On Friday, Nov. 15, during Explora’s Adult Night, local fungi and fermentation vendors gave visitors a taste of mushrooms, mold and fermented foods.
Visitors could taste kombucha and koji, enjoy local beer and wine, and take home a sample of fermented vegetables while also enjoying the science activities Explora offers.
Explora partnered with the Fermentation and Fungi Fest to bring several vendors, including Enchanted Farms Mushrooms, Ecologica, New Mexico Ferments and Sheehan Winery to the “fermentastic” night.
The second annual Fermentation and Fungi Fest took place on Oct. 20 in Downtown Albuquerque, with over 40 local vendors, according to festival organizer Kathryn Cannella.
“Explora came on as an educational partner, and so we wanted to return the favor by having a presence here at their adult night,” Cannella said.
Explora has been hosting Adult Nights since 2004, offering adult-only evenings with themed activities, installations and science experiments, according to the Explora website.
Julian Scanlon and his wife Alyx Kunz are both mushroom enthusiasts who showcased their koji-growing station and provided samples of pinto bean sauce as an alternative to soy sauce, among other koji products.
Koji is a domesticated filamentous mold that makes miso, soy sauce, amazake and sake through the enzymes it creates while it grows, according to Scanlon.
“We like calling it a mama bird for food, because it kind of pre-digests something for you, and then it gives it to you to eat,” Scanlon said.
Scanlon and Kunz had some koji growing on display in a closed environment.
Koji is made from steaming rice and letting it cool before mixing in spores from Japan and letting the mold grow around the rice for about 48 hours, according to Scanlon.
He said he learned that miso made from koji can also help with radiation chelation from the body when he was looking for ways to help his grandmother during radiation therapy and cancer.
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“When you make a miso, you create the perfect base for a very rich diversity of probiotics,” Scanlon said. “There's a specific type of bacteria in that probiotic that comes on later in the fermentation that actually attaches itself onto the radiation and is ejected when you go to the restroom.”
Enchanted Farms Mushrooms sold local shiitake mushrooms and displayed how some of its mushrooms, including lion’s mane, are grown.
For Paul Polechla Jr., wildlife ecologist and museum visitor, it was his third time participating in Adult Night at Explora.
“The Explora Adult Night is always something fun and different, all relating to science,” Polechla said. “Tonight is fermentation night, so they have fermenting in the process of making wine, fermenting using brewer’s yeast and making beer and your basic fermentation when it comes to vegetables.”
He held a bag of fermented vegetables with a basic pickling recipe attached.
The recipe included water, vinegar, salt and sugar to speed up the fermentation process, he said.
“Then voilà, you have pickled tart vegetables,” Polechla said.
Local kombucha company New Mexico Ferments gave out samples of kombucha flavors, including prickly pear, apricot mint and hibiscus lavender.
Erin Best, the distribution representative for New Mexico Ferments, said all brewing is done locally at its kitchen on Washington Street and Menaul Boulevard, and some of the fruit and herbs used to flavor the kombucha is sourced from its farm in Peralta.
“Kombucha is a probiotic, so it's really good for your gut health,” she said. “It's medicinal in a way that is still like having a treat. It's not having a soda, it's not having a beer, but you still feel like you're getting something real tasty.”
New Mexico Ferments delivers kombucha to local breweries, including Draft and Table at the University of New Mexico Student Union Building, which serves it on tap, Best said.
Fermentations and fungi have several benefits for the community, Cannella said.
“It’s important to be a resource, so I think that's what the (Fermentation and Fungi) festival provides as well, it's very community based, very family friendly,” Canella said.
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on X @paloma_chapa88
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @paloma_chapa88
