Where to begin. We just arrived in Portland to spend
Memorial weekend with Lauren. We must have brought the sunshine with us,
because all I’ve heard about for the past several (spring) months is, “Will it
ever stop raining???” Well, it has. It’s beautiful here and that’s a good
thing, because Verne has a project (refinish her deck) that was postponed from
our last trip. This isn’t the beginning of my story, though. In fact, this
blog post isn’t intended to be about our Memorial weekend in Portland (that we
haven’t yet experienced), but what’s kept us (me) so busy over the past two
months that I’ve not had time to write about it until now.
If you’ve been reading my blog since before January 2014
when I started my master food preserver (MFP) training, you’ll know that my
life revolves around this program and has since the get-go. I can’t explain why
I’m so taken with it…but I’ll try. Initially, it was all about jams and jellies
for me, the quintessential home canned food. I spent most of 2014 and 2015
learning about pectin and acid and the science behind the magic of jams,
jellies, and marmalades. I read everything I could find on the subject and we experimented with whatever fruits were in season making batch after batch of
jam. I say “we” because Verne was there in the kitchen with me helping with every batch. As all avid canners experience, it wasn't long before we were faced with a growing
problem: What to do with all of the product? The obvious answer was to give it
away. I didn’t just give away a single jar of jam, I began giving away six-packs
of jam to everyone I knew, including casual acquaintances. I was even giving
the stuff to people I didn’t know. For example, I would send Maria, my (former) daughter-in-law and a commercial fisherwoman by trade, with 50-60 jars of jam
to share with her co-workers during their six months at sea. They loved it. And, I have managed to keep my inventory of sweet spreads manageable.
Well, after all this jamming I have become the local
“expert”. I use that word loosely, as I’m far from an expert, but then it’s all
relative and there’s nobody in our Amador, Calaveras, and El Dorado groups that
have matched my interest and enthusiasm for all things sweet spreads so I
remain the go-to person when it comes to the subject. Then I discovered the
subject of fermentation and my days of jamming ceased. It started with
sauerkraut and dill pickles. I’ve always loved kraut and dills and all things
tart and was inspired when I learned to make my own. Again, nobody else in my
MFP group shared my enthusiasm for the topic so I became the lead teacher for
both public classes as well as continuing education for local MFPs. “Local” has
taken me to the three counties I just mentioned and expanded to Sacramento,
Yolo, and Solano counties. And, again, it is laughable to think of me as a
subject “expert”, but just goes to show you how you can shine when you hang out
with the right (or wrong) bunch of people. All very nice folks, but more often
than not their involvement in the MFP program is for reasons more social than
serious. Not so with me.
By comparison to the other subjects we teach, it turns out
that fermentation is a hot topic and one that even our fellow Amadorian’s have
heard about and have some interest in. Strong demand for classes on kimchi (a
fermented vegetables), kombucha (a fermented, sweetened tea), kefir (another
fermented beverage), and yogurt (yet another fermented product) has been
keeping me busy. In April I taught a 3-hour class on fermentation and tried to
jam in (pun intended) all that I know about fermented veggies, yogurt, and beverages. It turns out I know quite a bit and ended up giving more of an overview than in-depth discussion with step-by-step demos. It was a case of over-committing and under-delivering and I left the 40 people in attendance wanting more…longer classes (full day),
individual hands-on workshops, and so on.
All the kudos and interest and demand for more sounds great, right?
Let’s put this in perspective. I am a volunteer for this program. Not only is
the significant amount of time I spend on the program unpaid (I just qualified for my thousand-hour badge), but my expenses
are largely unreimbursed. I could ask for reimbursement for a portion of my
direct class expenses, but the one time I navigated through the hoops and red
tape, my form and original receipts were lost and I have yet to receive my
pittance of a reimbursement. Instead I’ve decided I’ll just be satisfied with a
tax deduction for the thousands of dollars I spend on the program. That may be
a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.
Sorry about the whining. I really do love the program. It’s
given me a reason to immerse myself in areas of study about food and food
science that I would never have considered without such an impetus. I’ve become
like some people you’ve probably known, who discover some religious or other
truth and are driven to share it with anyone who will listen, willing or not, over
and over again. Single-minded. A little of that person goes a long way. That’s
me these days. I just can’t help myself. For me, the root of all things seems to be in fermented foods and the most casual of conversations, totally unrelated to food preservation, will hold some trigger that starts me talking about fermented foods...the oldest, easiest, and safest form of
long-term food preservation yielding probiotic-rich food alive with beneficial
bacteria and yeast. See, there I go!
My latest fermented food experiment is with kefir. You may
have seen kefir in the dairy section of your grocery store. It is sometimes
described as drinkable yogurt. For your information, it is not yogurt at all.
It is made up of three or four times the number of bacteria and yeast strains
than yogurt, does not require heat to culture, and it’s not spoonable, but drinkable
with the consistency of buttermilk. By the way, did you know that buttermilk is a fermented product made from living bacteria? The starter culture for both versions of
kefir (milk kefir and water kefir) are called kefir grains. They are not grains
at all, but the manifestation of bacteria and yeast that have a symbiotic relationship.
In other words, the mother culture is a SCOBY (symbiotic colony of bacteria and
yeast). The milk kefir grains look a little like cottage cheese or cauliflower.
The water kefir grains look like small translucent crystals with the texture of
gummies and feed on sugar water. The resulting fermented drink is slightly
carbonated from the fermentation process (the yeast consumes the sugar and
produces carbon dioxide) and can be flavored with any fruit, fruit or vegetable
juice.
Milk Kefir Grains
My first introduction to a bacteria-yeast culture was the
kombucha SCOBY. Initially, it was scary to look at. Some people take one look
and run the other way. Not me and I have to say it’s grown on me. Not
literally, although it can be used topically. The kombucha SCOBY is a thick
slab of cellulose that takes the shape of its container; it’s slippery to hold,
but not slimy, has long brown yeast strands that hang from its bottom side. The
SCOBY’s main purpose is to culture sweetened tea, producing a beverage called
kombucha, which tastes a bit like apple cider vinegar. With each batch of
kombucha, a baby SCOBY is produced. Kombucha SCOBYs are hearty, thrive under
most conditions, and forgiving to the most neglectful of owners. They are shy
and only ask that they be kept in a dark, warm, out-of-the-way place and occasionally
be given sweetened tea for their sustenance.
Kombucha SCOBY
Both kefir cultures or SCOBYs are needy! In other words,
they are like demanding pets without the cuteness of your furry little friends.
Kefir grains require daily attention with feedings every 12-24 hours, depending
on the ambient temperature, and require occasional agitation during the day
(the grains, not you). They live in their food, so each day they must be
strained and placed in a clean jar with a fresh supply of milk or sugar water.
The liquid that is removed is the drinkable dairy or water kefir – that
probiotic rich drink that is the purpose behind the process. It is this daily
regimen that has required us to travel to Portland with our jars of fermenting
kefir. Doesn’t that beat all! We hire a caretaker for the pets, but I don’t
trust her with the kefir so it’s on vacation with us. Unfriggenbelievable! There
you have it in a nutshell. This is just a glimpse of my journey into the art of
fermentation and the beginning of our week vacation to Portland.
More about
Portland later…
