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Fermented salsa? Fermented relish? For God's sake, fermented ketchup? What is this?
Well, as far as we're concerned here at ZUKAY, it's an awesome way to have great, fresh tasting foods that have actually been made HEALTHIER through the ancient practice of lacto-fermentation.
Fermentation has been around, pretty much, since the start of civilization (and possibly before, but people didn't write anything down). Outside of fermentation favorites like beer and wine, fermented foods have been loved by civilizations around the world as a way to preserve all kinds of foods like milk (think cheese), meat (think salami), and veggies such as sauerkraut, kim chee, and all sorts of other vegetables. People have found that these foods are easier to digest (who wants to eat raw cabbage?), taste better, and have conferred health benefits to regular eaters.
So what does fermentation do to the foods? Well, lacto-fermentation, the general (but not only) manner of preserving foods through fermentation, is a neat little process done completely through natural means. Basically, lactobacilli, a symbiotic bacteria family that already lives in your intestinal system, is added to fresh vegetables and salt and allowed to grow. These friendly guys eat the starches and sugars in the veggies and turn them into lactic acid. This does a couple of things:
- Give the product a tart but excellent taste
- Preserves the product naturally for a long (months, sometimes years) period of time
- Enables you to preserve products without cooking them, giving the product a unique, fresh taste that cooked products can only dream about
- Provides a home for these friendly lactobacilli, which makes the fermented foods probiotic
- Lactic acid itself lowers your gut pH, making it a better home for these cultures and making it harder for bag bugs to affect you
- Kills any bad bacteria, and makes it impossible for any other bugs to get in and make a home for themselves
- Creates B vitamins that the product did not have before
Well, we fell in love with all this science and nature. Imagine making raw veggies healthier! Without much work! And they taste better than before! Unbelievable! But we figured that not everyone loves sauerkraut, kim chee and pickled beets, so we came up with a few interesting foods that are a little more in line with the tastes you already love.
So how do we do it? Pretty much like it's always been done. We cut up raw veggies, mix them up, add our own probiotic culture (containing lactobacillus acidophilus and another great strain, bifidobacterium), and let the products ferment for a few days until it's done. That's it. It's certainly more care than most shelf stable products get, as we need to keep a close eye on it for a few days, but we're more than willing to do the work so you get an incredible product. |
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Fun Fermentation Facts
These are some natural and ancient fermented foods that we've found out about. We haven't tried them yet, and they didn't exactly pass our “focus groups” (ie, our family and friends), but it's definitely fascinating how different cultures extended the lives of the foods they could catch and grow:
Hakarl: A pretty name for fermented shark from Iceland. You know it's good since it's buried in sand for 6-12 weeks. We thought about having a ZUKAY fermented shark salsa, but we figured that since the general reaction to it by non-Icelanders is gagging, we decided against it. Also, catching sharks is harder than getting tomatoes or cucumbers.
Surstromming: Some more fermented fish, basically herring, from Scandinavia. This also supposedly has an odor that will wake the dead, which we figured would be bad for a fledgling condiment manufacturer. It does appear that there are many interesting fermented fish products the Scandinavians have made, but they have not been adopted here as readily as lox, butter cookies, and smorgasbords. We would have included lutefisk as well, since we've had the pleasure of trying it, but it's not actually fermented – just stored in lye.
Salami: Before we got into fermented vegetables, we didn't know that salami is a fermented food, made in much the same way as our products. The ingredients are mixed together, a culture is added, and the meat is allowed to ferment for a day or two before being stuffed and dried. We don't have any plans on making a ZUKAY salami, but we do love salami, and we think it's a great testament to the power of these magnificent cultures.
Injera bread: If you've ever eaten in an Ethopian restaurant, you've probably scooped up your food with this tasty, sour bread that has a somewhat rag-like feel. Injera is made from the teff grain, and is made by fermenting the ground grain in water for several days before baking. It's good stuff, but must be fresh. We figure it's probably a hard sale for our little company, but if you get some, feel free to pick up some ZUKAY products with it.
Eskimo meats: According to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, the Eskimos have traditionally fermented foods such as walrus, sea lion, whale, beavers, and various birds in a grass hole. We haven't tried any of these either, nor do we necessarily plan on it, though it does appear to have kept the Inuit healthy for many millennia.
Soy products: The Japanese have famously fermented soy beans into many cool products. Soy sauce is one (though most soy sauces are pasteurized and don't have the same health benefits – try Ohsawa's Nama Shoyu for an pasteurized treat), miso, natto, and tempeh. The Japanese ferment almost anything, and the fermented vegetables over in Japan are just amazing.
Sake: It's a bit of an acquired taste, but sake is made from fermented rice and, once you do acquire the taste for it, is just delicious. Obviously, we have had our share, and wish we could get more of it here in rural Pennsylvania.
We're sure there's more neat fermented food out there, and as we find out about it, we'll let you know. Feel free to drop us a line and let us know about your fermented favorites! |
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