Dual Perspective

According to Verne…

Joyce has become involved (no, obsessed) with a foodie program called "Master Food Preservers" (she is advisory board vice president, education coordinator, and teaches many of the classes). Recently, she has been devoting all of her time to this program, because she gets roped into teaching (the program offers one public class each month) and that means spending hours of reading and making many of the recipes that she or other instructors will be teaching. Her most recent class was on fermentation. So she has been reading books, such as: Fermented Vegetables, Wild Fermentation, The Art of Fermentation, The Hot Knives Vegetarian Cookbook, and Roy Choi L.A. Son. Well, you get the picture.

I get dragged into this because I’m her kitchen helper. One of the ferments she has discovered is Kimchi, which originated in Korea. All of the books I mentioned above have recipes for Kimchi and tout the great taste and benefits of fermented Napa cabbage (and other veggies). To try it out as well as begin to collect the necessary ingredients to make her own Kimchi, we visited a Korean market in Sacramento. It was an interesting experience to see all of the different Korean food items, many available in huge quantities (50 lb bags of rice and 20 lb bags of crushed red peppers), and try to communicate with the owners, who spoke little to no English. She purchased a jar of Kimchi to try as well as to use as comparison when she makes her own. However, we got home and she didn’t have the courage to taste the stuff. I took a large bite and found it to be delicious. So, my challenge was to figure out how to use it. Well, we had a cup of left-over cooked white rice, which I fried in a couple of tablespoons of sesame oil, then added about 3 tablespoons of the Kimchi, which I chopped into reasonably small pieces. I sautéed the Kimchi for about 3 minutes or so to warm and incorporate the flavors into the rice and finished it with finely chopped green onions. We ate Kimchi Rice for dinner and loved it. It’s one of our new (quick) favorite foods.

According to Joyce…

I admit that I am obsessed with food preservation and the MFP program in general. My goal was to learn how to safely make and preserve jam. That was back in January 2014. I intended to complete my Master Food Preserver training, put in my 50 hours of community service, and say “adios” to the people and the program. It’s July 2015 and my volunteer hours for the past year are in excess of 300 (that’s what I’ve logged – my actual hours are probably triple that) and I’m committed for at least another year. The more I learn, the more enthusiastic I become. It’s gone well beyond jams and jellies, although I still love to make them and teach others on the nuances of making an artisan slow-cooked jam.

This past spring I was “roped” into teaching a class on dehydrating. It was the perfect opportunity to take out Verne’s Christmas gift, an Excalibur Dehydrator, and give it a try. Two weeks of non-stop drying and the results were amazing. I was again “roped” into teaching a class on Fermentation and Pickling the first of this month. I now have a new “best friend” in El Dorado, who taught the fermentation portion of the class, and together Laura and I are taking classes outside the MFP program on Kombucha and Fermented Drinks. Just to be clear, as MFP’s we are only allowed to teach fermentation as a preservation method using sauerkraut and dill pickles as examples. Anyway, Laura gave me a baby SCOBY (which stands for symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) and coached me on making my own Kombucha in preparation for our class next week. All I can say is OMG! It has been quite the experience.

For most of you, fermenting is a mystery even though approximately one-third of the food you eat has been fermented. Beer and wine, vinegar and soy sauce, sourdough bread, sauerkraut and old-fashioned deli dill pickles are all examples of fermented foods. I started by making fermented sauerkraut and dill pickles and have had phenomenal results. It was the recent class and my new BFF who inspired me to go beyond that and learn more about the process and take a giant leap into the world of fermentation.

I will be the first to admit it can be scary…leaving foods at room temperature (as MFP’s we call this the “danger” zone) with a little bit of salt and in some cases only their own juices to create an environment that is hostile to all of the “bad” microorganisms that generally rot food. These ferments are not just left for a day or two, but a month or longer. Even scarier than eating something that has been sitting out for that long is the process of making Kombucha and seeing and holding the pancake-shaped slab of bacteria that is created during the process and even multiplies and has babies. Here's a picture of me and my (baby) SCOBY.

Let me explain the process of making Kombucha. It begins with a gallon of sweetened brewed tea that has been brought to room temperature. The SCOBY is placed in the glass container along with the tea and will either sink to the bottom or float on top. Either works. The container is covered with cheesecloth and placed in a room that maintains a temperature range of about 65°-75°F. After a few days a film develops on top of the tea, which is the baby SCOBY. It thickens until it’s about 1/8” thick or more when the ferment is complete. The baby along with the mother SCOBY are removed from the tea and placed in a covered glass dish with about two cups of fermented tea and they reside there until one of them is needed to make the next batch of Kombucha. After the first ferment, fruit may be added for a secondary ferment to further flavor the drink. The fruit is removed on the second or third day and the Kombucha is ready to bottle and refrigerate. After several more days in the refrigerator, when the “fizz” is to your liking, the Kombucha is ready to be enjoyed.

The health benefits of this drink and other fermented foods rich with beneficial bacteria seem to be endless. I’m past being scared and am a true believer. Our basement walk-in pantry (now called our “fermenting” room) is alive with ferments of several kinds and our new practice is to eat or drink one each day. Verne may say he was “dragged” into my obsession (no, passion) for preserving foods, but I would suggest he is an enthusiastic partner right there by my side whenever I want to can, dehydrate, or ferment. Most recently, he has gotten into making his own fermented sourdough starter and we will soon be enjoying his first loaf of sourdough bread. I ask you, does that sound like a man who has been “dragged”? I don’t think so. There are days I feel like he’s behind me pushing. Bottom line…we make a good team!

P.S. Verne’s Kimchi rice concoction is delicious!