Julia Skinner

Fermented Pasts and Futures (working title)
2026-27 Folger Institute Artistic Research Fellow

Julia Skinner is a food historian, writer, visual artist, and entrepreneur as well as a fermentation enthusiast and culinary educator. She has a PhD in Library & Information Science, and focused on Early Modern cookbook history during her time at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. Skinner is a former special collections professional, and is passionate about using food as a bridge between history and the modern world. Her work at the Folger explores how fermentation appears in Early Modern texts, both literally as fermented foods and figuratively as a metaphor. Skinner is the author of multiple books including Our Fermented Lives and Essential Food Preserving, and lives between Atlanta, GA and Cork, Ireland.