Posts Tagged ‘Sandor Ellis Katz’
Turkey Tracks: Lacto-Fermenting Project
Turkey Tracks: December 7, 2013
Lacto-Fermenting Project
I got it into my head that I needed to make a good bit of lacto-fermented foods right away.
Thursday saw me buying a huge bag full of cabbages (red and white), leeks, turnips, rutabegas, and parsnips. I already had a big bag carrots. And the garden is full of kale.
Here’s the spread:
And the kale from the garden. I also brought in handfuls of the last of the sage, which is a bit more winter hardy than the other herbs:
On Friday, I started food processing. I had two projects: to make a new batch of the root veggies I LOVED over the past few months. The first batch was just turnips, carrots, garlic, and sage. This batch would have also parsnips (very sweet) and rutabegas and red onion.
I don’t know how to describe the taste of this turnip mixture. It does not taste like turnip. It does have a bright, fresh taste that is delightful–much as Sandor Ellis Katz promised in his book WILD FERMENTATION.
The second project was some mixtures of cabbage (red and white), leeks, onions when I ran out of leeks, kale, carrot, one had a turnip, more garlic, and sage. I decided to do at least two mixtures of just cabbage, carrot, and caraway seeds–the traditional mixture from NOURISHING TRADITIONS (Sally Fallon Morell and Dr. Mary Enig of The Weston A. Price Foundation) with which I started this journey.
The project went rather well:
There is a gallon of fermented cabbage in the crock. I transferred it to jars this morning. So I have almost 4 gallons of delicious food.
The orange is the root veggie mixture. The cabbage mixtures will turn bright rosy pink in a few days–from the red cabbage effect.
The kitchen was a mess when I was done. (You should have seen the floor.)
But it cleaned up quickly as no grease was involved:
Hint: the jars will be so pretty with a red ribbon and a Christmas Card attached, don’t you think?
Shhhhhh…..
And I’m not giving away the big root veggie jar or the jar with the hinge. They’re for ME!!
Books, Documentaries, Reviews: Sandor Ellis Katz at Cornell
Books, Documentaries, Reviews: November 6, 2013
Sandor Ellis Katz
Cornell University
April 2, 2012
I finally slowed down to listen to Sandor Ellis Katz–WILD FERMENTATION–at Cornell Univerity. The U-tube video is 90 minutes. So, grab some handwork, settle in, and enjoy an interesting, thought provoking lecture that discusses, in part, how the standardization of food has drastically altered our ability to enjoy the full power inherent in heritage foods–even when so-called “heritage” foods are made and sold–something Katz thinks is false advertising.
Such changes have altered the “culture” in every sense of that word–the way we live, the cultures we use in foods (yogurt, kombucha, breads, beers, etc.)
So, do you ever try to make yogurt? And have you noticed that you get really good yogurt for a few generations, and then you…don’t?
Well, the reason is that a culture is a community of many different organisms–thirty or more– that work together to keep the culture stable. But this kind of community is very hard to standardize–so industry only uses part of the community–which means that what is being advertised is not really the genuine thing. For instance, the dried powder we buy to start a yogurt culture does not contain the full community of organisms. And, commercial kombucha only uses part of the SCOBY colony to make its product. (A SCOBY is a symbiotic community of bacteria and yeasts.) The same is true of yogurt, cheeses, breads, beer, and so forth.
Cultures for yogurt, kefir (pronounced ke-fear, I’ve learned), kombucha and so forth used to be passed down in families and communities–and they retained their full components in the process. What we have now is NOT the full biodiversity of a heritage culture. So the loss, the reduction, is enormous–and is a loss of the culture (the social grouping) as well.
The yogurt culture one can buy can only sustain itself for a few generations–because it isn’t complete. Standardization killed it. Food safety laws have limited it.
So, Katz’s main message is that we need to reclaim our food as mass production has been an abject failure in that this food lacks…cultures…and has changed our culture in unhealthy ways. Shifting how we eat begins to reclaim our culture–so that we once again nourish our bodies and regain our health.
Take some time for yourself to understand what has gone wrong, what the limits of industrialization are, what you can do.
And, maybe try to locate a heritage culture for yogurt and/or kefir.
And, make some lacto-fermented foods for yourself. They are so delicious!
Here is Katz’s video on how to make a sauerkraut–which bear no similarity to that limp stuff you get in a can: