Shiso leaf

Since our farm is not flat, we think our land is best suited for perennial plants, such as tree crops, berries, and herbs. We do not have a tractor (remember not flat, actually means steep grade..and there is the matter of three teenage boys), and we do not grow our own cabbage. Instead we rely on the wonderful organic farmers that are here in the Applegate.

In trying to maximize our small bits of flat growing space, I try to grow crops that I am less likely to find in abundance on the mainstage of the local growers. This year one of these specialty crops is Perilla.  Its Japanese name is Shiso.  The variety we have is the red shiso, which is known as Akajiso.  It is the little cluster of leaves that you see in with pickled ginger or sometimes Umeboshi plums.  These leaves  are what provide the red coloring in both these foods.

It is in the mint family of herbs, as is basil.  Reading about its culinary history and uses in Japan, Korea, China, South Asia, Vietnam, or Laos I came to think it is an herb as important as basil (also in the mint family) is to the Mediterranean cultures.  It is used not only for its flavor but can be ranked as a medicinal food.  Nutritionally powerful it is rich in minerals and vitamins. It is a warming herb with anti-inflammatory properties and stimulates the immune system. Perilla is a tonic, is great for the digestive system and is thought to help preserve and sterilize other foods.  The most blatant example of this is its traditional use in Japan with shashimi (raw fish).  It preservative qualities make it useful for people who make flower essences without the use of alcohol.

Traditionally these leaves have been preserved in salt.  I am not sure how to describe the flavor, the concentration of essential oils make for a strong taste, I have read described as anything from fennel, to mint, to cinnamon.  I can’t say that any of those fit my reaction to the flavor, but I suppose our individual chemistry may be part of how we all taste differently. I can say that I do not care for it fresh, however I love the change that comes over it with fermentation.

We have been putting it in krauts, and the flavor is great. This next week we will be traditionally salt preserving the leaves.  These whole pickled leaves, being incredible rich food, can be used not just as condiment on the side of your meal but also wrappers for small handrolls.

Freestone Fermentation Festival 2011, Part 3: The Festival

Saturday May 2, 2011 was an quintessential spring day and because this Oregon girl who has been enjoying a very wet and grey spring, I was touched by the sunshine. I was in Freestone, California for the Third Annual Fermentation Festival.  The day was especially sweet as I reconnected  with one of my dearest friends.  She and I navigated our first two years of college and dorm life together. 

I introduced her to fermented foods on this visit.  So it was with this friend, who before my arrival the night before had never heard of fermented foods, and our daughters that we embarked on the festival.  We arrived at the school grounds and the primordial beat of music was wafting through the campus, it suggested a festive mood.  I, for one, felt the groove, but instead of dancing got into the line that thickly moved from presenter to presenter.

Oyster Kimchi right off the bat, followed by a delicate cheese. Kefir water next, and then it is a blur of krauts, pickles and more kombucha variations than I can count.  Our senses where sent batted back forth by textures, bubbles and flavors.  I was into it, however I am seasoned by regular sauerkraut consumption.
At one point my friend looked up at me and said, “I am burping,” as she patted her tummy.  “But this is good for me right?”

It is, yes, but that was the first time it occurred to me that the entire array of fermented should perhaps not be taken in one day, especially one’s very first day of culture.    A week later, I was giving a group of farm interns from Santa Cruz a tour of the kitchen and farm.   I mentioned the festival and some of them had been there.  They also said that there were some stomach aches the next day.  Part of the reintroduction of these age old important foods into our modern depleted digestive systems may be something we all can’t just jump into willy-nilly.  I realize that beyond the great flavors and the experience of the Japanese enzyme food soak, my take away, is understanding more about how much is maybe too much at one time?  What is the best way to introduce our systems to these incredible foods.

Freestone Fermentation Festival 2011, Part 2: The Feast

    The Fermentation Feast, part of the Freestone Fermentation Festival, was a fund raising event for Ceres Project. This group brings together teenage volunteers, organic food, and community.  These young people work in the kitchen creating nutrient dense meals for cancer patients and their families.   

