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Ecosalon Foodie Underground: You Can Ferment That

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Foodie Underground: You Can Ferment That

by on August 6, 2012 in Food

You’ve been making your own kombucha for months (ok, years) and pickling is old news to you, but have you taken your fermented food obsession to the next level? Grabbed a slot at the local market and opened up a stand to sell your goods? Spend any time at your weekend farmers market and you’re sure to find an artisan pickle, kraut or kim chi maker.

“We can pickle that,” might be the mantra of any lover of the television show Portlandia, but all jokes aside, fermented foods are good for you (and often served in mason jars). Making fermented foods at home however is one thing, running your own fermented business is quite another.

“You should start a restaurant/catering company/baking business/etc.” are words that many a foodie have heard from a friend or two, but turning a passion for food into a business is a feat in and of itself, which is why it’s inspiring to meet people that are doing just that. I perked up recently when I got an intro to the co-founder of what a friend called “the most elegant pickle company on the planet.” When you’re the Foodie Underground columnist, you just can’t turn such an introduction down.

The pickle company is called Esoteric Food Company, based in Boulder, Colorado and responsible for jars of fermented goodness like Beets, Hijiki & Kale and Dill, Caraway & Cabbage. As they put it:

We love food. Learning about food culture is our impetus, our drive and our reward. We live to tinker with, to savor, to understand flavor and nutrition in old and new ways. We simply love making good things to eat to share with others and these pickles are our way of inviting you in to the esoteric circle.

If there ever was an intriguing food mission statement, that might just be it.

I caught up with co-founder Willow King to learn more about the fermentation business and we even got a recipe out of the deal.

Tell us about your food background, what got you into fermented foods in the first place?

My business partner Mara grew up in Hong Kong and is a long time sushi chef and general food goddess. She and I started getting together for “Food Mondays” about 2 years ago and making things that were hard, weird or that we just generally curious about. We made raw cheeses, butter, sausage, sourdough, we canned and we fermented. Something about the ferments sort of just took over (no pun intended) and we have been doing them ever since. We have a mutual friend in town who has grown many businesses from Karaoke bars to energy drinks and he encouraged us to take it to the wholesale level. Mara and I are both English majors and at the time I was teaching Literature and Mara was teaching yoga and getting ready to give birth to her third child. It seemed like a bit of a pipe dream, but we starting tinkering with label designs, jar options, a website and pretty soon we had a business on our hands.

You have everything from carraway to kale… how do you come up with your recipes?

Our recipes come from both Asian and Euro traditions- Korean, Japanese, Polish, Scandinavian, German. They are a pastiche of flavors from our past and new combinations. This week’s market specials were daikon and d’anjou pear kim chi, juniper berry kraut and brined baby carrots with dill.

Why do you think fermented foods have had such a revival? 

Fermented foods are a really great metaphor. They are a sort of alchemy that you can eat and I think people are really waking up the fact that sanitized, factory made, processed foods have lost a lot of their magic by the time they make it to your mouth. There is a growing awareness and live, raw, organic foods can balance and support our immune and digestive systems, as well as boost our moods.

You are certainly part of a growing movement of artisan food makers. In a world of mass marketed foods and big businesses, why do you think “underground” businesses like yours are seeing such success and positive response? 

We know so many amazing food crafters- bakers, jam makers, kombucha and jun brewers- you name it. It is really encouraging to see these small businesses thriving and really being supported by their communities. In many ways, we are just going back to what we have always known: Good food is simple and comes straight from the source. We like to know who is making what we are eating- it is the oldest form of food safety!

How does one get started doing their own fermented foods?

Fermenting vegetables is a pretty simple process and very fun to experiment with. Fermenting dairy and meats can be a bit more complicated and requires exact procedures and temperatures to be safe. If you are interested in experimenting we recommend starting with simple sauerkraut and then expand from there.

