Where the "rubber" meets the road ("rubber" being, perhaps, mucoid plaque).

It's that time again, when home grown and farm fresh vegetables can be had in large quantities for reasonable prices.

We've been making lacto-fermented saurkraut for several years, since learning how to make it from Sally Fallon's book, "Nourishing Traditions." And we've tried a few other pickles, without becoming fond enough to make any again except cortido. The Ginger Carrots are not my cup tea.

Lacto Fermented pickles are important to people who are healing themselves because this food is like home made probiotics: they fill your gut with beneficial microorganism and help fight the American Death Cult that wants everything to be dead, including you if your name isn't Rockefeller, Rothschild, Sassoon, Feinstein, Bronstein etc.

So wouldn't it be nifty to make Lacto Versions of all your favorite pickles and "canned" food? How about Lacto Fermented Salsa? Pickled Jalapeno Peppersvacuum? How about Lacto Fermented Green Beans? (!) Well, I made some this afternoon and I'll share my info, but first a word about...

...BOTULISM!

You know, that pesky living neurotoxin that's so deadly it would only take one kilogram to waste the entire human population of planet earth!

Now if you grew up when I grew up, back when a lot of people still "canned" with the jars, lids, water or steam baths, you're probably familar with the old horror story about "Botulism Beans."

Green Beans, you see, are not at all acidic. So unlike tomatoes, ya really gotta beWARE when you "can" them because they offer just the type of terrain that good old Clostridium botulinum would "kill" to grow in. So the home canning aficionado is always warned: be sure to process green beans to the proper temperature, if'n you don't want to kill off your family and kin.

In Lacto Fermentation, no heat is used, unless you want to clean the jars and lids befoe you start (a good idea). If a jar goes bad, it will stink like 'H,' and botulism can't grow because the salt keeps the Clostridium at bay until the lactic acid takes over.

But I stlll wanted no part of pickling green beans. Until last week!

Last week I learned that the real reason why Clostridium botulinum takes over in heat-bath "canned" foods is when the jars never reach the proper high temperature.

Suppose the jars get hot enough to kill all other nasties, but spare the Clostridium botulinum, which can SURVIVE at the boiling point of water at sea level. That's why canning jars are best processed in a pressure cooker.

Summarizing: if you didn't heat the stuff at all, and you avoided a vacuum, Clostridium botulinum would not overgrow because it's anerobic (can't live with oxygen), and besides, there'd be other things left alive to compete with it. Clostridium spores are able to survive in the presence of oxygen, in a sort of suspended animation. The live in the soil, and anything that comes from the soil may well be tainted with Clostridium spores... which never overgrow until you stick them into an oxygen-free vacuum packed can and heat it hot enough to kill everything else (including the enzymes and nourishment of the canned vegetable -- duh).

Now most of today's women don't "can" food, so if they have any interest or knowledge regarding Clostridium botulinum, it's probably in the form of BoTox™. There's nothing wrong with that because the best way to preserve vegetables is by the Lacto Fermentation process that preserves a vegetable's enzymes and nourishment; uses no heat; uses no vacuum; and contains several elements that eliminate opportunities for Clostridium botulinum to grow! Plus, Lacto Fermentation is a whole lot easier, safer, and no-fuss than heat-pressure canning.

I won't cover the How-To of the process here because it's so simple and across-the-board-similar from recipe to recipe that it belies understanding. Meaning that most people can hardly believe Lacto Fermentation is sosimple, when pressure-heat canning is so complicated and fraught with dangers. In fact, Lacto Fermentation is almost exactly as simple as another very simple thing that is "too simple" for most people to comprehend. To wit: the "federal" reserve system hoax. (But that's for another post for another forum.)

Here's a useful link to everything you might want to know about Botulism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clostridium_botulinum

Here's a useful link to a page that explains "how to Lacto Pickle everything": http://www.awesomepickle.com/archives/51

And here are the recipes we used this afternoon. I searched through many pages before I settled on thes as the probably "Best."

Home Made Lacto Fermented SALSA (!!!)
http://naturalmomstalkradio.com/blog/homemade-lactofermented-salsa/

This is a bit of work as you must peel the tomatoes in boiling water. The portion of mix that wouldn't fit in the jar tasted very good unpickled, so I can just imagine how it will taste in a couple weeks.

Lacto-Fermented Pickled Peppers (we did Jalapeno):
http://www.7eaglesfly.com/lactofermentedpickledpeppers.html

She says she cannot make enough of these for her family. They eat them with everything.

And finally, with no worries about Botox™...err....Botulism, check out

Lacto Fermented Dilly Beans w/ Jalepeno and Garlic
http://www.awesomepickle.com/archives/tag/jalapeno

Here's a photo of our results this afternoon.



Plus, my wife is making three quarts of sauerkraut tomorrow, and I'm making a Chile Lime Pickles (Lacto ferment - no whey):
http://www.angelfire.com/country/fauziaspakistan/chillilimepickle.html

Later this week I will make Lacto Fermented Lemons - Moroccan style - No sun needed... sharp/salty like sour olives (use as) - liquid as salad dressing
http://crabappleherbs.com/blog/2007/03/04/citrus-season-pickled-lemons/

In a few weeks I intend to try making an oil-base Pakistani Chile Lime Pickle:
http://www.angelfire.com/country/fauziaspakistan/chillilimepickle.html

I will report back upon how these things all taste, so why not bookmark this post so I can post my results underneath it!

For the Cayenne aficionado and addict, here's a page to peruse on Lacto - Fermenting Hot Peppers: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pepper/msg082144132801.html

This is a loooong page with many posts. Lots of info like this:

"I've been fermenting hot peppers for about 20 years now, it is very similar to making sauerkraut and any recipe for that will give you the necessary proportions. The 'trick', if there is one, is to expel the air in the crock quickly, so that means chopping up the peppers, and the salt extracts some moisture to fill the gaps, and the lid keeps air away.
I get my best results by mixing in garlic, vinegar, and what not later, after the fermentation is complete, then trying to ferment stuff along with peppers."

Note: Herwifery Forum has a post about adding two cherry leaves to keep things crisp. I put the leaves in one jar of beans and one jar of peppers. We'll see.

http://herbwifery.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=241

Note on Storage & Keeping: We recently opened two quart jars of saeurkraut that were put away on June 16, and October 20, 2008. These were stored, unopened, in a basement room originally used to store food (wooden shelves along outside walls, etc. The el-cheapo metal dial thermometer usually reads between 55 and 60. The stuff tastes great, I'm still alive, and there's one jar left.

Note on Whey: Many Lacto Fermentation recipes call for up to 4 TSP of whey, which you can obtain by draining yogurt "with living cultures" through a cotten towel. Thus, whey isn't exactly vegan. if you don't want whey, you can add more salt, or find a recipe without it -- there are plenty of them online.

Note on Summer Squash: I will probably try this in the next few weeks:

Zuchine with Tumeric & Mustard Lacto Relish:
http://crabappleherbs.com/blog/2007/09/16/preserving-the-harvest-zucchini-rel...

or

Summer Squash pickled (with spices and etc)
http://www.awesomepickle.com/archives/285

Disclaimer: Before you eat anything, you'd better check it out and make sure it's really safe to eat. So learn the principles behind this technique and you won't go wrong, misunderstand something, or fall victim to a "typo" some day!