    After an afternoon of talking about food, I was ready to eat. There was a bit of a break  and then dinning area was opened.  When I walked in I was immediately greeted by to many decisions.   The food was set up in stations, attended to by the chefs that had created the dishes.  To my right there was sushi, my left tempeh, straight ahead kimchi and a pepperoni sausage.  It the back of the room there was wine.  I was not sure where to start.  I did not know what the “rules” where, I wasn’t sure if we were to pick up the plates along the front of these stations, or to find our seats at the tables set up on the patio area outside.  I had imagined being led through the courses, allowing our palettes to progress through these sumptuous dishes, but these first choices where not the appetizers.

    I walked around a bit and observed.  My first stop was water kefir.  After years of dairy animals and abundant milk supplies I was very familiar with kefir, but water kefir was new to me.  It was delicious, it was effervescent like a soda and had been infused with different herbs or spices. It did not have the vinegary background in the flavor that I often taste with kombucha, the darling of the fermented beverages. The ginger was reminiscent of a light ginger ale.  The most interesting was a coffee water kefir that was topped with kefir cultured cream.  It felt like I had started with desert.

    I decided to just start gathering plates.   Since I could only hold two plates at once I was not sure whether to gather the plates, drop them off at a table, or got back and forth from tables to stations.  This seemed a little athletic and didn’t allow me to eat in a progression that brought the flavors together, so I walked back and forth, and had a stack of plates in front of me by the time I sat down.  I must admit it felt awkward with the array lined up in front of me, but I have a healthy appetite.  The food was inspiring and I wasn’t deterred.  

    The tables were on a patio looking over the spectacular Sonoma landscape as the sun was lowering to night. There was a bit of chill in the air. I sat with Kathryn Lukas and Peter Cornelius from Farmhouse Culture, based in Santa Cruz.  We have admired and delighted in Kathryn’s krauts every time we have visited the area.  I enjoyed talking to a fellow Fermentista and we lamented how all of us in this new traditional food art are in a sense alone.  Fermetistas Kirsten Shockey & Kathryn Lukas The other guests were sisters who grew up in Petaluma, CA.

    Chef Minami had traditional Japanese foods. The artfully arranged plate held a natto sushi roll, Tofu Dengaku roll, and Kasu-Zuke vegetable pickles, which were pickled in Sake lees (which is the dried pressed cake of what is left after the ferment) by Cultured Pickle Shop of Berkley.  All of us at the table agreed that the pickles were amazingly delicate yet had a complex tartness.  The unique part was that they were a drier pickle, almost the consistency of  candied fruit.  This of course makes sense since they were not suspended in a watery brine to pickle. The pastes on top of the tofu eluded us, we speculated that they were miso based.  Upon turning over the menu at home, I read they were miso and honey, but we would have missed all that guessing and conversation had any one of us turned over the paper.

    What is a meal highlighting sauerkraut without the archetypal sandwich with kraut--the Rueben.  This meal was no exception, Chef Rick Goldberg and Ivan Redus of Preservation Foods were creating killer Reubens. This sandwich, despite its old world feel, is American appearing on the food scene in the early part of the twentieth century.  There is debate whether it was born in Omaha or New York, but that is for others to debate. It will suffice to say delis have never been the same. The sandwich in question this night was made from whey cured beef, the cheese a Portuguese style St. George by Matos Cheese Factory, and the sauerkraut oak barrel aged. These fermented ingredients were contained in rye bread and grilled on site on a hot plate. The result was the melding of the flavors, warm and steamy, pleasantly salt, and comforting.  The barrel aged kraut did not have the oak tannins one might expect, instead the flavor was crisp and clear.

