writing | Joshua David Evans

BOOKS

Taste Shaping Natures: a Multiplied Ethnography of Translated Fermentation in the New/er Nordic Cuisine . Oxford University Research Archive

My PhD thesis. Investigating novel fermentation practices among Copenhagen's culinary innovators, I ask how tastes and natures shape each other, and with what consequences for microbial and human lives.

On Eating Insects: Essays, Stories and Recipes . Phaidon Press

A collection of critical essays, ethnographic stories, and novel recipes investigating insect gastronomy.

With contributions by many collaborators including Roberto Flore, Michael Bom Frøst, René Redzepi, Mark Bomford, Arnold van Huis, Josh Pollen, Nurdin Topham, Ni Lenette, Diego Prado, Afton Halloran, Paul Rozin, Charlotte Payne, Andrew Müller, Rebecca Roberts, Ben Reade, Guillemette Barthouil, and others.

ACADEMIC (pre-prints)

‘Reclaiming innovation’ . SSRN

From the modernists and anti-modernists alike!

‘Old Foods, New Forms: A framework for conceptualising the diversification of traditional products through gastronomic innovation’ . SSRN

Seven new ways to categorise your ferments.

‘MiFoDB, a workflow for microbial food metagenomic characterization, enables high-resolution analysis of fermented food microbial dynamics’ . bioRxiv

Finally, a database for all your fermented food metagenomics needs.

‘Food Fermentation in Space Is Possible, Distinctive, and Beneficial’ . bioRxiv

The question, of course, we've all been wondering.

‘Fermentation Fetishism and the Emergence of a Political Zymology’ . SSRN

Maybe fermentation can't save the world?

‘Innovation is Multiple: Ideologies of Innovation, In and Beyond Food’ . SSRN

Making anew, amodernly.

ACADEMIC (peer-reviewed)

‘Fermentation of native Brazilian fruits with kombucha: a novel opportunity for producing low-alcohol beverages’ . Food Bioscience

Fermentation innovation for biodiversity and regional food culture.

‘What can ethnography offer the gastronomic sciences?’ . International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science

At least three things.

‘Novel fermentations integrate traditional practice and rational design of fermented-food microbiomes’ . Current Biology

Defining novel fermentations, and some key features of their microbiology.

‘Design Terroir: an eco-social, relational, bioregional approach to design’ . Design Research Society

Taking terroir beyond food.

‘Nutritional and microbial profiles of ripened plant-based cheese analogs collected from the European market ’ . Food Research International

Going under the hood, to hopefully make them better.

‘Novel misos shape distinct microbial ecologies: opportunities for flavourful sustainable food innovation’ . Food Research International

Yet another way the pursuit of flavour shapes the natural world. Plus some strain adaptation to substrate.

‘Creating a spontaneously fermented ‘tonic water’ using Belgian endive root‘ . Int'l Journal of Gastronomy & Food Science

And it's pretty darn delicious. Also rich in, of all things, Rahnella aquatilis.

‘Exploring the microbial diversity of novel misos with metagenomics’ . Food Microbiology

Diverse plant-based substrates seem to shape miso ecology differently—and we found a potentially new bacterial species!

‘Nature's chefs: Uniting the hidden diversity of food making and preparing species across the tree of life’ . BioScience

A new framework for making sense of food provisioning symbioses.

‘Introducing “With Microbes”: From witnessing to withnessing’ . With Microbes.

Considerations for making ethnographic encounters with microbes.

‘Taste-shaping-natures: making miso with charismatic microbes and new Nordic fermenters in Copenhagen’ . Current Anthropology

Why make novel misos, and why does it matter for microbial and human lives?

Managing Space Food Waste with Fermentation: Novel System Design Update . 50th International Conference on Environmental Systems.

Presenting our environmental sensing box for the space miso experiment.

‘The English Savoury Course ’ . Global Food History

The rise and fall of a curious culinary tradition.

‘Setting the agenda for social science research on the human microbiome’ . Palgrave Communications

Based on a workshop with scholars across the social sciences, humanities, and arts.

‘Please Be Conbibial’ . CuiZine: Journal of Canadian Food Cultures

A blank-verse multispecies exhortation, from yeast to us.

‘Nested Houses: Domestication dynamics in human–wasp relations in contemporary rural Japan’ . Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

An ethnobiological investigation into the Central Japanese practice of rearing wasps as an edible delicacy, and its implications for theorising domestication.

‘Standard methods for Apis mellifera brood for human food’ . Journal of Apicultural Research

Some helpful knowledge when preparing discarded honeybee drone brood.

