Living food: cultured pickles, fermented soda and vegetables that breathe

It used to be the way we made or preserved much of our food- cheese, wine, yogurt, sourdough bread, soda and pickled vegetables.

For Alex Hozven food is either living or dead. At her Cultured Pickle Shop in Berkeley, California, she tends 20,000 pounds of vegetables that "breathe" carbon dioxide.

She's simply pickling vegetables, but to most of us used to "dead food", it's a foreign concept.

For four millenia, fermented foods were part of every culture's diet- e.g. sauerkraut, kimchi, pickled herring, giardiniera, miso, kombucha, kefir-, but today with our modern industrial food system, even our "pickles" aren't usually pickled, but are simply cucumbers soaked in vinegar and heat-treated to kill any pathogens. Even our sauerkraut is pasteurized.

Instead of using the modern shortcut (vinegar and pasteurization), Hozven pickles her vegetables (cabbages, carrots, radish, beets, etc) relying on the slower method of fermentation.

Pickled vegetables may pack more vitamins than the plant pre-fermentation (Korean research points to high doses of vitamin B). The probiotics in fermented foods have been credited with being antioxidants, immunity-boosters and anti-inflammatories.

While Hozven warns against treating these foods as medicine, she says there's no doubt they're good for your gut.

Perhaps the most fun part of fermentation are cultured soft drinks. The earliest sodas used fermented vegetables for the fizz. Even as recently as a century or two, it wasn't so uncommon to drink a "root beer" or a "ginger ale" truly cultured from roots.

Hozven also makes a Kombucha. She describes the culture (a colony of bacteria and yeast) as a jellyfish-type blob that eats tea and sugar that some people think originated in China.

Cultured Pickle's products aren't cheap, but that's the price of living food. All of this fermenting takes time. Some of the pickles take up to a year to mature.

Hozven spends an hour and a half every morning just monitoring her pickling vats. She works six days a week culturing only local vegetables and only when they're in season. She has trouble taking a vacation.

In this video, we visit Hozven at her Berkeley store where she and her associate were busy making a few of the 10 different varieties of sauerkraut. She shows us how they pickle: first the vegetables are salted and given a deep tissue massage to create a brine and then they enter "the cave" (a climate-controlled room) where they ferment for 2 weeks to a year.

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/the-coca-cola-fermented-foods-pickling-a...

Music credit for first track: "Divertissement" by Kevin MacLeod (http://incompetech.com)

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• lacto-fermentation
• lactic fermentation
• fermented pickles
• pickles
• pickling
• fermenting
• fermented food
• fermented vegetables
• kimchi
• miso
• kefir
• sauerkraut
• kombucha
• cultured pickle
• raw vegetables
• unpasteurized food
• traditional foods
• kasu
• alex hozven
• Tsukemono
• probiotics

[TheDenisedrake]

Wow! So interesting. Our fermented kraut (cabbage, carrots, dill) enhance the flavors of other foods. Did you try any of the foods? Seems that they might not taste as good by themselves. Did Alex talk about eating them as a condiment with other foods?

[kirstendirksen]

@TheDenisedrake You're right. Most people eat pickled vegetables as a condiment and not as a meal in themself. So you might use them in a salad, spread on toast, as a new addition to crackers and cheese. Perhaps in the same way in Korea, kimchi can be eaten with nearly every meal... have read that Koreans eat 30- 40 lbs per person per year.

[paulgem123]

where are these amazing product sold?

[kirstendirksen]

@paulgem123 She sells them from her Cultured Pickle Shop in Berkeley. At San Francisco Bay Area Farmers' Markets. Some local natural foods stores like the regional Whole Foods. And you can order by calling the store, but I think it's pretty expensive because they need to be FedExed since it is "living food".

[paulgem123]

@kirstendirksen Looks like a science experiment LOL. I love fermented food and am a big fan of kim chi and would love to try her stuff because of the variety. I do have a whole foods by me. Is that her web site on the video? Thanks for your answer.

[kirstendirksen]

@paulgem123 For her website google "Cultured Pickle Shop" or click on the link in the text and you'll find it on the original story.

[leloodallasmultipass]

@eangeles92 someone needs to look up the difference between hipster and hippie.

[leloodallasmultipass]

@plattawabbe there is a huge market for this stuff. maybe not for you. norcal can support it better than most places. my guess is this is a thriving biz.

[stackoleebillylions]

She's got a whole heap load of babies to care for : ).

[stackoleebillylions]

My mom always pickles at the end of her garden harvest and it stinks up the house for a solid week. I can't imagine what this place smells like to the uninitiated when they walk through the door. Bring on the brine!

[lnoagkois]

Is she saying breathing or breeding?

[12quillemall5321]

I love fermented green and red bell peppers. I can't find them at most supermarkets. I have to go online and buy them by the gallon.

[Uriel1816]

Wonderful video!

[plattawabbe]

It was interesting to watch an 11-minute video about, but none of it looks appetizing and I have a hard time believing she is going to stay afloat for very long.

[pria114]

@kirstendirksen Please consider adding your videos on Roku as your own channel. I would love to enjoy your videos on television instead of my comp ;) Plus, your content seems ideal for this medium.

Thanks!

[Gardensnog]

PLEASE tell me what VATS are used there. Thanks