Gastrodia elata Blume often has been used for the treatment of headaches, convulsions, hypertension, and neurodegenerative diseases. The main active constituents are gastrodin, 4-hydroxybenzyl alcohol, vanillyl alcohol, 4-hydroxybenzylaldehyde and parishin A, B, C and E. Because Gastrodia elata has also unacceptable off-odor (swine barnyard-like) for food, there is a need to reduce it as well as allow for greater utilization as a functional food materials. In this study, a major off-odor producing substance of Gastrodia elata was fractionated by steam distillation and silica gel column chromatography. The substance was identified as p-cresol(4-methyl phenol) by GC-MS analysis and comparison of the retention time with that of an authentic compound in GC. The content of p-cresol in fermented Gastrodia elata was decreased. A fermented sample of Latobacillus sakei for 2 days was reduced to 54.7%, when compared with a unfermented sample. The five parishin derivatives in Gastrodia elata were identified by HPLC-MS analyses, and a comparison of HPLC retention times with those of authentic compounds. When compared with parishin derivatives of an unfermented Gastrodia elata, those of Gastrodia elata fermented by L. sakei, increased to 18.3% for 2 days. Increases of about 14.0~38.4% of the total phenolic compounds and 57.4~77.3% total flavonoids were found in fermented extracts, by 3 lactic acid bacteria strains. They were compared with 97.1±2.9 μg/g and 40.9±2.0 μg/g in the unfermented control, respectively. The extracts of Gastrodia elata Blume that were fermented by lactic acid bacteria had higher DPPH free radical scavenging activity and FRAP reducing power than the unfermented control.