    The tempeh.  How does a Reuben transition into tempeh?  Well not very easily for some but there was a time...In the spirit of full disclosure, we, who now butcher much of our meat, went through an eight year vegetarian phase.  One of our favorite meals was the Tempeh Rueben.  The tempeh at the feast were homemade by Chef Ricky Hass, Jill Nussinow and Chef Julie Schrieber.  They had a bean tempeh and a millet tempeh that they served with tamarind sambal, a gado gado peanut sauce and a salad of pickled radishes and onions.  The bean tempeh was not that much different than the traditional soy, a bit drier on the mouth and the taste was predominantly that of brown beans.  The millet was very subtle and slightly sweet,  I tasted a tiny bit of an alcoholic note in the ferment, but otherwise it quite bland.  Our table of critics agreed that it would have been good as a desert candidate with some rich fruit or chocolate sauces drizzled over the top.

    My desert came from the cheese table which featured an array of local cheeses.  My favorite was a rich ricotta by Bellwether Farms.  It is more like a mascarpone, creamy not grainy or dry.  I ate this alongside the goat milk fudge.

Freestone Fermentation Festival 2011, Part 1: The Symposium

The Freestone Fermentation Festival just completed its third year. It seeks to propel the nascent movement to understand our relationship with “good bacteria” and to address, as its founder Micheal Strusser said, the “tremendous public yearning throughout the country for a healthier and wholer food system.”  I left the belly tall green grass of Mellonia and with this energy spent the weekend of May 20-21 in the Sonoma Valley of Northern California.  I will share some of my experiences in a three part blog, the Symposium, the Feast, and the Festival.

The Symposium
Fermentation in all its forms are part of our traditional foodways.  Across cultures we have beloved alcohols in variations beers or wines.  We have cheeses, breads, tempeh, miso, salami, black tea, coffee, and chocolate--clearly some of our collective favorite foods.  So why as a society are we deeply afraid of foods aged in the open environment and fluctuating temperatures of our kitchens.  My guess is it began with the discovery of pathogenetic bacteria in the time when modern allopathic medicine was in its infancy.  From this we got germ theory, which has its place, but somehow we have taken that to the extreme with anti-biotic everything, from tissues and soaps to in the fibers of some of our clothes.   In trying to keep safe and healthy in a “germ free” environment we are making ourselves sicker and sicker.  No form of life exists without bacteria and humans are no exception.

Only recently are micro-biologists discovering that the bacterial universe that is us is much more important than we have realized. Now humans are realizing we have lost much our “bacterial stores”, at no other time in history have we, as the society at large, had to think about repopulating the flora of our digestive systems.


 Friday afternoon’s symposium had 3 speakers.  Jenny McGruther, who uses social media from the hamlet of Crested Butte, CO  to reach a wide audience throughout the country. Much of this audience are mothers, who want to learn to eat in ways that improve their children’s health, sometimes radical with radical results.  Dr. Charles Bamforth, who is the Anheuser - Busch Endowed Professor of Brewing Science at UC Davis and known in Berlin as the “Pope of Foam”.  And Sandor Katz, who as the author of Wild Fermentation, believes that fermented foods have played a huge role in his good health status as a person living with aids.  He is the “rockstar” of the movement and drew a crowd around him throughout the weekend.

Jenny explained her thoughts on the how cognitive, emotional, and physical health are directly related to our gut.  We are born from the sterile environment of our mothers womb. Our journey through the birth canal delivers our “first gift” of beneficial bacteria.  This process has become interrupted since birth moved out of the homes and into the hospitals in the middle of the last century, about 3 generations ago.  Breast milk was replaced for the industrialized “superior” alternative of formula. The subsequent generations get a weaker dose of the bacteria and the progression of loss has increased leading to a whole population of people with gut dysbiosis (leaky gut.) She shared first hand stories of children with autism whose diet changes, which included many probiotic foods, where restored to a life of a healthy child.

Dr. Bamforth came to the discussion with incredible knowledge and information about beer.  As a young man he graduated as an enzymologist and took his first job at a Brewing Research Foundation in the UK, this defined his career.   He has worked across the world with brewers and his discussion was lively and interesting.  He shared how healthy beer actually is, for those who take the “middle” road.  It turns out beer is the richest source of easily assimilated silica available in the diet, which makes it a great drink to counter osteoporosis.  

