Lacto-Fermentation: Ferment your own Sauerkraut – Fully Booked
Due to very high demand for places we are repeating this workshop on Sunday 27th November.
Please contact us if you’d like a place on the next date.
Lacto-fermentation or wild fermentation is an age old way to preserve a variety of fruit and vegetables, milk, grains, meads, wines, ciders, beers, beans seeds etc.
Archaeological evidence suggests our forefathers would have consumed large numbers of live lactic acid bacteria. The origin of lacto-fermentation lies in the days with no freezers. During industrialisation it got substituted by pickling with vinegar, canning and pasteurization. The reason for abandoning the old tradition was that the final fermented product is not always uniform in taste, as the varieties of lactobacilli naturally change from batch to batch. What people forgot though was that the newer methods killed all the health supporting lactic-acid-producing bacteria which are crucial for a well-balanced digestive system. And a well-balanced digestive system supports the rest of the body better in getting all the nutrients it needs to work well.
Sauerkraut and other fermented foods are produced by a special variety of bacteria called lactobacilli that occur naturally everywhere on this earth. Those bacteria turn natural sugars in cabbage into lactic acid and produce a distinctive sour flavour and a product with a long shelf life, due to the lactic acid. When consumed raw it has the biggest range of lactobacilli and offers the greatest health benefits.
Your tutor, Peggy, runs ‘Eldertree’, a local business specialised in fermented foods.
The workshop is split into 2 parts, in the first part we will talk about lacto-fermentation and we will explore and taste a variety of different fermented products from all around the world.
In the second part we will get practical. All you need to bring are knifes, cutting boards and storage containers to take your started ferments home in and let the bacteria do their work, as well as the vegetables you would like to ferment (cabbage is usually a good one for a first go). Peggy will provide salt, spices and knowledge on how to do it. There will be the possibility of having a go at making your own sauerkraut (fermented cabbage), as well as fermenting other vegetables, making kimchi, fermented chilli sauce and fermented chutney.
‘Wild fermentation is a way of incorporating the wild into your body, becoming one with the natural world. Wild foods, microbial cultures included, possess a great, unmediated life force, which can help us adapt to shifting conditions and lower our susceptibility to disease. By eating a variety of live fermented foods, you promote diversity among microbial cultures in your body. Biodiversity, increasingly recognized as critical to the survival of larger-scale ecosystems, is just as important at the micro level. Call it microbiodiversity. Your body is an ecosystem that can function most effectively when populated by diverse species of microorganisms. By fermenting foods and drinks with wild microorganisms present in your home environment, you become more interconnected with the life forces of the world around you. Your environment becomes you, as you invite the microbial populations you share the earth with to enter your diet and your intestinal ecology.’ [Sandor Ellix Katz in ‘Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods’]
Fee: £25
Bookings
Bookings are closed for this event.