Flora Spivak loves fermenting so much that when a swarm of fruit flies invaded her kitchen to feast on her kombucha, she didn’t completely quit. She cleared out the wooden barrel it was brewing in and started over. And when mold began growing in the crevices of that barrel, she was still more inclined to describe the process as “cool” before “gross.”
Spivak, who lives in Belmont, was first gifted a SCOBY –a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that ferments tea – in 2015. She didn’t know it at the time, but this starter culture was the building block of kombucha. It needed to be kept at room temperature and to stay alive, it needed to be fed tea.
“It was like a little pet,” she said. “It [was] a living thing.”
Her experiments with kombucha gave way to other delights. She learned that fermenting is the key to baking sourdough bread, making yogurt and certain types of pickles.
“I hadn’t put together that all of these foods were united by this one attribute [of] fermentation,” she said.
Fermentation uses microorganisms like yeast and bacteria to break down sugars into acids, gases, or alcohol. Cycles of fermentation can create tanginess, funk, savoryness, or sweetness – new depths of flavors that can’t be achieved through cooking.
Eleven years after starting her first kombucha batch, Spivak can now mark her year by what she ferments. In the spring, it’s asparagus and rhubarb. In the summer, zucchini and squash. In the fall, she loves to ferment green tomatoes. And although the winter can be a sparse time for fresh vegetables, that’s when Spivak makes her sauerkraut and radish kimchi. And don’t forget the sourdough bagels and the fermented cream cheese — those are year-round.
Spivak says she loves hosting gatherings where food is the center. Although she had minimal experience running big events, she wanted a local successor to the Boston Fermentation Festival, which ran until 2019, when its organizer moved. So, last September, the Somerville Fermentation Festival at the Somerville Armory was born.
“I have experience throwing food-themed parties and I think of this festival as one big party,” she said. “The goal is to have fun and be enriched.”
Spivak drew on her experience bartending at the Armory, attending its winter farmer’s market and organizing a fermented foods component at a microbiology symposium at Harvard in 2024. Last year, the free, one-day festival featured a main room full of local vendors and a side room with discussions about fermentation.
“I was blown away by how successful it was,” she said of last year’s debut, which had a long line out the door of the Armory. “People camped out in the room [for discussions] … People loved the vendors and the wide varieties of products.”
The event was so well-attended, it bordered on chaotic, she said.
Sam Lejfer, who lives in Newton, attended last year’s festival after he saw a friend post about it on Instagram. Lejfer arrived right when the doors opened and sat in on all the speakers’ talks that day.
“It was a great education,” he said of the panels, which covered everything from Fermentation 101, to starting a business, to condiments.
“Seeing true artisans walking us through their processes and techniques was really special,” he said. “I kinda feel like I stumbled into something.”
Lejfer is a self-described foodie and fermentation hobbyist. He works at Formaggio Kitchen and Pemberton Farms, both in Cambridge. At home, he makes his own kombucha, sauerkraut and coconut yogurt.
He said he jumped at the chance to volunteer with this year’s festival, on August 16, and is coordinating its speaker series. Of all the talks — which include five panel conversations and two tastings — he is most excited about the sourdough baking summit.
It will be moderated by Andrew Janjigian, who Lejfer described as the “godfather of sourdough” and features “some of the best sourdough makers in the city,” including Daisy Chow of Breadboard Bakery in Arlington, Ayham Haddad of Mahalab Bakery in Cambridge, Dana Gilmore at Cambridge School of Culinary Arts, and Jason Bond of the former farm-to-table restaurant Bondir Cambridge.
To mitigate crowds this year, Spivak said she removed the armory’s stage to create more vending space, extended the event’s hours and decided to charge for the discussions to guarantee interested attendees a place in the room.
Although the organizers think the 2026 lineup is sure to dazzle fermentation fans, there will be events for attendees new to the process.
There will be an outdoor sauerkraut making table, a station with a microscope to check out fermented foods under the lens, an exchange for sharing culture starters, a cookbook swap and a crafting table, as well as live music.
At its core, organizers say that the festival is for people who are simply trying to get back to the basics of food.
“Every culture has traditional fermentation practices,” said Spivak. “That knowledge has been lost to us. [Learning about them] is kind of reclaiming that.”
“Humans have been making [fermented] foods forever and ever,” agreed Lejfer. Fermenting “seems like a part of being a human.”
Somerville Fermentation Festival will be at the Somerville Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, on Sunday, August 16, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entry is free, but the speaker series is $12 per event. Early access tickets are also available for $35 and include early entry at 10 a.m., entry to the speaker series, and festival merchandise.
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