Though I know that there are many different bacteria working at different times I have often wondered when the maximum concentration of “the good gut guys” or lacto-bacilli are in the ferment.  Sandor explained this is a progression in a process in which no single bacteria population is the best one.  So if you eat your krauts, in this case, at different points in the ripening you will in sense inoculate yourself with the different bacteria as they bloom in the series.

I think he means the lacto-bacilli have many different family members and I wonder if he includes the first few phases of this progression, which I wouldn’t be as keen to eat.  In my understanding when the vegetables are first submerged in the brine all the microorganisms that can are growing like mad, taking in nutrients and dividing. The plant cells and the bacteria are producing CO2 and that is replacing whatever oxygen that was present. Very soon the scales start to tip and the acid forming bacteria begin to take center stage. At each act of the fermentation play the lead actors change, the progression.  This is where I wonder if you really want to inoculate in all stages. In the very beginning the coliform bacteria produce gas, volatile acids and some lactic acid. As the peak and then fall into decline the next group of organisms begin to outgrow the first ones and acid continues to rise with the lactic acid though acetic acid, ethyl alcohol, mannitol, and carbon dioxide are being produced. In the final phase the lactobacilli continue producing acid but no CO2 as they feed off what sugars remaining and also the mannitol that was produced by the previous players.  I will note that this mannitol phase is a bit slimy, depending on the sugar content of the vegetables, in our experience parsnips turn slimy and metallic flavored, but once beyond this stage are great.

 He also said  “some microbiologists are starting to think that bacteria don’t have separate species, but are a super species that is genetically fluid, not unlike humans using tools.”  In other words the bacteria change as needed for different situations, and are able to change again.  As we may pick up a hammer to nail a board, then put it down and grab the shovel.  This gives us all something to think about, principally how little we know.

I read an article a few weeks ago, Gut Bacteria Divide People Into 3 Types, Scientists Report  www.nytimes.com,  about our gut flora.  In short they are finding our flora is different for different individuals, much like blood type. And these differences are based on the regions where people are born, not race.  This links into Jenny’s talk on that “first gift” but also to the audience member that suggested that there are studies the DNA of bacteria is showing there has a terroir, stamp of place.  Which brings up back to our humble krauts produced in the Thompson Creek watershed, it appears that cultured vegetables also take on place, in the same way as we know wine and cheese do.



First Kraut school graduates 10 fermentistas!

Instead of cap, gown and diploma these graduates went out into their worlds with crocks in their arms, ready to spread the joy of cultured food love to their families.  In the gingham bonneted crocks, under the weight of the wooden followers, in the ceramic darkness were salted vegetables beginning to brine.

After morning class time and a group-kraut project everyone gathered around the farmhouse kitchen table for an amazing lunch, featuring what else? Kraut!
Lunch began with sauerkraut appetizers.  A favorite was the fresh dates topped with Pholia Farm Hillis Peak cheese and Subtly Smokey kraut.  The main course focused on quiche and tarts made with kraut and a beet kraut borscht, accompanied by wonderful local Weisinger wines.  The sausage and juniper onion tart went especially well with the Weisinger 2006 Syrah. 

With full bellies everybody came back to the kitchen ready to channel their inner kraut.  They chose from a selection of cabbages, greens, and root vegetables, as well as an array of herbs, spices, and salts, to create an unique blend all their own.

Some recipes from the lunch are available on our recipe page.  We will soon post another class as there was more interest than availability.

Oregon Veggies to meet a Colorado Pot

My brother used to call me “pioneer woman” when I was most exuberant about learning all the homesteading arts, with my children next to me.  I was a self-proclaimed luddite who stayed as far away from technology as I could.  Perhaps I was the yin--the opposing energy to the yang of my husband’s IT career at the time.  Perhaps I thought my children needed to know all this in case it all came tumbling down.  Some of these arts became part of our world and routine, some felt ridiculous.  Brain-tanning for example went by the way side and we are not all wearing buckskin.  Things evolve, the kids are self-sufficient in many ways, and I use the Internet.  

