Spoonful Suppers

I fell off the wagon with my ferments, theres no other way to say it other than that. I am ashamed to say that the instant I got busy at my new job and moved to my new apartment I stuck the same ferments that had gotten me through a rough year into a cabinet above the stove, shut the door and didn’t check again for a month and two weeks and three days. To be fair, I did not completely forget about my ferments, in part because every conversation I had with one of my friends or family members ended with “how is the fermenting going?” and I would come up with some lie or more occasionally admit that things had slowed down. I was also frequently visited by an anxiety stomach ache regarding the state of the ferments. Since I had left them unattended in the cabinet above the stove, for all I knew the mold could have taken over the whole cupboard, but I would have no idea because I was too nervous to look. Every morning I would drink my coffee in my furniture-less apartment and try not to look the cabinet in the eye so I could put off dealing with them for one more day. Anyway, I eventually looked. It was not bad, besides a decidedly sweet and funky smell coming from the misos, the state of the ferments was remarkably okay. Albeit, I did ferment my misos for longer than the book recommended, but the funk is all good as far as I’m concerned. 

The fineness of the ferments I found surprising because it appears that I do not have the best of luck with my ferments in my new apartment. Mold grew on one of my lacto-ferments for the first time ever, and then it happened again. Then I boiled my black garlic to make black garlic wine which I would eventually turn to vinegar and it appears that the yeast didn’t take. I had a sweet jar without a bubble to be found. Its still (two months later) not bubbling and lacking alcohol. Nevertheless, I must persist. It feels like something that I owe to the microbes that inhabit my cabinets and fridge.

Because of my new busy schedule and my summer-long break from this task, there are simply some things that I may not be able to get to. I missed the season for white asparagus, so I won’t be able to ferment that within this year, however I will replace it with green asparagus and call it day. Since I am behind because of this break that I took I have decided to redefine the challenge and ask that I finish each of the ferments from the book, and not necessarily finish all of the suggested uses. Out of the 53 main ferments of the book, I only have 22 remaining: 4 blackened vegetables, 3 garums, 6 lacto-ferments, 3 misos, 3 shoyus, and 3 vinegars.

I chose to return with something easy; something I couldn’t mess up so as not to go into another scary ferment-avoidant funk. The chosen ferment was lacto-tomatoes. Since there are only two ingredients and a two week fermentation process, I figured it is a good way to dip my toe back in. Hopefully this upcoming week I will tackle even more of the outstanding ferments in order to get myself back on track. Im thinking that some of the blackened veggies might be a good place to start as well as resuming more vinegar ferments.

Ferments Complete: 31

Ferments in Progress: 2

Ferments to go: 20