All bubble and no trouble Two Transition preservers share the arts of fermentation:
Colin Trier: I am standing by a long kitchen table with six other transitioners chopping or shredding a medley of vegetables in every shape and colour. Red cabbage, beetroot, mouli, turnip, celeriac, or chinese cabbages, chilli, ginger and garlic. As we work we exchange current news from across the city, savouring the pleasure of reconnection. We are at one of Transition Plymouth’s Fermentation Workshops. Human digestion has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, with the complex extraction of nutrition from predominantly live (in the sense of bacteria and yeasts on the surface) food sources. We have experienced environmental adversity and extremes, as well as moments of bounty and cornucopia. In that
evolutionary journey lactic acid bacteria have undoubtedly been a close ally. So many available waterrich vegetables and fruit, abundant for a short time in the autumn, would quickly have started to rot without some kind of preservation to prevent the decay. Drying and smoking were important particularly for fish and meat
“We forget that fermenting food used to be the primary source of preservation” (as long as your climate was sunny) but lactic acid and saltmediated fermentation also had a central place. If we shred cabbage, bruise it with our hands and add about 2% salt, a lot of liquid will emerge. Placed in a container with a weight pressing
down on it, the liquid soon covers the cabbage. Left for a few weeks, a rich nourishing ferment emerges, which will store for months. As a live probiotic food it will add flavour and nourishment to our soups, salads and sandwiches. In our workshops, we have also played with kefir milk ferments and natto from soya. Dried, tinned, bottled, cooked, irradiated, pasteurised, supermarket fare is predominantly dead food – deliberately made in order to ‘protect’ our health and enhance shelf life. Our fermentation workshops have served many purposes: to reintroduce us to making our own live foods; bringing us together as a community exchanging recipes and skills; seeking out and sharing local sources of supply; and developing resilience through home preservation of much more than jam. Gill Jacobs: Is the emerging
Aesthetic fermentation at Biochymical Arts Workshop, FoAM, Brussels. Photo by Eva Bakkeslett
hype about fermented foods all it’s cracked up to be? Absolutely! Fermented foods tick all the boxes. They are traditional foods, underpinned by the wisdom that comes from being passed down over time. They also run counter to our modern fixation with ‘germs’ and foods that are sterilised to help shelf life but not our bodies. They are alive with enzymes and bacteria, capable of colonising and healing our gut wall, and seeing off harmful invaders. Mention sauerkraut to most people and they grimace – get them to taste a home-made mix of fermenting vegetables, however, and the complex flavours and textures will delight. But the term ‘fermentation’ is not limited to cabbage. Wine, beer, cheese, milk, chocolate, vinegar and bread all rely on fermentation to make them more readily digestible, and infinitely more good for us. Because of our reliance on refrigeration as a method of prolonging the ‘freshness’ of food, we forget that fermenting food used to be the primary source of preservation, and still is in many cultures. Herders on the move ferment cow, goat and sheep milk into cheese, kefir, yogurt, or fermented butter. Once innoculated with friendly bacteria (which see off the harmful kind) these foods withstand heat and become not just safe foods, but also healthy ones. Where to start with ferments? One of the easiest is beetroot kvass. All you need is a large jar into which you pour 2 litres of filtered water. Add three medium sized organic beetroots, peeled and chopped, together with 1 tablespoon of sea salt, and a ¼ cup of whey (or you can omit the whey and double the salt). Leave out for two to three days. Transfer the strained liquid to the fridge, and top up the beetroot with more water for one more ferment, leaving behind some of the original kvass as a starter culture. Start each day with a 4 oz glass. You can also grind up some hemp seeds and add five minutes before drinking. This is an excellent blood tonic and liver cleanser. Try it! Colin Trier is a member of Transition Plymouth and is starting a horticultural smallholding, Ashgrove Farm, with others, growing unusual plants and herbs for the local market. Email colin@trier.org.uk. Gill Jacobs is a health writer and blogs at Wiseuptohealth.com. She is a member of Transition Kentish Town and the Weston A Price Foundation, a non profit for Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts. For hands-on fermentation all-day workshops see http://chapters.westonaprice. org/londonuk/fermentation-workshops.
Winter bounty by Dorothea Leber
In winter most of the vital energy is found beneath the ground. This is particularly evident in plants such as the parsnip, whose leaves fall away while the roots become very sweet and nutritious. Other underground bounty includes comfrey roots, burdock roots and couch grass roots – all full of vitality and containing potent medicinal properties when harvested in the winter months. Although many of the leaves die away, some plants continue to grow, though at a slower rate because of the colder temperatures, shorter days and less sunlight. These include land cress, winter purslane and cornsalad. Other overwintering plants like rocket mizuna will struggle a little but will continue to survive and provide leaves for seasonal salads. In biodynamic gardens we stir and spray our horn manure preparation two or three times before winter is in full swing. The manure has gone through a special fermentation process for half a year before being carefully stirred into water and sprayed throughout the garden in the late afternoons. This has the effect of nourishing the life beneath the ground during the cold season, and of encouraging healthier growth. Another biodynamic spray I find useful in winter is made from horsetail. I collect and dry equisetum arvense in August, when the plant’s silica content is at its peak. When needed, I pack a net bag full of the dried leaves and simmer them in about 8 litres of water for 45 minutes, in order to extract the silica. I then dilute one part of the simmered liquid with 20 parts water, and spray the whole of the garden and especially the greenhouses with it. We have found it has helped enormously to prevent and treat fungal attacks. The theory behind it is that silica creates a microclimate of light, which is the opposite of the dark and damp conditions that fungi need to thrive. This approach will not work once mildew or fungus infestations have already appeared, but it is an effective preventative when sprayed regularly, over a length of time. Doreothea Leber is head gardener of the biodynamic garden at the Michael Hall Steiner School in Sussex.
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