Fermented Life

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…