EXCLUSIVE I've been arrested at the airport for eating fermented foods including 10-year-old butter and seal blubber - why I do it
The thought of eating any fermented food - let alone the likes of seal blubber or cheese - is enough to make anyone gag.
But Dr. Johnny Drain, from Birmingham, has been doing so for years - having devoured everything from whale mouth and seal blubber to artichokes and stingless bee honey, all fermented.
The chef's passion for fermentation - in which microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast convert the carbohydrates in foods to create a preserving effect - started as a child, when he and his grandma tried the process on yoghurt.
He then took it a step further after getting a PhD in Materials Science at University of Oxford, combining his passions with food, working in Michelin-star restaurants all over the world.
Ahead of the release of his debut book, Adventures in Fermentation, Johnny tells MailOnline: 'I had this real epiphany of like, f**k, everything delicious is fermented.
'And basically spent the last the 10 years of my life since researching fermentation, pushing pioneering new techniques within fermentation and also teaching.'
But Johnny's love of fermenting food has got him into trouble at the airport on a number of occasions - due to the sheer amount of equipment he has to lug around, and he jokingly describes his suitcase as 'a cross between a drug smuggler and a bomb maker'.
He explains: 'There are little sachets of white powders which contain spores for fungi that I teach people to grow that you can make soy sauce or miso paste with.
The chef's passion for fermentation - in which microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast convert the carbohydrates in foods to create a preserving effect - started as a child, when he and his grandma tried the process on yoghurt
'And there's white powders, and then there's little machines that bubble air through things and temperature devices. So I look very dodgy.'
Johnny admits he was even arrested at Gatwick Airport on suspicion of drug smuggling in 2020, on the way to Portugal, having just returned from Paraguay via Madrid.
'I got stopped,' he tells us. 'They told me they found traces of drugs on my on my bag, and then they had all of this stuff.
'And when someone asks you "So, what do you do?" And you explain to them, "Well, I just sort of go around the world eating food and helping people ferment things".
'They were like "Well, that's a that's not a proper job!"'
Johnny continues: 'They were very polite.
'They said "Can we arrest you?" And I sort of said "Yeah, okay".'
The chef was detained by police and given a full body scan to check if he was carrying drugs inside his body.
'I was formally arrested, and then they switched on this giant X-Ray machine,' he recalls. 'I went in there and obviously I hadn't swallowed any drugs. So they let me go.'
With his connecting flight looming, Johnny was given a police escort to the awaiting aircraft, as his fellow passengers cautiously watched on.
He laughs: 'I was flanked by these two policemen with machine guns, and everyone else on the flight was like "Who's this guy?"'
Johnny has tried plenty of different fermented foods over the years, including tiny icefish in Japan, and canonical French cheeses in Patagonia.
But it was ten-year-old butter that really left a lasting bitter taste for Johnny, when he tracked it down in Marrakesh.
Describing the soured taste, he says: 'It really slaps you in the face, like a blue cheese, but with this bitterness and pungency. It's acrid.
'It's like this real spice that slaps the back of your throat.
'It's not for everyone, but definitely really interesting.'
Johnny's debut book Adventures in Fermentation will be released on June 12
Although it's unlikely many people are going to follow in Johnny's footsteps of carrying around fermentation equipment, there's one must-have travel item he uses that actually makes things taste better.
Johnny never flies without his Aeropress, a compact coffee maker, in his suitcase.
He says: 'I just take that and a bag of good quality coffee grounds with me.
'And it means that I can be in the airport, I can be in the world's s**ttest hotel, and, instantly in the morning, all I need is a kettle and I can make an unbelievably decent cup of coffee.'
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