I think the Japanese have the most sophisticated fermented food culture in the world. The French have cheese and grape wine; the Japanese have miso, natto, rice wine (sake), and a wide range of pickles. It’s no coincidence, I believe, that the Japanese and French have two of the lowest rates of heart disease in the world, in spite of high smoking rates. Perhaps fermented food gives you a taste for smoking, which provides complex flavor.
My favorite Japanese pickle is called Narazuke. It is melon or vegetables such as cucumber and eggplant pickled in sake lees (the rice left over from making sake) for 1 to 3 years. Two days ago I had a pickle from Guss’ Pickles (a “New York barrel-cured sour pickle”) and a piece of narazuke. After eating the narazuke, the Guss pickle, no disrespect, tasted like it was made by a 10-year-old. The complexity of the narazuke is so much greater. Which is hardly surprising because it is aged so much longer. A Guss pickle might be aged two weeks.
Or maybe smokers’ sense of taste is so dulled that they need strong, complex flavors. But I suspect that these fermented food traditions predate the introduction of tobacco from the Americas.
Korean fermented-food culture is also very sophisticated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheonggukjang (my personal favorite)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doenjang (used in a wide variety of foods including a the Korean staples of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doenjang_jjigae and ëœìž¥êµ also known as “Korean miso”)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimchi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_kimchi
Tobacco is also heavily fermented — it’s hung in a humid barn for weeks. Smokers have many more and graver lung infections than nonsmokers, likely because they inhale so much bacteria. “Silly smokers! Bacteria belong in the guts.”
Russian traditional food culture also has lots of fermented food – primarily centered around cabbage, cucumbers and mushrooms (and apples in older times) – this, however, does not translate in the benefits you mention …