Where am I going with all this? About a month ago, I was reading about traditional Korean kimchi.  What a “cultured” girl does for fun, right? In the book I saw pictures of beautiful pots lined up a long a terrace.  I was intrigued.  I love the beautiful German crocks we ferment in, sauerkraut in German pots.  These crocks have a water seal that allows the carbon dioxide to escape without letting in new air and contaminants. To my way of thinking it is only natural that kimchi should be in traditional Korean vessels, and I wanted to know about them for our fermentation cave.  

“The glaze drips are formed when the minerals in the juniper and pinyon wood ash melt after coming to rest on the shoulders and tops of the pots in the kiln during the 50 hour firing.  Randomly kiln-placed beauty!” Adam Field

I started my search, not knowing what they were called. I started Googling various combinations of Korean, fermenting, kimchi, jars and pots.   Though I could not find much at first, I found Adam Field Pottery through the back door of someone’s blog.  I quickly abandoned the blog but was intrigued by the video post, a time-lapsed building of a large Onggi pot by Adam, who had gone to Korea to study the traditional art of Onggi pottery under the Kim family.  They operate a 7th generation Onggi studio and are some of the last to form their wares in the traditional way, with little help from modern machines.   The studio is led by Kim Il-Maan, a Korean National Cultural Treasure. This was speaking to my post-modern heart.

I went to Adam’s website  and looked the photos and thought how it would be incredible to culture kimchi in such art work.  That could only make our products taste better and more alive.  I contacted Adam.    A few days later what began as surfing became a great conversation.  I had a lot of questions.  Adam explained that the type of soil chosen to make the clay, which is worked by hand, leaves small air pores.  This creates a breathable pot, which is one of the unique characteristics that is Onggi pottery, it ensures the quality of the fermented food inside.  I read that this is what allows the fermenting gasses to leave and takes the smell and any bitter taste with it.  I can’t  say how many times I have heard  “I love Kimchi when I can get past the smell.”  I don’t know if it will help these people but I was hooked by the potential of this amazing functional art.

Adam also explained with plastic and refrigeration, the onggi jar was becoming obsolete, two things have kept that from happening.  One is that Koreans hold their fermenting traditions very high, and that the pots are making a comeback do to a growing interest in healthy foods and slow food.

These vessels not only ferment vegetables but also bean pastes, soy sauces, fish sauces and the like.  There are many great photos on Adam’s site of jars in various stages of production and in use.  One picture that intrigued me looked like pine needles.    I asked.  They were, at a Buddhist temple Adam saw a ferment of pine needles that had been fermenting for a year.  They were siphoning it off when he was there. He said that it was non-alcoholic and sweet, a bit carbonated,  and the taste was something like walking through a Christmas tree lot.

Adam just fired the first of the pots he is making for our kitchen we are getting a few sizes including a few 15 gallon pots.  These pictures came recently to my inbox.  I was floored.  I can’t wait to press Napa cabbage into these jars.  

Jars and Labels and Lids. Oh My!

Packaging turns out is a loaded topic.  So much so that sharing some of the things that we have learned in a process that is far from over will come to this blog in a few parts.  
Packaging is something we have talked about for years, on a theoretical level long before we had a product. I have not wanted to create a product that throws more garbage out into our world. In other words we have put all kinds of parameters around what will work for us in balancing our sense of design and a pleasing shelf look and our commitment to the environment.

Ten years ago that would have meant a glass jar. Easy to recycle we would have assumed end of story. It is true what they say - ignorance is bliss. Now we know that is not so simple.   Sand, soda ash, limestone, a bit of dolomite and feldspar is combined and baked in a furnace at temps over 2730 degrees F.   All this heat demands a phenomenal amount of energy and makes what we have coined now as a big ‘ol carbon footprint.   These days just about all glass jars come from China, so the footprint does not end there. The jars, thin walled but still heavy, have to be transported via trains, ships, and trucks to get to Applegate.  Once the jars have held our product, been thoroughly enjoyed by our customers, and ended up in the recycling bin it gets complicated again.  Though glass is inert in the landfill, it still shouldn’t be there especially since glass can be recycled indefinitely as its structure does not deteriorate.  Still it often isn’t recycled.  Jackson County does not actually have a place to sell all the glass, mostly due to the cost of transporting to the nearest plant.  So the glass gets ground into our roads, or worse tossed in the landfill anyway.  All  this makes the eco-choice confusing.  

