Whey cool!

A few weeks ago, SAFE hosted a lacto-fermentation workshop on the UC Berkeley campus, led by our very own Monika Roy. Moni spent last semester farming in the Caribbean and developed a fermentation fetish after discovering the book Nourishing Traditions. Upon returning home, Monika continued refining her recipes, trying out new techniques, and incorporating these foods into her diet.

Lacto-fermentation is a process that uses lactobacilli bacteria to preserve foods. While many of the foods at the workshop used whey and other dairy products to facilitate the fermentation, lactobacilli can be cultured in vegan foods as well. Moni explained all of this, plus told us the benefits of eating fermented foods (better digestion, more available vitamins and nutrients, really tasty) and talked about the gaps in nutrition in our current industrially produced diets. Afterwards she let us have a go at sampling at two long tables worth of projects she had ready. These included buttermilk, kefir, curds, fermented ketchup, ginger beer, kraut, and double fermented orange cake. She also gave a short demo on how to set up your oats to ferment overnight for a faster, creamier version of traditional oatmeal. 

Everyone stuck around for a long time eating, asking Monika questions, and just hanging out. I think the best part of this workshop was Monika's ability to appeal to both the beginning fermentation dabbler as well as the seasoned lactobacilli junkies. One woman commented that she even liked Monika better than Sandor Katz! I love them both!

For more info on fermentation please check out:

Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon

Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz

Also, if interested please stop by the UCB Student Organic Garden (Virginia and Walnut St) on Sunday March 29th around 1pm for a work day and impromtou kimchi making party! Monika and I are both facilitators of the Organic Gardening Decal at UCB and will be in the garden from 12-4 hanging out, doing work, and talking about veggie ferments.