experiencelifemag.com Print › | Back › Fermented Freedoms Is kitchen pickling destined to become a thing of the past? Not if Sandor Ellix Katz has his way. Find out why preserving homemade foods may soon be back in style. By Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl October 2008 Can making a pickle be a revolutionary act? In 2003, Sandor Ellix Katz announced that yes, yes it could. A self-described “fermentation fetishist,” he penned a book, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003), and set out to warn America that the art of pickling was all but lost. What’s so important about pickles? Well, for starters, they’re part of a huge domestic tradition in real danger of being forgotten. And in Katz’s view, they also represent a culinary freedom at risk. For thousands of years, he notes, human beings have had an intimate relationship with food: Plant it, harvest it, preserve it, eat it, get ready to plant again. Today, though,  much of the art of preserving food — especially preserving and enhancing the nutritional value of vegetables, nuts and grains through wild-yeast fermentation — has been handed over to corporations and, thus, effectively lost.  Wild Fermentation is a how-to guide for reclaiming that tradition. Katz shows us how to preserve a whole range of foods with wild yeast — from vegetable pickles (including sauerkrauts and kimchi) to fermented dairy (yogurt, cheese and kefir) to grain (sourdoughs). “I realized there was this huge amount of fear in our culture because of our emphasis on refrigeration,” Katz told me from his Tennessee farm. “People have become terrified of the idea of killing themselves and their families by doing anything outside of refrigeration. But these are techniques that people have used for thousands of years to preserve foods, and if you have access to them, you can save money, eat more healthily, and do all sorts of things to eat lower and better on the food chain.” Katz’s book and Web site (www.wildfermentation.com) spread the news about fermentation and brought him into contact with other Americans who were also thinking about the disconnect between modern life and food. Some were gardeners and seed-savers who didn’t want to see favorite varieties of tomatoes, radishes and apples disappear because they weren’t suited to industrial production. Others were frustrated by arcane laws that prevented them from baking food for the homeless. It seemed that everywhere Katz turned, people were working to reclaim some of the ground that had been lost to the current system of factory farms and commodity foods.  And so Katz’s second book was born: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006). Together, Katz’s books describe a growing number of Americans being transformed by the idea of “voting with your fork,” or changing the world by what you choose to eat. “When I started traveling and talking about Wild Fermentation, I met all kinds of people who had a more politicized view of the whole food system,” Katz explained. “At first, you’d think these people had little in common: Here were scientists opposing genetically modified crops because they can undermine wild plants. Here were doctors saying that this is the first generation in which our children are going to have shorter life expectancies because of diet-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. Then over here were the people in the Slow Food Movement who were saying it’s critical that we keep our traditional foods alive and respect our history of traditional food producers. And while these people were all doing their separate things, I started realizing they were all really just saying one thing: This is about our cultural survival.” We all need food to survive, says Katz, “but mass-produced food is destroying the earth, our health and our communities. Reversing that process can’t be done by decree from the top; it has to be done by people at the grassroots reconnecting with their food.” For a lot of us, the first step to participating in this cultural survival movement is to take the time to complete the small, but still meaningful, revolutionary act of making something homemade — whether it’s salad dressing, pesto or even a simple refrigerator pickle. “Anytime you’re buying processed foods, you’re spending more money on foods that are nutritionally diminished,” explained Katz. “If you make your own anything, you’re spending less money, giving your money to people fewer steps down the supply chain, and getting better food — food that’s better tasting and better for you nutritionally.” Grandmothers across America might be surprised to learn that their simple garden pickles were, in fact, small acts of radical food independence. But a new generation is discovering that, indeed, sometimes even a pickle can be revolutionary. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a celebrated food and wine critic. Nominated seven times for James Beard Foundation Awards — the Oscars of the food world — she has received four awards for her restaurant and wine columns. Since 2001, her work has been regularly featured in the Best Food Writing anthologies. For the recipe pictured above, Lebanese Kishk Soup, as well as more recipes from Wild Fermentation, see the Web Extras! at the top right of this page.