Recipe: Simple Sauerkraut

To begin you will need a ball jar, 1 medium cabbage, sea salt and starter like whey or for a vegan option you can use kombucha. Each starter produces different results and flavors so you can try a few and find the one you like best.

Core and shred the cabbage and then spread on a tray or work surface. Pound the cabbage with a wooden hammer (or a rolling pin can work) until the juices start to release and the cabbage softens. Place in a wide mouth ball jar and press down with a fist (you can use a cabbage leaf as a top and the press on that) until the veg is submerged in liquid- you can add the starter at this time. Cover and leave at room temp for about 3 days- you may like it stronger in which case you could let it go a few more days. When you are satisfied with the taste transfer to cold storage where it will last for up to 6 months.

Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of Anna Brones’s weekly column at EcoSalon, Foodie Underground, discovering what’s new and different in the underground food movement, from supper clubs to mini markets to the culinary avant garde.

Image: Esoteric Food Company

Pickle this, Pickle that

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This post brought to you by our beloved Peter Piper

It’s pickle time! Cucumbers are growing like mad.
I’ve been making cucumber salad, sandwiches, and cucumber water!prickly cukeI walk out into the garden one day and find a small prickly cute baby cuke, then the next day — WHAM! It’s a huge green giant!

A pickler has got to do something with all those cucumbers, right? Well, that’s what’s been keeping Mara busy these past few weeks. She has created juicy, naturally fermented Green Tea Sour Pickles, aka Hapa Sours. They are crunchy, zesty, and delicious! The largest pickles will be available this weekend at the Boulder Farmers Market.

Stop by for a pickle on stick!

Pickles can be served in many different ways. My family likes ozuké Green Tea Sour Pickles in tuna salad. Here’s how we make ours:

Tuna Salad Ingredients:
2 Cans tuna
1 Stalk celery, chopped
1 ozuké Green Tea Sour Pickle (or more), chopped
1/2 Cup mayonnaise (or more)
Salt & Pepper to tasteingredients 1Directions:
Drain tuna. In mixing bowl combine all ingredients. Blend together well. Taste, add more of whatever ingredient you desire. Pile high on a green salad, a piece of your favorite bread, or just eat it straight out of the bowl. Serve pickles alongside sandwich or salad. sandwichLooking forward to seeing you all at the Boulder Farmers Market this weekend!

Remember this Saturday get a Pickle on a stick!pickle stick-120130905-071202.jpg

Video Interview: Willow Talks Pickles

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Check out co-founder Willow King as she gives us the inside scoop on pickles at Zuke!

Fermented food make a comeback!

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Fermented food makes a big bubble on DIY scene, store shelves
Posted:   07/14/2012 01:00:00 AM MDT

By Douglas Brown
The Denver Post

Still life with fermented food, like ruby kraut , and simple sauerkraut and pickles as Willow King and Mara King business partners for Esoteric Food Company in Boulder demo a couple of their kraut recipes at Willow King’s home on Friday, June 1, 2012. Fermented foods are gaining popularity. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post (THE DENVER POST | Cyrus McCrimmon)

What will Denver bed-and-breakfast owner Milan Doshi do with the 1,500 pounds of Thai peppers growing in the garden across from his old house? The rows of oregano? The purple carrots?

He will force them to funk.

He will clean and cut the vegetables, stick them in drums, add salt. He will prod them toward a certain helpful decay by simply waiting until it’s time to pack them in jars. He’ll slap Five Points Fermentation Co. labels on them, and put the food — kimchi and curtido

Blog: Colorado Table

Denver Post reporters and editors offer news, analysis and commentary on the latest food, drink and restaurant trends in Colorado.

(an El Salvadoran kraut) — up for sale.

Doshi, a self-described fermentation freak, is not alone. In locations from Denver home kitchens to farmhouse barns to industrial warehouses, people are taking cucumbers, watermelon, milk, wheat, tea, pork shoulders — and a whole lot of other foodstuffs — and letting bacteria do their thing to them.

