The Cuyahoga Valley Farmers Market is throwing its first-ever Fungi & Fermentation Fest at Howe Meadow on Saturday, Oct. 24, turning the market’s second-to-last summer gathering into a celebration of mold, mushrooms and the microbes that make them work. The free, family-friendly event runs from 9 a.m. to noon and folds right into the regular market, with cooking demonstrations, expert talks, a nature walk and a fungi-themed costume contest all on the docket.
Organizers describe it as a spore-tacular send-off to the outdoor season, according to cvfm.org. As Cleveland.com reports, the festival also marks the market’s penultimate Saturday at Howe Meadow before the whole operation migrates indoors to Old Trail School for winter. Vendors are expected to bring extra mushroom products, fermented foods and other festival-themed items to go along with the usual market fare.
Chefs Dig Into Koji, Fermented Beans and Home Fermentation Safety
Jeremy Umansky, the James Beard Award-nominated chef and co-owner of Larder Delicatessen & Bakery in Cleveland’s Hingetown neighborhood, headlines the morning’s culinary programming. Per the market’s event listing, Umansky kicks off a pre-market nature walk from 8:30 to 9 a.m. Liu Fang of Abundance Culinary leads the 9 to 9:30 a.m. session on Chinese fermented beans, followed by Umansky’s 9:30 to 10:15 a.m. talk on koji and culinary molds.
At Larder, Umansky incorporates koji — the cultivated mold Aspergillus oryzae, typically grown on starchy ingredients like rice, barley or beans — into virtually every dish, according to the market listing. An April feature in Cleveland.com described koji as surprisingly simple despite its outsized role in umami flavor.
Mycotecture Session Spans Cleveland to Namibia
The festival’s most unusual segment arrives from 10:15 to 10:45 a.m., when Christopher Maurer, principal architect of Redhouse Studio, discusses mycotecture — using fungi to grow sustainable building materials, recycle waste and help restore the environment. The market’s event page says Maurer will share projects spanning Cleveland, Namibia and even outer space.
Maurer’s architecture work has drawn attention well beyond the farmers market circuit. A 2025 report from ideastream.org detailed how Maurer grows mushrooms from construction and demolition waste combined with mycelium, material he believes could help turn demolished, contaminated homes into safe building stock for Cleveland’s housing needs. In 2020, he partnered with Re:Source Cleveland on a bee barn in Ohio City that used mycotecture for insulation, and he later worked with MIT on the MycoHAB in Namibia, described in that same report as the world’s first mycelium-based structure.
Redhouse Studio’s broader Biocycler program uses demolition materials as a growing substrate for fungi, according to a separate report from bbc.com. That process captures heavy metals and other toxins inside the growing mushrooms, while leftover substrate gets compacted and heated into construction bricks.
Costume Contest Caps a Morning of Fermentation Tips
Back on the food side, Kim Kresevic of Kres Kitchen teaches five techniques for safer, more successful home fermentation from 11 to 11:30 a.m., according to the market’s schedule, followed by Don King of Epiphany Mushrooms offering an introduction to cultivating mushrooms at home from 11:30 a.m. to noon. Sandwiched between those sessions, from 10:45 to 11 a.m., festival guests are invited to show off mushroom-, spore- or fungi-inspired costumes in a dedicated contest.
Market organizers caution that the schedule and timing may shift, so attendees chasing a specific demo should plan for some flexibility. Even so, the lineup gives Howe Meadow visitors a rare chance to hear from a James Beard-nominated chef and a building-materials innovator on the same morning, all before the market packs up for its winter home at Old Trail School.
