Spoonful Suppers

I don’t want to jinx it, but my fermenting has been relatively uneventful this week. They were all shockingly well behaved; not a single one overheated, fell over, or got cranky . I think they were testing me early on. Now that I have gained their trust, hopefully they will cooperate going forward. I tested this new found trust with my second garum, this time made of bee pollen. Bee pollen seems like one of those things that shouldn’t exist. In sixth grade I dissected a flower in science class, and I remember seeing where the pollen came from, and it wasn’t from a bee. I looked it up and apparently there is a little trap that gently scrapes the pollen that gets on the bees from the flower from their legs as they enter the hives. It honestly sounds really cute. I had never had bee pollen before, so I tried it when I was making the garum. It was floral and sweet in the way that you would expect, but it was also a bit meatier and substantial tasting than honey.

After I blended the pollen with a brine and koji, the consistency was very thick, like organic peanut butter that has separated form the oil. I added a bit more brine in hopes of making it a little thinner, which I hope won’t impact the final taste. Finally, I stuck it in a jar and snuggled it up next to the squid garum. The bee pollen garum takes much less time than the squid garum, so it should be done in just three weeks. In the meantime I distracted myself with some non-ferments.

The winery that I work at in Sonoma told me I could take home some of the meyer lemons from the tree in the parking lot, so I picked as many as I could (about 12 lbs) while suffering quite a few torn pricks (who knew that lemon trees had thorns?). I decided, because of my dwindling fridge space and lack of inspiration, to turn the meyer lemons into marmalade. In my tiny kitchen, and even tinier pots, I made 5 batches of marmalade this week. As a result, I didn’t do much other cooking. I had intended to start actually using the ferments that I have been spending so much time and energy making, but it felt unfair to my housemates to occupy even more kitchen time.

Next week, hopefully I will use the kombuchas and vinegar that are complete in a fun way. The apple kombucha is finished and it is now in bottles, carbonating. I have made apple kombucha before and I love the taste, so I am excited to try the herb tonic and veggie apple smoothie that the book suggest using it in.

The last fermenty thing I did this week was starting the vinegar stage of the perry vinegar. I apparently let the pears ferment a bit too far, because the perry tasted VERY alcoholic. I added more pear juice to the mixture before moving on the vinegar phase. I backsloshed (basically jump starting a ferment with bacteria) with apple cider vinegar and added the airstone (to provide the acetic acid bacteria with the oxygen it needs to turn the alcohol into vinegar). I should end up with a whole gallon of perry vinegar in two weeks, which is much more than I anticipated. All of my friends will be receiving perry vinegar as birthday presents for the foreseeable future.

Next week I am going out of town for a few days and leaving the ferments in the care of my housemates. I am bringing some of the finished ferments, so I will hopefully get a chance to make my ferments into something yummy. An exciting glimpse into future ferments came this week with a pack of koji spores from ~abroad~. Included in this package of spores are the spores that I need to make citric barley koji (koji that will taste sour like lemons). I can’t wait to make it when I get back!

Ferments Complete: 7

Ferments in Progress: 6

Ferments to go: 161