The Terroir of Low Earth Orbit

How miso, microbes, and microgravity reshape the meaning of place.

"Miso in Orbit," an imagined still life capturing the moment fermentation—and meaning—float beyond Earth.

If terroir is loosely defined as “a taste of place,” then what does space taste like?

Terroir traditionally refers to the environmental conditions that shape flavor—but in space, it’s transformation itself that becomes the condition. When food changes in response to its surroundings—be it a vineyard in Burgundy or a lab aboard the ISS—it absorbs that context. And where transformation happens, terroir follows. And what happens when the environment is outer space?

In March 2020, food researchers sent miso to the International Space Station to study how fermentation behaves in space. The miso—made in Copenhagen with Earth-grown microbes, salt, and inoculated with koji, an ancient and culturally sacred mold—spent 30 days fermenting aboard the ISS. During that time, it adapted to space and absorbed the context of its extraterrestrial environment: warmth, radiation, and microgravity.

Can a place like space—no soil, no rain, no land—have a terroir if it shapes flavor? Or is terroir strictly earthbound?

By that logic, terroir would be limited to soil, rain, and climate. But what if this experiment—and all the other farming attempts in space, such as the “Outredgeous red” Romaine lettuce grown aboard the ISS—form the basis of a broader expression of environment—of conditions, context, transformation? Then terroir expands and travels wherever humans go. As Coblentz et al. write in their study, “Since the fermentation process is shaped by its environment, new practices, flavors, and microbial communities may emerge as fermented foods migrate to outer space.”

And in this case, the subject becomes more complex when we consider the ISS operates under the International Space Station Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA), a joint venture between Europe, the United States, Russia, Canada, and Japan. What nationality does this miso take, if further experiments prove successful and miso becomes part of the menu in space?

When does a tomato—genetically originating in the southern regions of South America, domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico, and triumphant after the Columbian Exchange—become an Italian San Marzano gem? When does cacao become Swiss chocolate? When do Earth microbes become interstellar miso?

When humans make it so.

Terroir applies to food fit for human consumption—which means, wherever we go, terroir follows. Simple, yet transformative. Thus, the nuttier flavors of this space miso reflect space terroir. Not of soil, but of starlight, motion, and mutation. A place where microbes evolve, and flavor follows. Maybe miso isn’t just Earth food anymore. Maybe it’s our first true taste of becoming multiplanetary. That’s more than fermentation. That’s transformation.

If Earth is a planet orbiting the sun, then isn’t all food space food?