Fermentation of Veggies at Esalen

A few months ago I was at church, and by church I mean I was driving home from my noon corporate yoga gig in my 2011 black Prius, listening to Terry Gross interview someone on Fresh Air.  That interview is my connection to source, my lecture on humanity, my rebirth in faith of my fellow wo/man.  On this particular day I was listening to Terry interview Sandor Ellix Katz on his new book The Art of Fermentation. It was actually an interview she extended over two days covering topics such as beer, kraut, pickles and yogurt.  It was a beautiful seed that would sit in my mind for the winter.  

Fermentation was really the thread that brought the different aspects of my Esalen course together.  Bees add an enzyme to nectar and transform it to honey.  Yeasts break down the coatings on grains and emit carbon dioxide causing the bread to rise.  In cheese we carefully manage the curdling and spoiling of milk to perfect parameters that make it healthy, lasting and tasty.  

For vegetable preservation we add salt, extracting the water from the vegetable and promoting the growth of inhibiting breakdown by submerging in its juices creating an anaerobic environment.  In all of these situations we are carefully managing the "spoiling" process to promote the growth of one organism and inhibit the growth of others.  Anyway, after I left Esalen and went on a pilgrimage to restaurants in the Carmel/Monterrey/Big Sur area looking for products from Charlie's Farm.  I discovered a shop/school/cafe called Happy Girl Kitchen.  They were making this particular dream real with kombucha kits in the fridge, a fermented beet drink for sale on the counters, a whole group of ladies taking a course in the community kitchen.  There I found Katz's bible of a book on fermentation and spent the $40 to add it to my growing library of homestead information.

Charlie brought us produce from his hilltop farm,  kale and cabbage.  I was fascinated by his bags, hadn't seen these before.

Interesting equipment I had not seen before, pickle presses!

Organic cabbage from Charlie's Farm

Liam mentioned a few cutting techniques I used immediately at a shift in the kitchen

Loading the cabbage up into the press with lots of squeezing and sprinkling of salt.

Here's some cucumbers submerged in their juices after about a day and a half.

Here's the cabbage and carrots after a day and a half, no water added, juiced there own extruded juices.

We sampled our cabbage and cucumebers after 3 days, but really they need 6-12 weeks to cure.

This product isn't fermented, but we used a dehydrator to make some kale chips and also some fruit leathers I forgot to photograph.

When I left for Esalen I had a big jar full of apple skins and cores that I had submerged in water in the attempts to make apple cider vinegar.  Well, as many other things were melting down at this time, the sweet mash had become infiltrated with small flies and I could see little magot larvae swimming in the juice...into the composter!  I have recently begun this project again, having asked my teacher Liam for advice.  I am using a jug with a small opening so I can push the plles down and force them under the liquid.  We'll see!  Takes two months to complete the process.  I also recently began a batch of sauerkraut in the way taught to me by Liam, it also takes about two months to finish.