Drinking from Puddles and making Sauerkraut with Whey

Puddles are superior drinking water evidently.

John is a great believer in fermented foods – most especially sauerkraut (he is of German extraction – the extraction being way way back in the mists of time).  Live foods are incredibly food for the gut and therefore the general well being of the consumer. Pasteurised and ultra pasteurised are nice and safe for a paranoid public but leave out a number of live enzymes that our stomach needs to digest foods. Raw milk, good yoghurt, pickles in organic vinegars, salsa – all these are great to eat and good for the digestion. And John maintains that all natural sauerkraut is the best of them all. He has a special crock, kind of like this one, which is designed to exclude air completely and he makes a batch every month.  It is very sour and very good. 

After cutting it and pounding it into submission, he adds a little salt

and the fresh whey left over from the mornings yoghurt making. 

Then packs it tightly into the crock, covers it in the last of the whey and water then leaves it to work for a month. There is a little rim of fluid visible around the lid and this is kept topped up with water during the fermenting period so that no air can reach the cabbage at all. The rest is all fermenting magic. I drained a batch of yoghurt so that I could make labneh, which I mixed with chopped spring onions and olives to have with a cracker and a drink, it being Friday and all. Live food! Good!

The Daily View.

Good morning. I hope you are all going to have some loveliness today.

celi