Diagnostic products based on enzymatic reactions, farm silos for silage fermentations, bread pans with fermenting yeast, and the soil in a Kansas wheat field may also be viewed as bioreactors.
With dishes like Fermented Tea Leaf Salad, Fried Stinky Tofu with Pickles, and Braised Beef Rib with Fermented Pan Chan, one can only imagine what the venue will smell like by the middle of the meal.
The milk is then inoculated with fermenting microorganisms and rennet, which promote curdling.
A beet salad ($8) adorned with fermented rice, bonito flakes and crispy duck tongue tastes merely of beets.
"As far back as we can look, humans have had a love affair with fermented beverages," said Patrick McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania.
"It seems likely that our primate ancestors were familiar with fermenting berries and were even familiar with the phenomenon of inebriation," he said.
Further down the block, Mr. Lowerson ordered plastic cups of yogurt with fermented wild rice, a popular afternoon or evening snack.
But this is a drink embedded in Korean culture since the 14th century, when Mongol invaders taught the locals how to distill, with fermented rice as the traditional starter.
From the 18th century, when serious winemaking began in the Piedmont, until the 1970's -- later in some instances -- making Barolo began with fermenting nebbiolo grapes, always nebbiolo, for months in huge wooden casks holding 1,000 gallons or more.
Inside the premises you'll find a rough oak counter, whiskey barrels filled with fermenting cabbage and garlic scapes, and shelves lined with neatly packed jars of cucumbers, ramps, squash, beets and other vegetables.
