in foods as a way to preserve them is absolutely magical to me. It’s a process that’s been around for thousands of years, and yet it still remains popular today. Fermenting things is fairly easy, and the healthy bacteria used to preserve these foods are rich in probiotics, and are amazing for your health.
drinks, and touts an impressive list of health benefits. Kombucha is actually fairly simple to make at home, and if you can’t find yourself a scoby starter, you can grow your own from an existing store-bought bottle. If gelatinous pancakes are a little much for you, then maybe cultured milk products are the way to go. Yogurt is well-known for its active cultures and probiotic qualities, but have you ever heard of its lesser-known cousin, kefir? Kefir is milk fermented with kefir grains (sort of like how sourdough is leavened). It tastes like a tangy, creamier version of milk, but it contains more protein, more probiotics, and a larger number of healthy bacteria than even yogurt. One great thing about these cultured products is that they’re not limited to using just one type of milk. Sheep’s milk, goat’s milk, or even soy or coconut milk can be used to make your own yogurt and kefir. Yogurt and kefir is fairly simple to prepare – simply mix milk and yogurt starter (or kefir starter) and keep it at a steady temperature for an extended period of time. Yogurt machines are great for this; but ovens, or even large pots wrapped in towels can also do the trick. And what would a fermenting article be without mentioning sauerkraut, fermented pickles, and kimchi - the very “brine”s in “Brine It On!”? These fermenting styles are some of the most commonly utilized. Fermenting using brine is quite possibly the easiest method of all. It doesn’t take much, just water and salt, to preserve in this fashion. This method is often used for those garden vegetables we tend to have an eccess of: things like cabbages, carrots, and cucumbers. It can be as simple as adding vegetables, water, and salt to a jar and waiting a few weeks, but brining can also be about thinking outside the box and trying new things. Fermented lemons, for example, sound simply amazing. Or, have you ever tried beet kvass or ginger beer? Check out the next page for my favourite recipes. Enjoy!
When ingredients ferment, their flavour gradually changes in complexity. The method of fermentation can be applied to a wide variety of ingredients, each with a very different result. Sourdough bread cultures, for example, remain alive and active through a fermentation process, capturing
From kefir to kombucha, sauerkraut to sourdough – fermented foods can be so diverse. Some sweet, others sour, but they all have one thing in common: they’re incredible for your gut - and tasty too!
natural yeast and using it as a leavening agent for the bread. Each culture is unique in flavour, and by regularly feeding your sourdough starter, you can hand it down to friends and family, and keep it alive for many years. I’ve tried sourdough breads made with strains from California, from BC, and from the next town over. Each has a certain something special, and bakers are often proud of their own distinguishable starters they’ve kept throughout the years. Similarly made, is the increasingly popular beverage, kombucha - however instead of using a yeast starter, this drink is cultured with something called a “scoby”. These gelatinous, pancake-like, living growths often referred to as “mothers”, lay on the top of each batch of kombucha, slowly turning tea and sugar into a fizzy, slightly sour drink. At the end of each batch, a new scoby has grown on top, and can be peeled off, shared with others and used to create a new batch of tea. It’s a great alternative to sodas or other fizzy
P reserving foods has certainly evolved since my childhood. I remember watching my mother canning vegetables each fall, mesmerized by the jars upon jars of mustard pickles, harvard beets, and bread-and- butters making their way through the kitchen, down the back porch, and into our old-fashioned root cellar to be eaten over the next 12 months. And while I do enjoy her bread and butter pickles (she makes the best), and her quintessential tomato chow-chow, in recent years I’ve begun delving deeper into the art of food preservation with that same wide-eyed amazement; simply awestruck over the methods, versatility, and extensive flavour profile options. Preserving can be so many things: pickling is just the beginning. In my preservation journey, nothing has piqued my interest through the years quite like fermentation. This unique process of isolating and nurturing healthy bacteria
FALL 2018 www.pei-living.ca
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