‘A Descriptive Sensory Analysis of Honeybee Drone Brood from Denmark and Norway’ . Journal of Insects for Food and Feed

Exploring the flavour variation of honeybee larvae and pupae across four sites.

‘Entomophagy and Power’ . Journal of Insects for Food and Feed

A critical inquiry into who produces, controls, and benefits from the rapidly emerging global market for edible insects, contrasted with official promises and widespread dreams.

‘"Entomophagy": an evolving terminology in need of review’ . Journal of Insects for Food and Feed

A critical analysis of the term's implicit othering and pathologising tendencies, and a suggested alternative.

‘Culinary Science in Denmark: Molecular Gastronomy and Beyond’ . Journal of Culinary Science and Technology

A review of the then state of food science and culinary innovation in the Danish context.

ACADEMIC (non-peer-reviewed)

‘P is for Politics’ . food fermentation feminism: Musings #3

A gentle argument against fermentation as metaphor.

‘Endless Convivial Experiments: Domestication and the Microbiogeography of Translated Fermentation Experiments’ . fermenting feminism (hunter’s moon): Copenhagen Gathering 2018.

A précis of my PhD thesis work, and some of its suggestions for feminist theory.

‘Thinking Edibility Otherwise’ . MIT Journal of Design and Science

A dialogue with Zimbabwean farmer-activist Chido Govera on denaturalising and decolonising edibility.

‘Mapping Microbial Multiplicity’ . Geo, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society

Show-and-tell with microbial colleagues on the dizzying range of human–microbe relationships.

‘Microbial Landscapes’ . Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 2017

Scaling ourselves down and up to think landscape anew.

‘Les Insectes comme mets. La diversité dans la gastronomie’ . Savoureux Insectes

A French translation of 'Insects as a delicacy' (below).

'Bee bread' . Books, health and history (New York Academy of Medicine)

Celebrating honeybee-fermented pollen.

‘Fermentation art and science at the Nordic Food Lab’ . The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Food and Gastronomy

Describing our approach to fermentation for regional flavours, and some of its results.

‘Wild ideas in food’ . The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Food and Gastronomy

An exploration of contemporary foraging practices connecting flavour, health, sustainability, and biodiversity.

‘Broadening Insect Gastronomy’ . The Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Food and Gastronomy

Forays into a flavour-oriented approach.

‘Place-based taste: geography as a starting point for deliciousness’ . Flavour Journal

Rethinking culinary regionalism through a conference lunch.

‘Labre larve og lækre insekter ’ // ‘Insects as a delicacy ’ . moMentum+

Illustrating the gastronomic argument for eating insects.

‘Non-trivial pursuit – New approaches to Nordic deliciousness’ . Anthropology of Food

A then overview of Nordic Food Lab's approach and experiments.

POPULAR

‘Beyond Control’ . Grow Magazine

Molecular biology aspires for 'control' over life. Maybe there are better alternatives.

‘Frontiers of Fermentation: Three proposals for a multispecies ethics’ . Hypercomf’s Biosentinel online exhibition.

Thinking with the space miso.

'What is fermentation?' . Fermentology

A primer on culturally appropriate, socially significant, carefully controlled rot.

‘noma 2.0's first peaso’ . Wenner-Gren Foundation

A brief analysis of translated miso-making.

‘Brooding with Bees’ . Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology

How, why, and what it means to eat honeybee drone brood.

‘Casu Marzu’ . FOOL Magazine

A longform portrait of the beloved, illicit, and controversial Sardinian fly-ripened cheese.

‘We Should Consider Eating Our Own Poop For A Better Future’ . VICE Munchies

Hear me out!

'Bee Bread' . SABOR

Fermentation? Apis mellifera got there long before.

‘Foreword’ . Biota Cookbook

Recollecting a four hands dinner with James Viles, for his beautiful cookbook.

‘Let them drink snaps’ . Indie YORITTER magazine

A window into Danish Christmas, through a farmer's homemade spirits.

‘On Eating Insects’ . MAD Dispatches

Cooking beyond the kitchen, food security grandstanding, delicious in-betweens, and a plea for humility.

‘Dispatches from the Lab: Hunting for Honey Ants in the Outback ’ . MAD Feed

On a wandered dish, which can only be eaten in time.

‘Dispatches from the Lab: Exploring the Deliciousness of Insects in Africa’ . MAD Feed

The product is the system.

‘Insect Gastronomy’ . Cereal Magazine

Exploring taste, scent, and texture.

‘Cereal Killing’ . Wolf Magazine

Breakfast for champions.