Fun With Fermentation

reezing and drying preserve your garden bounty at its peak, but fermentation both preserves and transforms it. This process involves cultivating bacteria on your vegetables, which break down natural sugars. The result is an entirely new flavor profile, as well as a bevy of beneficial bacteria that can help promote optimal health.

Fermentation has had a place in food preparation for millennia, starting with the making of beer, bread, and wine. Ancient Greeks and Romans used it to make vinegar, while Egyptians and Asian cultures made pickles. Even back then, fermentation wasn’t just a technique for preserving food. It was valued as a way to create nutritious additions to the diet that doubled as digestive aids. These days, artificial preservatives, refrigeration, and other modern advances have largely eliminated the need for fermentation to prolong shelf life. Yet fermented foods are making a comeback, due in part to renewed interest in bacteria and health. In fact, researchers are learning much more about the role of “friendly” bacteria in our bodies—and discovering that, when it comes to fermented foods, our ancestors were right on the money.

Feed Your Microbiome

In the simplest terms, your microbiome is the aggregation of some 100 trillion bacteria and other microbes (fungi, for example) that primarily populate your gut but are also found on the skin and within other parts of the body. This community outnumbers our human cells (that is, the ones with our unique DNA profile) by about 10 to one and makes up about two pounds of our body weight. The vast spectrum of microorganisms ranges from those that help us produce energy from food and absorb nutrients to those that boost immunity and fight inflammation.

Your diet strongly influences your microbiome. Research suggests that the Standard American Diet (SAD)—high in processed foods and low in fruits, vegetables, and grains—is associated with low microbial diversity, and that, in turn, is associated with poor health. One easy way to diversify your microbiome: Consume more fermented foods and beverages. A growing body of evidence suggests that the beneficial bacteria contained in fermented foods help boost immunity, control blood sugar, ease chronic inflammation, improve digestion, and even reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Most people are aware that yogurt contains friendly bacteria. But yogurt isn’t the only—or even the best— fermented food. (Most yogurts on supermarket shelves don’t contain the beneficial “live” or “active” cultures found in homemade yogurt.) Natural pickles, vinegar, miso, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, beer, and cider are all also sources of “friendly” lactobacilli bacteria that aid digestion, increase vitamin levels, produce a variety of useful enzymes, and promote the growth of healthy flora in the lower digestive tract.

Luckily, your plantings of cabbage, cucumbers, and other vegetables will provide you with enough fresh produce to enjoy in a variety of dishes throughout the growing season, as well as to turn into natural pickles and sauerkraut for the fall and winter.

Diy Sauerkraut

A traditional German condiment, fermented cabbage is an excellent source of fiber, vitamin C, and cancer-fighting compounds called isothiocyanates. A potential downside of sauerkraut is its high content of salt, needed to draw out the cabbage juice and suppress growth of unwanted organisms. If you rinse and soak sauerkraut in cold water before you eat it, you can lower the sodium content considerably. (This may be advisable for people with high blood pressure.)

When I was growing up in Philadelphia, my family used to buy sauerkraut directly from barrels at delis. Unfortunately, most of today’s commercially available sauerkraut is pasteurized and “dead,” meaning that it lacks the beneficial bacterial cultures that are so good for us. You can find decent fresh sauerkraut in the refrigerated sections of natural food stores. But for the best health benefits, and the chance to enjoy your cabbage long after harvest, make it yourself.

Making sauerkraut at home, with or without special equipment, is surprisingly simple. Use fresh cabbage, shred it, and mix it in a bowl with salt, at a ratio of roughly three tablespoons of salt for every five pounds of cabbage (or 2.5 percent salt by weight). Let it sit until it becomes juicy, pressing it from time to time with a utensil or your fist.

I load the salted cabbage into a device called the Perfect Pickler that makes fermentation easy; the sauerkraut is ready to eat in four to five days and keeps well in the refrigerator (perfectpickler.com). This two-quart glass jar with a water-lock attached to the lid forms a one-way seal: Carbon dioxide given off by fermentation can bubble out, but air cannot get back in, preventing spoilage due to the overgrowth of organisms that need oxygen. Sauerkraut can also be made in a ceramic crock with the cabbage weighted down, but this method takes much longer, may require regular skimming of surface mold, and works best when making large quantities.

Sauerkraut can be sampled just a week or so after fermentation starts, but the flavor improves over time. Once it tastes just right, the finished product should go into the refrigerator to stop fermentation. Packed in its own juice and kept cold, it keeps well: Some experts say for up to a year.

In A Pickle

More than just a topping for burgers and sandwiches, pickled cucumbers and other vegetables make a wonderful snack. Unfortunately, as with sauerkraut, most commercially available pickled products are pasteurized and lack beneficial bacterial cultures. Instead, all you get is a lot of salt. Indeed, most “pickles” on supermarket shelves are simply cucumbers canned in a vinegar solution and are not fermented. “Live” pickles need to be refrigerated. The lactic acid that makes them sour has a different, more complex taste compared to the acetic acid in vinegar, one that I much prefer.

I recommend making your own pickled vegetables at home, using a product like the Perfect Pickler. (The company that makes it also supplies recipes.) In addition to cucumbers, some of my favorite garden-fresh vegetables to pickle are green (unripe) tomatoes and green beans. I flavor my homemade pickled veggies by putting spices and herbs in the brine that covers them: dill, of course, along with garlic, whole coriander seed, black peppercorns, and crushed, dry hot pepper pods.