24 Comments

What's your favorite vegetable to ferment? Ours is definitely cabbage, with green tomatoes running second.

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Thank you for this interview! I love the Shockey's books and have learned so much from Kirsten specifically.

My number 1 is also cabbage, but radishes and sunroot are also up there.

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You're welcome! So glad to hear that. It is hard to beat cabbage. I'm with you on the radishes. Tell me about sunroot!

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With sunroot I usually either just slice them up and ferment them in a brine solo, or I add them into my kraut. They are a gut health powerhouse with all their fibre and grow so prolifically, so I try and sneak them in everywhere.

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Awesome - thank you!

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Thank you 🥰 I am always delighted to hear our books have inspired.

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Does fermenting reduce their tendency to create... large amounts of... gas?

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It does! But I still only eat small amounts at a time to further prevent it. So I like having them as about 1/4 of a mixed ferment or just adding the fermented pieces as a garnish.

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Great thoughts here. Thanks for sharing!

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So far,I have used recipes from the first edition of Fermenting Vegetables to ferment cucumbers, okra, tomatoes, eggplants, hot peppers, Brussels sprouts, green beans, sweet potatoes, cabbage (green and Napa), collards, and onions. For me, it’s a tie between Hot Smoky Brussels Sprouts and New York Deli-Style Pickles (cucs). I just returned from the garden with some asparagus to try when your interview came!That book has changed my life! Canning and freezing bored me to death. Fermenting is so fascinating! I can’t wait to get a copy of the 10th Anniversary Edition. Thank you Kristen and Christopher! And thank you Lisa for this!

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What a great list! And I feel the same way you do about fermenting vs. canning/freezing. Thank you for your comment.

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I might swap those two. Green tomatoes are crazy good and you can use the brine to soak walnuts which is just fantastic!

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Green tomatoes might come first indeed. So insanely delicious! I was quite impressed with how dandelion kimchi came out the other day. Nippa + red cabbage might be my fav for the glorious pink color they produce (also delicious!).

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Hmm… dandelion kimchi certainly has my attention.

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Cabbage. the lemon and dill sauerkraut in in Fermented Vegetables will probably always be my favourite. Wild garlic (Allium ursinum) comes a close second though, either fresh with some sour cream or dehydrated and ground as a super potent flavour powder. Lately I've been enjoying the wild garlic buds brine pickled (with gorse buds, dandelion buds, hop shoots, and bramble shoots thrown into the mix too).

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I LOVE that lemon-dill version. We made a 5-gallon crock of it last fall and ate it all winter.

I haven't tried wild garlic that way - sounds great.

Great idea for the wild garlic buds, too! We get tons.

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Lisa, thank you first and foremost for bringing this wonderful information and these wonderful people to my attention. I totally believe in the need for fermented foods and how it is not only the way our foods were supposed to enable health and to support us in so many ways, but the way our food was supposed to naturally extend its worth to our health, from garden, to fresh and raw or cooked, and then fermented. It is the way I feel right now at 70, as if my life mirrors this experience and I am in the stage of "fermentation" myself. Sounds weird I know, but I have a whole lot of wisdom, experience, knowledge, and so on, from birth to now, and it I can enrich others in their lives as fermented food does if they are willing to be open to it!

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That's a wonderful sentiment, and I don't think it's weird at all. I quite like the idea of the elder stage as the "fermentation" stage! I've been thinking a lot about cronehood myself, as I progress in my 50s, and I lament our culture's emphasis on youth and lack of recognition for the wisdom, experience, and knowledge of our oldest members. You're welcome for introducing you to the Shockey's books; I hope you enjoy and find them useful.

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LOL, I guess it is one way to make us want to last longer in an age when elders are supposed to demented loose their teeth, their hair, their hearing, and eye site, bowel and bladder control, mobility. drivers licenses, and overall health, as well as their freedom and be locked in a nursing home to die at the end of all of that. I even lost my good credit standing when I went on Social Security!

Luckily I did not fall for the scam and at 70, can run circles around some of the 40 to 50 year-olds I worked with in the hospital. Yes, I was a nurse, but I have not seen a doctor for 30 years. It is all about proper nutrition and using horse medicine, LOL. Yes, my uncle told me that if you have a horse that is sick it is not worth anything so they use herbal cures on horses. He worked as a Professor and did research on race horses in Kentucky.

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Also cross-posted over at Fermenting Change. Thanks again for the collaboration, Kirsten!

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I cannot say I have ever fermented my own food. Interesting. I think of beer and wine when I think of fermentation.

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Oh, but it's so much more! Fermentation might save our future.

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Fantastic interview, I loved reading this, and find out more about Kirsten's wonderful journey, and how it all came to be. Hugely inspired by Kirsten's book and fermentation work! Thank you, Lisa & Kirsten

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You’re welcome! Thanks for your comments and restacks.

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