Bacteria have gotten a bad rap for years, because this group of living things includes nasties like e.coli and listeria, things that kill people. But bacteria is also key for food digestion. And it nurtures a unique flavor — yes, a funk — that just doesn’t come from a mere sprinkling of herbs or a splash of lemon.

“Lactic acid is a gift from God,” said Doshi. “We need to embrace it. When we use bacteria to help us, that’s when we are at our healthiest.”

Who’s got your fizz?

Doshi is so taken with the process he plans to open a fermentation cafe in the Five Points neighborhood, a space for classes on the topic and fermentation-celebration feasts. At his family’s business, the Queen Anne Bed and Breakfast in Denver, he uses fermented batter for the

Willow King, right, packs chopped red cabbage into its juice in a Mason jar as she and Esoteric Food Co. partner Mara King demonstrate a couple of their kraut recipes at King’s home in Boulder. They made ruby kraut with red cabbage, salt and leeks and a simple sauerkraut with green cabbage and salt. The cabbage will ferment for a few days in the jars. (Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

crepes and rye pancakes, serves his company’s krauts and even piles plates with uttapams, traditional Indian pancakes made from fermented beans and rice. He is expanding his line of krauts, and in the fall will start making tempeh — a fermented bean product often used in lieu of meat — from Western Slope pinto beans.

He began experimenting with fermentation about a decade ago, inspired in part by his grandmother’s kitchen in India, with its wall of leftover farm vegetables turned into a cornucopia of pickles: mangos, limes, tomatoes, okra. He also studied under Sandor Katz, the author of the just-published “The Art of Fermentation,” as well as the classic “Wild Fermentation.” Katz is recognized as a national leader on the topic.

“I think our connection to fermentation is innate,” said Doshi. “It’s the second-oldest human tradition. After we built tools, we cured food.”

Without fermentation, Colorado’s ocean of beer wouldn’t make a single wave. No Haystack Mountain goat cheese. No High Country Kombucha, Il Mondo Vecchio beef bresaola, Infinite Monkey Theorem syrah, Trompeau Bakery baguettes, or Zuke dill, caraway and cabbage sauerkraut. And none of the unheralded home-made goodness happening all over the state.

That goodness is so important that Colorado State University this fall, for the first time, is offering a for-credit class on the topic, called “The Science of Food Fermentation,” with sections on meat, dairy, soy, vegetables and grains, which covers bread and beer.

But the university is in the planning stages for an entire major: Fermentation Science and Technology.

“We have created nine new classes, all starting over the next couple of years,” said Laura Bauer, a Ph.D. student in the department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. Bauer will co-teach this fall’s fermentation class. She said the department introduced a brewing science course a few years ago that has been extremely successful. That course’s triumph, combined with the pop-culture trend toward fermented foods, persuaded CSU officials to begin delving more deeply into the age-old craft.

The craft can be exquisitely simple — classic sauerkraut is just shredded cabbage submerged in a brine — and somewhat tricky. Fermented dairy, for example, demands exacting temperatures.

Either way, fermentation is the art of using good bacteria to eat carbohydrates and create lactic acid, which keeps away pathogenic bacteria. The good bacteria can be said to do some of the digestion-work for the eater before the food plummets into the stomach. Once there, those helpful bacteria keep up the good work.

“When you can something, you heat it up and kill everything, and the one bug that can survive is botulism,” said Mara King, one of the owners of Boulder kraut maker Esoteric Food Company. “But with pickling (fermentation), you invite everybody in and create an environment where the good bugs beat the bad bugs. It’s a different approach.”

But how does it taste?

Those nice bugs taste yummy.

A kraut of seaweed, beets and kale? You betcha. Esoteric Food Company’s is ambrosial on eggs.

Taste helps explain why the Boulder restaurant Shine relies so heavily on fermentation. Even the restaurant’s salsa is fermented. But health is key, too.