The answer seemed simple at first a sturdy glass jar that has a deposit to encourage take back and reuse.

When I was a child visiting my grandmother in Germany returning bottles from beverages such as water, soda and beer was the standard practice.  These bottles were thick and not recycled like the 5 cent deposit beverage container are here, but industrially washed and reused.  Here we are now seeing the re-birth of deposits on milk bottles for some organic milks.  I have read that a milk bottle makes an average of anywhere between 8 and 17 treks from dairy to consumer and back.   I am not sure what the practice is in Europe now, but I know that as bottling plants became larger and decreased in numbers bottles had to be transported further for refilling, which removed the financial advantage for refilling.  Even factoring the extra weight requirement for the glass to withstand the wear and tear and cleaning costs they are still the best option when recovered and reused.  Consumers also preferred the convenience of non-returnable bottles.

My assumption is consumer convenience is a huge player and is why we don’t see more re-used beverage bottles.  Christopher and I both remember the light green Coca Cola bottles, that were thick with a sand blasted looking ring from rattling around with each other.  I tried to figure out when they where discontinued.  I only found some advertising in 1970 by Coca Cola encouraging the re-useable bottles.  They advertised it as the bottle for the Age of Ecology “What the world needs today are containers that recycle… So buy Coca-Cola in returnable bottles. It’s best for the environment and your best value.”  That was 41 years ago.  I wonder how many bottles would have been saved?

Right now our kraut is sold in canning jars, with a shipping label that doesn’t affix nicely to the texture of the mason jars.  We have chosen canning jars for the time being as they are made in the US.  Most wholesale jars that we have found are made in China.  Mason jars are reusable and they harken of home and hearth.  Our hope is that they will get used again, either returned to us, or canning someone’s home grown harvest.  Unfortunately from the dozens of North American mason jar producers that used to be making jars we in this country are down to one, and the last few years the jars have gotten thinner.  They don’t have the weight and permanence they used to.  They meet the minimum requirements for pressure canning but this does not factor in permanence.  I have some that get used every year and must be 50 or more years old.  So if you are a food preserver hold onto those old jars.

With the canning jars comes a two part metal lid.  This gets a bit cumbersome when hand packing 80 jars in one afternoon, but do-able.  The life span of the metal is short with the acidity of the fermented foods.  To combat throwing away the metal flat lid we found a reusable, BPA-free, made in the USA Tattler canning lid.  We bought 500 and started using them.  Now we are up to a three part lid (remember those in the packaging department) and worse we discovered that it takes a bit of finesse to get the little rubber gasket to land in place once the jar has been opened.  A ring hanging in the the kraut is not pleasing.  On the business side these add to the cost without any attractive functional benefits.   

Our search for a sturdy reusable container continues we will share what we have learned from the ceramic kilns of China and the glass works of Italy.

Chopping instead of Shopping

A couple of months ago I read an article in the Economist about Korea and a crisis that was threatening the country.  No not that one - although their neighbors to the North have proven they can create crisis alright. No, this article was about a cabbage crisis, with escalating prices causing people to look outside the country for their cabbages needed to make their staple, Kimchi.

 
Lucky for us there is no shortage of beautiful cabbage right now in Southern Oregon.  Last week we purchased  140 lb. of beauties from our local organic farmers Whistling Duck Farm.  We spent Black Friday in the kitchen, cutting and shredding, mixing and packing into our ten gallon crocks.  As Kirsten said, we were chopping instead of shopping.  By the end of the day we were both dreaming of a big old Nemco vegetable slicer and an 80 quart stainless steel bowl.  I think we are going to need bigger stockings on the hearth this year.

This batch is made up of napa cabbage, garlic, onions, ginger, carrots and chili flakes - all organic and most from local farms.  It should be a good batch so stay tuned.  It should be out of the crock and in the jars in a couple of weeks.