Preserve us
Yesterday, Harriet taught me how to make sauerkraut and pickles without fear.
Harriet is the proprietor of Preserve, a school of food preservation that she runs out of her house and garden here in the 'hood. Yesterday's class was Fermentation and Pickling.
We're all sitting in Harriet's former garage, now a screen-house, in amongst her beautiful vegetable garden. We have cups of coffee, we have sweaters (it was chilly yesterday morning), and we have clipboards. Harriet's into her talk, about how much food preservation lore is being lost, how we have to recover it, and how she's going to teach us the basic science behind safe fermentation and pickling, when one participant pipes up about botulism.
Now, of the eight people in the class, seven have wound up in Stumptown from points east and south by conscious choice. No one has driven a car to get to the class. Two of the participants are chefs. We're slow-foodies all. Simplifiers. I feel right at home.
But this woman? Very afraid of botulism. Seems to believe that before Science Came Along, people routinely dropped dead of botulism. She's in the class to find out, definitively, how to protect her family from botulism.
When Harriet assures her the methods we're about to learn will produce safe food, Botulism Lady argues that botulism can survive hours in a boiling canning kettle. Her fear of botulism is bigger than Harriet's experience and wisdom. It's bigger than physics and chemistry.
To make a long story short, Botulism Lady becomes upset, asks for her money back, and leaves the class midway through.
Harriet, though a little shaken, carries on. We make up our own jars of quick-pickled vegetables, and go carefully over the hows and whys of fermented-food safety. The lids on our jars go "snick!" as they cool, proving a good and botulism-excluding seal. We all taste the sauerkraut that Harriet's been fermenting--completely uncooked and unrefrigerated--for a couple of weeks (smooth, nutty flavor and crispy crunch, and here I am, still alive!).
Bad bugs can't survive in the salty, acidic, anaerobic environment of pickles and ferments. And fermenting adds enzymes and stuff to the food so that it's even better for you than it was raw, which is why every human culture (hah! culture, see?) has a tradition of fermented live food.
We conclude by reassuring Harriet that the class was awesome and that if Botulism Woman had been a plant from County Extension or the FDA, she'd have stayed, taken notes, and kept her mouth shut, so don't worry and we'll all be back in the fall to learn how to make cheese.
Harriet is the proprietor of Preserve, a school of food preservation that she runs out of her house and garden here in the 'hood. Yesterday's class was Fermentation and Pickling.
We're all sitting in Harriet's former garage, now a screen-house, in amongst her beautiful vegetable garden. We have cups of coffee, we have sweaters (it was chilly yesterday morning), and we have clipboards. Harriet's into her talk, about how much food preservation lore is being lost, how we have to recover it, and how she's going to teach us the basic science behind safe fermentation and pickling, when one participant pipes up about botulism.
Now, of the eight people in the class, seven have wound up in Stumptown from points east and south by conscious choice. No one has driven a car to get to the class. Two of the participants are chefs. We're slow-foodies all. Simplifiers. I feel right at home.
But this woman? Very afraid of botulism. Seems to believe that before Science Came Along, people routinely dropped dead of botulism. She's in the class to find out, definitively, how to protect her family from botulism.
When Harriet assures her the methods we're about to learn will produce safe food, Botulism Lady argues that botulism can survive hours in a boiling canning kettle. Her fear of botulism is bigger than Harriet's experience and wisdom. It's bigger than physics and chemistry.
To make a long story short, Botulism Lady becomes upset, asks for her money back, and leaves the class midway through.
Harriet, though a little shaken, carries on. We make up our own jars of quick-pickled vegetables, and go carefully over the hows and whys of fermented-food safety. The lids on our jars go "snick!" as they cool, proving a good and botulism-excluding seal. We all taste the sauerkraut that Harriet's been fermenting--completely uncooked and unrefrigerated--for a couple of weeks (smooth, nutty flavor and crispy crunch, and here I am, still alive!).
Bad bugs can't survive in the salty, acidic, anaerobic environment of pickles and ferments. And fermenting adds enzymes and stuff to the food so that it's even better for you than it was raw, which is why every human culture (hah! culture, see?) has a tradition of fermented live food.
We conclude by reassuring Harriet that the class was awesome and that if Botulism Woman had been a plant from County Extension or the FDA, she'd have stayed, taken notes, and kept her mouth shut, so don't worry and we'll all be back in the fall to learn how to make cheese.