Ever since I bought a copy of Sandor Ellix Katz's Wild Fermentation shortly after moving to Portland I've been a food fermentation freak.
I love everything about home food fermentation. I love the DIY aspect of crafting foods that I love such as sauerkraut, wine, and miso. I love the time and patience involved in creating these foods and drinks -- most ferments I make take anywhere from a few days to a year. I love the full flavor of food ferments -- from pungent and sour to salty and spicy to sweet and effervescent. I love that fermented foods and drinks are inherently good for me because of the live micro-nutrients they contain. I love that I'm carrying on food traditions born well before refrigeration, artificial preservatives, and pasteurization. The list goes on and on.
In January 2009, I got to travel to Nashville to meet one of my heroes -- Sandor Ellix Katz -- and interview him for The Sun Magazine. In October of 2009, we got him to come out for the inaugural Portland Fermentation Festival that David Barber, George Winborn and I organized and continue to organize every year. The date is still TBD for this year's and I'll let you know soon when/where it will be.
For now, I've got a bunch of home food and drink ferments that I've been checking on, bottling and eating up lately to share with you here. This weekend I started a sour cherry wine with fruit collected from a neighbor's tree. I'll post about that soon.
I've got two batches of miso going right now that I started in November -- soybean miso and red bean miso. Here's what they're looking like now after several months of fermenting...
I scraped the salt off the top of this red bean miso and it's looking pretty and already tasting DELICIOUS. Going to be patient though and let it ferment until fall. At least.
The soybean miso is looking and tasting great too. Did the same and scraped off the salt and mold, repacked with a nice layer of sea salt, covered and put back in the utility room till fall.
Yes, you have to be very generous with the salt so you don't get too much mold.
This year's three gallons of Brooks plum wine has finished fermenting and is now bottled. It's so good. It's tart and off-dry and tastes like a perfect plum. The alcoholic kind.
These petals and more went into this year's gallon of dandelion wine. We bottled last year's and it's delicious as always, a little more flowery this year too which is nice.
If you've never done any home food/drink fermentation I recommend starting with saurkraut or kimchi. They're both quick and easy ferments that pack a lot of flavor. I can't recommend Sandor Ellix Katz's book Wild Fermentation enough. I use it all the time. Happy fermenting! Let me know what you make.