“To me, the foundation of nutrition is fermentation and probiotics,” said Jessica Emich, head chef and one of the triplets who launched the restaurant last year. “If your body can’t digest food, it doesn’t matter. We like to nurture people from the inside.”

The restaurant even relies on an “alchemist” to create Shine’s fermented beverages. Beer? Sure. But the menu also includes a variety of “tonics” and “elixirs,” fermented beverages similar to kombucha but using honey, herbs, and flowers.

Kombucha — a fermented blend of tea and sugar — has taken off along the Front Range, with bottles of the stuff for sale everywhere from Sprouts markets to Whole Foods (which now has kombucha on tap).

For Edward Rothbauer, the president and chief executive officer of High Country Kombucha in Eagle, kombucha is a livelihood. He started making his own after a fall paralyzed him. All that sitting in a wheelchair upended his digestion. He said that soon after he started drinking kombucha, his digestion improved dramatically.

Now he walks with a cane. He doesn’t credit a fermented drink with his recovery, but he believes it helped.

“People drink it, and get a little education,” he said. “It might be a shock to their taste buds, but in 15 minutes they might say how good they feel.”

Douglas Brown: 303-954-1395 or djbrown@denverpost.com

Read more: Fermented food makes a big bubble on DIY scene, store shelves – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/athome/ci_21072238/fermented-food-makes-big-bubble-diy-scene-store#ixzz22h1p2ajr
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Dishwire Press Release- Zuke in Whole Foods!

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January 23rd, 2012 — 8:55am

Zuké Pickled Veggies Now Available at Whole Foods Locations in Boulder

 

 

Zuké Pickled Veggies Now Available at Whole Foods Locations in Boulder

January 23, 2012-Boulder, COLORADO—Esoteric Food Company announced today their presence in Whole Foods Market at Pearl Street, Ideal Market and Base-Mar Locations. Zuké (pronounced zoo-kay) short for zukemono, the Japanese word for pickled things-offers four varieties including Cabbage-Based Korean Kim Chi, Eastern European Dill and Caraway Sauerkraut, A Citrus & Ginger blend and the cleverly combined Beets, Hijiki Seaweed and Kale. All products are raw, organic and loaded with probiotics. They retail for $8.99 and are located in the refrigerated dairy sections at Ideal Market and Base-Mar and in the raw food case at Pearl Street.

Says Co-Founder, Willow King, ” We are excited that Whole Foods picked up our product…now these life giving tasty pickles are available to a larger audience.”

John Andersen, Buyer for Whole Foods Base-Mar, said, “May their beets go on your salad cause they rock.”

About Zuké:

Founded in 2011 by the Esoteric Food Company, Zuké is a line of organic, pickled veggies that taste amazing and happen to be extra good for you. Our flavors are familiar-some might say nostalgic-and we use an all-natural fermentation process to make our food probiotic…a fancy word for natural organisms that keeps you healthy. Whether it’s the fire of our kim chi or the subtle lemon notes in our citrus & ginger cabbage, our cultured foods will engage your senses and keep you on the up and up. Yep, all this from a little jar.

For more information: http://www.ozuke.com

Resisting the Commodification of Culture- Celebrations of the Harvest

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One of our early inspirations for this business was the book “Wild Fermentation” written by the very inspiring Sandor Ellix Katz. In an early section of the book he says, ” We can merge our appetite with activism and choose to involve ourselves in food as cocreators. Food has historically been one of our most direct links to the life forces of the Earth. Bountiful harvests have always been occasions for celebrations and appreciation of the divine.” Katz suggests that through creating and enjoying cultured foods you “build your body’s cultural ecology as you engage and honor the life forces all around you. ”

We could not agree more!These are some wild plums that we harvested and then experimented with preserving  in salt to make something resembling the Japenese umeboshi. The result was a fascinating, lively, bubbling plum pickle which Mara reports eating for breakfast leaves her feeling great all day long.