3. Good Organic Gardening - May-June 2016 AvxHome.in

Sauerkraut once
saved lives at
sea by providing
vitamin C
THE CULTURED
KITCHEN
For millennia, humans consumed
fermented food and drink. Now
they’re making a comeback
“Culture does not begin at the opera house; it begins in the kitchen.”
— Sally Fallon Morell
Words Kerry Boyne
Perhaps the first fermented
substance that comes to mind is
not a food but a beverage. People
started making wine around 8000
years ago in the Caucasus area of central
Europe, and 7000-year-old jars containing
the remains of wine were excavated in
the Zagros Mountains in Iran. There is
also evidence of fermented beverages in
Babylon around 3000 BCE, ancient Egypt
(3150 BCE), pre-Hispanic Mexico (2000
BCE) and Sudan (around 1500 BCE).
That’s a venerable tradition.
Of course, wine is not the only fermented
beverage. Beer brewing was, like wine,
probably a happy accident to begin with,
occurring when wild yeasts met up with
grains that had been left warm and wet.
There is archaeological evidence of ale
drinking dating as far back as the Iranian
wine jars and from the same region. There’s
an endless list of other alcoholic beverages
made from all kinds of fruit, grains and even
vegetables such as potato.
The origins of culturing dairy are, as they
say, lost in the mists of time but a well-loved
tale is the one of the nomads who carried
milk in bags made from animal stomachs,
which contained the enzyme rennin. Because
rennin curdles milk, when the milk was left
in the bags for any length of time in a bit of
warm weather, the nomads would have found
soft cheese forming in their milk bags.
Then there are all the fermented, pickled
and otherwise preserved vegetables, plus
pickled and smoked meats and fish as well as
sourdough breads. All were originally made at
home as a regular part of daily life and a way
of making seasonal harvests, butchering of
Some people think
fermentation is dangerous
and fear they may poison
themselves or suddenly
have bottles exploding in
a cupboard somewhere.
The truth is home
fermentation is probably
far less fraught than
eating in restaurants.
animals and fishing expeditions provide many
meals. Sauerkraut, for example, was made to
be eaten through the cold months when few
vegetables could be harvested.
Sadly, many of these foods were not suited
to factory mass-production processes. It was
easier to guarantee consistency of flavour
and longer shelf life with pasteurisation,
cooking foods at high temperatures and
using vinegar for pickling rather than
fermentation methods. These factory
processes killed the beneficial organisms.
A jar of factory-produced pasteurised
sauerkraut has very little of the health-giving
value of the properly fermented version, even
though it may seem similar in taste. And
we’ve all heard of the problems people have
with gluten these days, yet proper sourdough
fermentation predigests gluten.
Some cultures have never stopped
fermenting foods in their time-honoured
ways and, as with so many things, people
in the industrialised world are recognising
the value of these traditional ways and
wanting to try their hand at making yoghurt,
kefir, sauerkraut and sourdough. It’s not
just hippies and “homesteaders”, either.
We know a butcher who makes kefir daily
and sourdough weekly; a hairdresser who
has a passion for making kombucha in all
kinds of weird and wonderful flavours; and
many gardeners who are starting to culture
sauerkraut and pickle olives from their trees.
Some people think fermenting is
dangerous and fear they may poison
themselves or suddenly have bottles
exploding in a cupboard somewhere. The
truth is home fermentation is probably
far less fraught than eating in restaurants
because you are in control and, as long as
you understand the process, keep things
clean (not necessarily sterilised) and know
when to stop the fermentation, your sense of
smell and the appearance of your product will
guide you very well.
72 | Good Organic Gardening