Iowa City Bread Garden Market hosting fermentation workshop

IOWA CITY - An Oregon-based food education program touring across the Midwest will be stopping in Iowa City for a free public fermentation workshop.

Bread Garden Market, 225 S. Linn St., will host Tara Whitsitt, of Fermentation on Wheels, from 2:30 - 5 p.m. Saturday to teach participants about preserving vegetables through bacterial collaboration using local ingredients.

Following the workshop, Whitsitt, who was featured in the New York Times earlier this year, will provide tours of her fermentation bus, in which she travels during her Midwest tour and includes a kitchen and workshop space.

'We are pleased to host Tara as a stop on her Midwest tour,” said Bread Garden Market owner Jim Mondanaro in a news release. 'We read the article in the New York Times earlier this year about the scope of her project and we knew we wanted her to visit us here in Iowa City. Her mission of community outreach and the philosophy behind fermented and cultured foods aligns with both our personal values and those embodied by the store.”

Participants will be able to trade or swap their own starter cultures after the event and there is a suggested $10 donation for the workshop, which will support Fermentation on Wheels.