Tempe (or tempeh) is a solid fermented soya bean product that is consumed widely in Indonesia. In recent years, there has been considerable interest in the West, especially the USA, in developing tempe as an alternative protein source. Hesseltine was one of the first to make a detailed description of the fermentation in his authoritative review of oriental fermented foods (Hesseltine, 1965). Only one micro-organism, Rhizopus oligosporus (Fungi: Zygomycotina) is required for the process and the preparation is extremely rapid, taking only two days, at most, for completion. In this it differs from other soya fermentations, such as miso and shoyu, which involve fungi, yeasts and bacteria in a multi-stage fermentation, which may take months or years to completion. Unlike these fermentations tempe is a solid "cake", which is perishable and is consumed as a meat substitute, rather than as a condiment.
Rapidity and simplicity make tempe preparation ideal for demonstrating, the principle of food fermentations, and, with reasonable care, the product can be guaranteed to be free of contaminating moulds and mycotoxins. |