Market Farming

[Allan Balliett <igg AT igg.com>]

Friends - You've got to make an effort to attend 
this one!! Saturday, August 21 at the Thomas 
Shepherd Grist Mill in  Shepherdstown, WV. Sandor 
Katz, the lively author of "Wild Fermentation," 
will lecture on the history, value and how-to of 
lacto-fermentation.  (If you are not familiar 
with the nutritional value of 'cultured' foods or 
it's place in our heritage, please ask me about 
it. ) In the afternoon, we'll make a 25lb 5 
gallon batch of sauerkraut! Don't miss this one!! 
(Read the last paragraph of Sally Fallon's review 
of Sandor's book below.)

Contact me via email (igg AT igg.com) or phone (304) 
876-3382 to assure you a seat at this fun (and 
FREE!) event!

-Allan


WHAT: Kraut Making Workshop with Sandor Katz, lacto-fermentation expert
WHEN: Saturday, August 21
WHERE: Shepherdstown, WV
WHO: Contact Allan Balliett igg AT igg.com (304) 876-3382

Event is FREE! but reservations are required.
A reception for Sandor follows the workshop.

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

(Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2003)

Sandor Katz is a self-described fermentation 
fetishist. His fermentation explorations 
developed out of overlapping interests in 
cooking, nutrition and gardening. He is also an 
herbalist and an activist and a writer and a 
builder and a craftsperson and a bicyclist and 
many other things: a generalist. He is a resident 
steward of Short Mountain Sanctuary, a queer 
intentional community deep in the wooded hills of 
Tennessee. Katz is a native of New York City, a 
graduate of Brown University, and a former urban 
planner and policy analyst. He has been living 
with AIDS for more than a decade and considers 
fermented foods an important part of his healing. 
(from Sandor's official biography)

Review by Sally Fallon
Those who enjoy making lacto-fermented foods will 
love Wild Fermentation. Careful and detailed 
instructions for vegetable, legume, dairy, grain 
and beverage ferments, plus wonderful authentic 
recipes to use them in, make this book a 
must-have for all students of traditional foods. 
You'll learn how to make milkweed/nasturtium 
seedpod "capers," Japanese nuka bran pickles, 
fermented coconut chutney, Cherokee sour corn 
drink, Tibetan buckwheat pancakes, plus more 
familiar items like sauerkraut, miso, soft 
cheeses, sourdough breads, polenta and kombucha.

You'll enjoy making the many lacto-fermented 
beverages featured in this book, such as sweet 
potato fly and kvass, as well as authentic beers 
and wines from around the world including 
Ethiopian honey wine in various flavors, 
persimmon cider mead, and beer from South 
America, Egypt and Nepal. Simple vinegar-based 
recipes from colonial America include shrub (made 
with fresh berries, vinegar and sugar or honey) 
and switchel (made with vinegar, sugar, molasses 
and gingerroot).

With Katz' help, you'll learn to be a magician in 
the kitchen, for working in partnership with the 
microscopic world is nothing short of alchemy. 
We've been at war with microbes for too long; the 
time has come to recognize them as our friends.

But Wild Fermentation is more than just a 
collection of interesting recipes. Katz 
recognizes the "insidious processes of 
globalization, commodification and cultural 
homogenization," citing the example of French 
sheep farmer José Bové, who ended up in jail for 
his bold actions against McDonald's in France. 
"If you tried an action like Bové's in the United 
States these days," observes Katz, "it would 
probably be branded as terrorism and land you in 
a clandestine military tribunal."

Katz wisely observes: "We cannot resist the 
homogenization of culture by overpowering it. Yet 
we must not resign ourselves to it. . . . . 
Resistance takes place on many planes. 
Occasionally it can be dramatic and public, but 
most of the decisions we are faced with are 
mundane and private. What to eat is a choice that 
we make several times a day, if we are lucky. The 
cumulative choices we make about food have 
profound implications."

Earlier in this issue we proposed a novel formula 
for defeating the forces of industrialization in 
agriculture and food production: drink raw milk. 
To this we add: eat fermented foods! Authentic 
fermented condiments and beverages will not only 
return beneficial microorganisms to your 
digestive tract, they will also help return our 
wealth to small farms and local communities. 
Instead of "trickle down," how about "bubble up," 
where real wealth produced by farmers and 
artisans leavens the whole mass.

Fermented foods are good for our interior ecology 
and they can help restore our exterior ecology as 
well, by increasing the demand for organic foods 
(only nutrient-dense and pesticide-free foods 
ferment successfully) and weakening the grip of 
the food processing industry.

When Edward eats the witch's food in the 
children's classic The Lion, the Witch and the 
Wardrobe, he becomes her slave. So too, when we 
eat processed foods, we become slaves to the 
commodity economy. But foods made by magicians 
working with the mysterious ferments of the 
microscopic world-these foods make us healthy and 
free. Wild Fermentation will serve as a training 
manual for thousands of culinary Harry Potters, 
working their magic in the tranquil atmosphere of 
sacred kitchens.