Want Fungus in That? Our Delicious & Useful Rotten Foods

Imagine a bowl of half-cooked beans coated in a layer of fibrous, white mold. Dotted across the surface of the mold are little black and blue spores. It smells faintly of ammonia.

Sound appetizing? It might seem too much like the remnants of last week’s edamame, but that moldy bean cake, or , is a vegan food du jour. Originally from Indonesia, tempeh is just one of a myriad of fashionable foods all produced through a process of controlled rotting, or