Fermented Freedoms

Is kitchen pickling destined to become a thing of the past? Not if Sandor Ellix Katz has his way. Find out why preserving homemade foods may soon be back in style.

Can making a pickle be a revolutionary act? In 2003, Sandor Ellix Katz announced that yes, yes it could. A self-described “fermentation fetishist,” he penned a book, Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2003), and set out to warn America that the art of pickling was all but lost.

What’s so important about pickles? Well, for starters, they’re part of a huge domestic tradition in real danger of being forgotten. And in Katz’s view, they also represent a culinary freedom at risk.

For thousands of years, he notes, human beings have had an intimate relationship with food: Plant it, harvest it, preserve it, eat it, get ready to plant again. Today, though,  much of the art of preserving food — especially preserving and enhancing the nutritional value of vegetables, nuts and grains through wild-yeast fermentation — has been handed over to corporations and, thus, effectively lost. 

Wild Fermentation is a how-to guide for reclaiming that tradition. Katz shows us how to preserve a whole range of foods with wild yeast — from vegetable pickles (including sauerkrauts and kimchi) to fermented dairy (yogurt, cheese and kefir) to grain (sourdoughs).

“I realized there was this huge amount of fear in our culture because of our emphasis on refrigeration,” Katz told me from his Tennessee farm. “People have become terrified of the idea of killing themselves and their families by doing anything outside of refrigeration. But these are techniques that people have used for thousands of years to preserve foods, and if you have access to them, you can save money, eat more healthily, and do all sorts of things to eat lower and better on the food chain.”

Katz’s book and Web site (www.wildfermentation.com) spread the news about fermentation and brought him into contact with other Americans who were also thinking about the disconnect between modern life and food. Some were gardeners and seed-savers who didn’t want to see favorite varieties of tomatoes, radishes and apples disappear because they weren’t suited to industrial production. Others were frustrated by arcane laws that prevented them from baking food for the homeless. It seemed that everywhere Katz turned, people were working to reclaim some of the ground that had been lost to the current system of factory farms and commodity foods. 

And so Katz’s second book was born: The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2006). Together, Katz’s books describe a growing number of Americans being transformed by the idea of “voting with your fork,” or changing the world by what you choose to eat.

“When I started traveling and talking about Wild Fermentation, I met all kinds of people who had a more politicized view of the whole food system,” Katz explained. “At first, you’d think these people had little in common: Here were scientists opposing genetically modified crops because they can undermine wild plants. Here were doctors saying that this is the first generation in which our children are going to have shorter life expectancies because of diet-related illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. Then over here were the people in the Slow Food Movement who were saying it’s critical that we keep our traditional foods alive and respect our history of traditional food producers. And while these people were all doing their separate things, I started realizing they were all really just saying one thing: This is about our cultural survival.”

We all need food to survive, says Katz, “but mass-produced food is destroying the earth, our health and our communities. Reversing that process can’t be done by decree from the top; it has to be done by people at the grassroots reconnecting with their food.”

For a lot of us, the first step to participating in this cultural survival movement is to take the time to complete the small, but still meaningful, revolutionary act of making something homemade — whether it’s salad dressing, pesto or even a simple refrigerator pickle.

“Anytime you’re buying processed foods, you’re spending more money on foods that are nutritionally diminished,” explained Katz. “If you make your own anything, you’re spending less money, giving your money to people fewer steps down the supply chain, and getting better food — food that’s better tasting and better for you nutritionally.”

Grandmothers across America might be surprised to learn that their simple garden pickles were, in fact, small acts of radical food independence. But a new generation is discovering that, indeed, sometimes even a pickle can be revolutionary.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is a celebrated food and wine critic. Nominated seven times for James Beard Foundation Awards — the Oscars of the food world — she has received four awards for her restaurant and wine columns. Since 2001, her work has been regularly featured in the Best Food Writing anthologies.

For the recipe pictured above, Lebanese Kishk Soup, as well as more recipes from Wild Fermentation, see the Web Extras! at the top right of this page.

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