Earthblog

"Eating locally in winter is easy. But the time to think about that would be August," wrote Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, the memoir about the year her family spent growing their own food and eating locally. Now that August is a distant memory and I've picked up the last box of hearty root vegetables from my CSA's winter share, I'm not looking forward to the lack luster months that lie ahead, February, March, and April, when local seasonal food is lean.

Historically, the months ahead were considered the "hungry time" when people had to rely on their stock of dried, salted, and preserved food. Now that we can buy a multitude of fresh, frozen, or processed food from any corner of the globe, I know I'm in no danger of starving, but I will miss the pleasures of nourishing myself with fresh food that connects me to my immediate community. So, while my cupboards are by no means bare, these are not months of abundance either.

"We are entering what the German's call saure gurken zeit which means, 'the sour pickle time,'" Ursula Holmes told the five of us last February. We were seated around her kitchen table to learn the art of making fermented vegetables, an ancient food preservation technique. Essentially, we were there to learn how to make pickled vegetables. Instead of preserving them in a liquid with high acidity, like vinegar, we would let the natural bacteria, lactobacillus—an organism that lives naturally on organic vegetables—create a fermentation process. The bacteria would raise the ph of the liquid in the jar, which would preserve the vegetables, keep any unsavory microbes at bay, and infuse them with a tangy fresh flavor.

Ursula learned how to make fermented vegetables from Annelics Schoneck while living and working on organic farms in Sweden. She met her husband, Lawrence, working on one of these farms, and moved to Colorado to farm with him. Their farm, Cresset Community Farm, is nestled into a picturesque hillside overlooking the Thompson River between Windsor and Greeley. They farm using biodynamic methods—a kind of farming that uses the cycles of the moon, the energy of the earth, and rich compost from organic cow manure to grow vegetables without synthetic chemicals or fertilizers. Ursula stressed the importance of having "clean" vegetables from farms that have rich organic soil to make fermented vegetables with, otherwise the chemicals on conventionally grown vegetables would suppress or prevent the fermentation process.

"Fermented vegetables are a living food. The organisms in the food preserve the vitamins naturally present, which is why sailors carried barrels of sauerkraut, rich in vitamin C, to prevent scurvy. Forts would have barrels of fermented vegetables to keep people healthy if the fort was under siege and people couldn't reach their fields," Ursula told us as she handed photocopies of her handwritten recipes. Fermented vegetables were also supposed to aid digestion by re-introducing healthy bacteria into the gut. One of the women sitting at the table said that she had cured her heartburn by drinking the liquid from fermented sauerkraut and was there to learn how to make it herself.

We moved ourselves from the sunny dining room to the outdoor kitchen where we weighed and scrubbed carrots, beets, apples, onions for a fermented beet salad, and black radishes and Napa cabbage for kim chee. These were sliced or shredded and placed into tubs where we were instructed to mash them with our fists to release their juices, a tiring but important process, and a good way to work out frustrations. We then layered the vegetables into jars with spices added every few inches. Ursula advised that making fermented vegetables was not an exact science, but to add complementary flavors as you would with a fresh dish. Cumin and coriander seeds and garlic cloves paired well with the beets carrots, apples, and onions for a fermented beet salad. Scallions, dried chiles, garlic, and leeks were added to jars with shredded cabbage and black radish for spicy kim chee. All of the jars were filled with a salt water brine. Ursula instructed us to keep the vegetables covered with liquid to prevent any exposed vegetables from spoiling, but we were to leave at least an inch of air in the jar because the fermentation process would expand the liquid in the jar and they would bubble over if too full.

We carried our quart jars back into the house where Ursula had prepared a quick lunch for us. Each dish featured fermented vegetables. A rice salad was made with cream from her cows and sweet and tart pickled carrots. The potato salad included fermented beets, which gave it a gorgeous magenta hue and an earthy, sweet, tangy flavor. Thick slices of Ursula's homemade bread and Amish butter were passed around with a jar of fermented green beans. It was a feast for the senses and a truly nourishing meal.

Sandor Ellix Katz wrote in his enjoyable book Wild Fermentation, "There is no culture without culture." Many of our staple food—bread, beer, cheese, wine, and chocolate—have undergone a fermentation process which make nutrients easier for our bodies to process because microorganisms predigested the food. This meal connected us with the land and the seasons and with a way of life handed down through generations. Now Ursula, with her deep kindness, soft voice, and beautiful worn hands, taught us not only to preserve food, but to preserve a tradition that may seem antiquated to many Americans who are all too happy to grab a carton of orange juice or a bottle of multivitamins off the grocery store shelf.

One year later, it is once again the sour pickle time. I wish I could say I have a fridge full of fermented vegetables to tide my cravings for local vegetables through the coming months. I feel more like the grasshopper that played all summer, only savoring fresh foods in the moment instead of preserving, pickling, and freezing food from the farmer's market. All I have is this last box of last Fall’s plucky root vegetables to console me for the time being.

Instead of feeling guilty about the fresh tomato and peach hedonism of last summer, I am going to deem the sour pickle time my opportunity to prepare for summer. I’m going to decide which CSA to join and send in my payment before the last minute. I’ll read up on canning, fermenting, and dehydrating food and start saving for any equipment I might need. And I am going to call up my friend Mary, who I always see working at Ella's fruit booth, and take her out for a beer. It will be good to really talk instead of the broken conversation we normally have as she puts my peaches in a paper sack. Deciding to eat local food isn't a "diet" or a "fad." Eating locally is part of living consciously and cultivating a healthy community. As Barbara Kingsolver reminds us, living consciously takes a little preparation.