Every ferment I make or teach comes with lived experience. Sauerkraut, pickles, rye and beet kvass and sourdough are part of my European heritage and time spent living there. I spent 8 years in Japan learning its fermentation traditions, mostly by eating them, but also in friends' kitchens and my own. I've been to Korea again and again to study kimchi (eat) and makgeolli (drink).
Except tempeh.
I'd dabbled for years, ever since visiting Sandor Katz in Tennessee and seeing how simple it could be. His incubator was an old fridge! But most of my knowledge came from books and workshops, not from the place tempeh was born. So I didn't teach it. It didn't feel right.
Finding "Mr Tempeh"
Our tempeh culture once came from MR Tempeh. For the first few conversations I called the owner "Mr Tempeh", until I learned that MR stands for Margaret River, where the business began. His name is Amita. He's Dutch, with that lovely heavy accent that feels like home to me, and he welcomed me with open arms. We planned a trip to Java where he lives and runs a tour and workshops. COVID put it on hold for years, but eventually Jeff and I got there.
Yogyakarta
Muggy, sparse, yet chaotic and clamouring. Donkeys pulling carts, scooters carrying whole families, cows tied to bamboo carts, traffic winding everywhere. There were hardly any tourists. Borobudur, a UNESCO World Heritage site just outside the city, is well worth the trip.
We stayed at a homestay in a small village with dirt roads, cows wandering through yards, and rice drying on bamboo trays in the sun. We were fed beautiful home-style meals morning and night, always with tempeh. There's not a lot of beer or wine in the region, so within days we were drinking Wedang Uwuh and jasmine tea all day long. (Our Wedang Uwuh recipe is here.)
The tempeh makers
Many of the makers we visited were women, working in small courtyards in their own homes with whatever set-up they had. One operation was run by brothers, and another, bigger but still rustic, by a family. There were always cats.
Most wrapped soybeans in banana leaves, and many used plastic bags with clever ways of punching holes in them. One woman used jack beans wrapped in teak leaves. Most made tempeh every day for the early morning markets and local warungs. There was no stainless steel and no temperature-controlled rooms, just resourcefulness and generations of know-how.
I felt tall and white and a bit intrusive walking into their production spaces, but they were so generous, showing us every solution they'd found as they'd grown. Often they apologised that it wasn't bigger or better set up. They didn't realise that was exactly what I'd come to see.
In the class
We made so much tempeh that we donated it to the village warung. The owner cooked it into Mendoan, those thin, crispy, herb-flecked fritters that are utterly addictive. Watching our batch become lunch for the village felt like coming full circle. (Our Tempeh Mendoan is here.) Actually - she asked me to slice the tempeh with her which made me extremely nervous - hers were almost paper! Mine were not. See my slices below.
The Jamu makers
While our tempeh got on with the work, we spent a day with Jamu makers who had supplied their Jamu as herbal remedies to the royal family for generations. Like the tempeh makers, they worked in the same spot their families always had, with no drive to get bigger. That day became the inspiration for our Jamu Concentrate. Their space was amazing - old sinks to scrub the ginger and galangal as a way to peel it, the rollers to crush the herbs, the ancient fire pit in the kitchens - ALL of the amazing herbs - many looked like bark and twigs I'd never seen before. What impressed us was how many people came along to buy their Jamu - they'd talk to them at the counter (photo below) and nod and make up their recommended brew. Actually - they gave Jeff a special one for his very tired and heat rashy legs and he drank it all - in the morning it was amazing - he was completely back to normal. Thin ankles.
What I brought home
I'd felt this before, years earlier, when I spent a day with a small family miso maker in Japan. Fans were cooling the beans. They were tipping and raking and making it as though no other short cut equipment existed. It was really nothing fancy. In Java I saw it again: makers who work with what they have, and whose knowledge lives in their hands rather than in a rulebook.
Whether it's fans cooling miso beans in Japan or banana leaves wrapping tempeh in Java, the principle is the same: understand the fermentation, respect the process, use what you have. There isn't a way to speed up a tradition that relies upon a relationship with microbes. And a slow method is really the only way I am interested in.
Amita now supplies our tempeh culture. It matters to me that it comes from the person who taught me to make tempeh properly, in Java, where it all began. Terima kasih, Amita.
There's a story for another post about towns with plenty of traditional, small producers of food for their local area. But that's for next time.
Make your own: Tempeh Culture · Fresh tempeh: how to store and cook it · How to make tempeh · Tempeh & Jamu workshop
