Fermentalism

Fermentation is one of the unsung heroes of the culinary world.  It's like the Malcolm Young of foods.  

Beer, wine, booze, bread, yogurt, cheese, pickles, sauerkraut, miso, tempeh...the list goes on and on for foods and drinks that would not exist was it not for this metabolic process of organisms breaking down into simpler organisms, such as yeast breaking down sugar to make alcohol and carbon dioxide (booze), or the bacteria Lactobacillus (found on the surface on many vegetables) converting sugars to make lactic acid, and by doing so, pickles.

Its been going on, for awhile.  Like, 9,000 years-awhile.  Around 7000 BC, the ancient peoples of Northern China used to ferment a beverage mixture of rice, honey and fruit.  Not long after that, barely beer and grape wine began popping up in the Middle East.

But its not all about getting blasted.  No refrigerators means foods gonna go bad fast.  Think they had supermarkets back then?  Nope.  That meant that whatever piss-ant crops came in for that season, they had to be processed in a way to last them the year before the next season would yield.  Vegetables would be packed with salt and submerged in water, and probably stored in caves or underground, and thus a supply of food was created that would be able to last months if not years without the need of the appliances we take for granted today.

I don't know if the ancients knew this, but fermented foods are not only tasty, but very nutritional.  The active live cultures and enzymes are very beneficial to the digestive system, which really is where all health starts from.  Also, fermenting a food increases its vitamin content, such as vitamin B, biotin (I'm looking at you, baldy), and others depending on the strain of bacteria.  Not to mention, the fermentation process acts as a pre-digestion, making it easier for your body to absorb nutrients.

So, there you have it...
...in a "sort-of" sort of way.

Fermentation is about preservation, nutrition, deliciousness, and getting hammered.  Those are all things that this blog approves of, and that I, your humbly half-baked correspondent, can stand by and believe in.
All this talk about ancient methods of preserving food and getting nutrition from sources besides supplements really makes me wish the apocalypse would quit dickin' around and show up already.

Want to learn more about fermentation?  Check out this awesome video.

Happy Picklin'