorganisms occurring in AFFs.

Presented in nine chapters, the book explains how microorganisms or enzymes transform raw ingredients into AFFs. It discusses the safety aspects of AFFs, and considers the challenges associated with the technological aspects in modernizing AFFs. It stresses the significance of the microbiological and biochemical processes in the fermentations, as well as the factors that influence the development of the characteristic microbiota, and the biochemical and organoleptic changes induced by them. It also proposes solutions, discusses the value of AFFs and related dominant microorganisms, and assesses the future of AFFs.

The authors highlight commonly known foods and beverages of plant and animal origin. They provide insight into the manufacture, chemical and microbiological composition, processing, and compositional and functional modifications taking place as a result of microbial and enzyme effects. The text examines safety, legislation, traditional and industrialized processes, as well as new product development, and opportunities for developing commodities from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East. In addition, it also assesses the value of food processing by-products, biotechnology, and engineering of solid-state processes, modern chemical and biological analytical approaches to safety, and health and consumer perception.

• Focuses on how fermentation of food remains an important aspect of food processing
• Describes how fermentation of food contributes to its preservation
• Details how fermented food gets its flavor from microbial and enzymatic modifications of food components such as sugars, fats, and proteins

Handbook of Indigenous Foods Involving Alkaline Fermentation

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.