About 5 years ago I tried my first commercially produced kombucha. I’ve always loved sour, pickled, fermented foods. The commercially available stuff is expensive and being a fresh food, the older it is the less nutritional value.
Any pasteurization or vinegar kills the vast majority of the good organisms too.
So, I learned how to make my own kombucha, sauerkraut and fermented taqueria-style carrots and onions.
About 100 years ago, most in the western world stopped making and eating fermented foods. Pasteurization and refrigeration are probably to blame. I feel better if I have some fermented food at least a couple times a week.
Here’s the latest creation. Tasted at 1 week and at 2 weeks it’s perfect.
Simply orange and purple carrots, white and red onions, habanero, salt and spices and a bit of water to ensure nothing is out in the oxygen. The purple carrots gave it the beautiful color.
I used this one, minus the jicama and substituted hab for jalapeño. Feel free to experiment!
One needs a ferreting crock or jar ideally to keep the oxygen out but let the ferment burp during the first few days. For kraut I like a 6 week ferment followed by 2 months in the fridge. It tastes good right away but gets so much more refined over time.
The carrots et al didn’t require nearly as long, which is great I don’t have to wait so long!
We bought a crock from a local potter at our farmers market and my wife got me a new jar that’s a bit smaller for Christmas. Ideally they should be opaque but the clear jar is cool to see it change color and it’s not in there for very long. We just keep it out of direct/bright light.
It’s not difficult to make. Temp is key to the ferment though. I bought a $10 thermocouple to wire up a heating pad keeping the 2 gallon jar between 68-72 deg F during winter months. We keep it in an insulated box in the closet. It was a scoby factory…we gave many away.
Pickles are my preferred cancer snack. The beautiful Jenn notes today after a commissary trip “I cannot believe how many pickles you eat since getting sick.” Even the store pickles stay in me better than most foods.
But then, sausage egg McMuffins stay in me too. Weirdest thing ever.
Just finished a batch of pickles - bay leaf, dill, garlic, dill seed, mustard seed, coriander seed, allspice, peppercorns, salt and 5 days on the counter top.
Having spent the last 16 years in the health oriented end of the food business, incorporating into one’s diet a daily serving of fermented foods is a superb approach, in conjunction with other mindful techniques, to maintaining good health. I can recommend two very good books written by an author with in depth knowledge and practical experience in the field.
One book is more of the historical background on all the different types and uses of fermented foods. The other is more or less the followup recipes.
The link posted is to the first book. you can find his second very easily in a search on Amazon.
It’s silly how much we’ve lost regarding our innate nutritional knowledge. 200 years ago and earlier everyone fermented and ate fermented food. Then the food processing industry was hatched…
By far the best things I’ve done in life is adding a daily probiotic!
