Lacto-Fermented Goodness
I refer constantly to the book, Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon. I have always wondered how people groups were able to preserve their food without freezers or refrigeration. The answer I learned is partly through lacto-fermentation. Lactic acid naturally inhibits bad bacteria from growing. It creates lactobacilli by converting the sugars and starches of the vegetables. And we all know these days how good lactobacilli are for our body. If you don’t know, any yogurt commercial will sing the praises of this good bacteria.
By studying world cultures, one can find that historically almost all around the world people used a lacto-fermented vegetable as one of their staples. In the United States, we are familiar with sauerkraut from Europe. When you buy it in the grocery stores, it is probably made through a pickling process with vinegar, which does not have the health benefits of lacto-fermented kraut. Asian cultures also have their own styles of sauerkraut.
Kyla and Jake pounding the cabbage with Andrew supervising.
I perused all the fermented vegetable recipes in Nourishing Traditions and decided that the tastiest sounding recipe was for kimchi from Korea. It makes 2 quarts of lacto-fermented cabbage. You eat it with rice or a small portion on the side of your plate. Knowing that my children were going to balk at eating the kimchi, I took my own advice in Six Tips for Raising Good Eaters, Part Two. I enlisted their help in preparing it.
Everyone ate it without complaint. They occasionally ask for it when we have rice. The very first time we were going to try our kimchi, I prepared a Korean feast. I made Korean beef, Korean soup, and rice. Right before we set down, my cousin arrived at our house. I asked him to join us for dinner, but told him that I would understand if he did not want to partake of our Korean dinner. To my surprise, he said that he loved Korean food, especially, get this, kimchi.
I thought, “Wonderful! He actually knows what it is supposed to taste like.” Then I found out that an actual Korean woman prepares his kimchi. I felt the pressure. Would mine measure up?
Fortunately he liked my version. He commented that my vegetables were grated and not in chunks. So, now that we have used all the kimchi from that batch and it was time to make some more, I decided not to use my food processor to grate the cabbage, carrots, etc. Instead, we chopped by hand.
Fermenting kimchi. If you look closely, you can see bubbles forming.
The recipe uses cabbage, onion, carrots, radish, ginger, and garlic with sea salt and chile flakes. Kyla volunteered to chop thinly but more coarsely than last time. The fun part is pounding the vegetables until their juices start flowing. I divided the vegetables into two dishes so that Jake could also help. They both pounded their hearts out with the bottom of a glass.
We spooned it equally into two quart-sized jars. Then you have to push down until the juices cover the vegetables. The jars sit out for 3 days at room temperature fermenting. Then you can transfer to cold storage.
We have fun making it. We enjoy eating it. We like the thought that lacto-fermenting food is a lost art that we are trying to learn. Making kimchi is a great starting place in the lacto-fermented world of food. It is lacto-fermented goodness.
Would that cousin possibly be named Marcus? He does love the Korean food!
Yes, it was Marcus. Since he loves Korean food, I was really nervous about him eating mine. Fortunately, his comments were highly complimentary.