The Essential Book of Fermentation (12 page)

The bacterium was originally isolated from the feces of cows (hence
vaccae
), meaning it’s an inhabitant of the bovine gut. It’s also found in good organically treated soil. We may be inhaling the bacteria when we’re working with compost and digging in our gardens, if not ingesting it from our food. But it appears that both
Lactobacillus rhamnosus
and
Mycobacterium vaccae
stimulate the production of neurologically active brain chemicals that elevate our moods and increase our enjoyment of life.

The effect of the bacterium on human mood was discovered accidentally about a decade ago by Dr. Mary O’Brien, an oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. She injected patients with killed
M. vaccae,
expecting that the bacteria would stimulate the immune systems of lung cancer patients. It did that, but also improved her patients’ emotional health, energy, and mental function.

Intrigued by her observations, Dr. Chris Lowry and colleagues at the University of Bristol followed up with a similar study of this effect and reported their findings in an issue of
Neuroscience
. They achieved similar results.

CHAPTER 7

A Day Spent in Berkeley with the Fermenters

The city of Berkeley, California, is a progressive place where the art and science of fermentation have already sunk deep roots, spawning businesses that provide cultured foods and beverages as well as services.

For instance, I heard about a marvelous lacto-fermented squash dish created by Angie Needels, director of MamaKai in Berkeley, and wanted to taste it. Her business is to deliver ready-made meals to pregnant women, women nearing term, and new and lactating mothers in the postpartum stage.

On a sunny morning in February, I pulled up at Ms. Needels’s neat frame house on a quiet Berkeley street, hoping to get a recipe or two. What I got instead was a glimpse into the real value that adding fermented foods and establishing a healthy gut ecosystem represent for families in their childbearing years. I’ve raised five kids, and I know from personal experience what a load of work it can be, especially for Mom, even if Dad helps share the load; both parents can be exhausted during the process.

Angie, a very bright and energetic young woman, studied fine art at the Columbus School of Art & Design in Ohio, and worked in the insurance field there before she and her husband moved to the Bay Area to inject some change into their lives. Once settled in Berkeley, she discovered the region’s wonderful abundance of all kinds of fresh and organic foods and decided to explore a culinary career by enrolling at Bauman College, which teaches holistic nutrition and health. “One of my class assignments was to develop a business plan involving whole, nutritious foods,” she said. While a lot of her classmates were focusing on what kind of restaurant they might develop or how they could help folks heal and cure their illnesses, Angie recalled how often her pregnant friends or those who had just given birth said they’d love someone to come and cook for them.

“I thought to myself, ‘What if I start before people get sick or exhausted,’” she said, “and work in the time from preconception to preschool to help women toward really good health?” She saw that the postpartum period was difficult for young women used to being socially active. Now with the work of caring for baby, making the meals, and doing housework, there wasn’t much time in the day for some “me” time, and young mothers can feel isolated. So she conceived the idea of a service to provide optimal nutrition for pregnant women and new mothers. In choosing a name for this business, she knew that
kai
is the Maori word for food, and so she named it MamaKai, meaning mother-food.

“I don’t thrive on dairy, but I do thrive on fermented foods, and my food for moms reflects that,” she said. “From the time the baby is born and for the first three or four weeks of life, the baby’s digestive system is just being set up. The first intestinal flora comes from the birth canal, and the flora in the birth canal reflects the flora in the intestine. Fermented foods establish a healthy intestinal flora, and that’s transferred to the baby. But there are certain foods like dairy and cruciferous (cabbage family) vegetables, for instance, that affect the breast milk.” As she said this, I thought of my days as a teenager growing up next to a dairy farm, and how in the spring the cow’s milk would smell and taste of the wild onions and annual mustards they’d graze. “I encourage moms to avoid eating dairy and crucifers for two to three months, until the baby’s digestive system gets more mature. I also suggest reducing the amount of glutinous foods, like grains, breads, and beans.”

The result, she said, is almost miraculous. Babies have no colicky discomfort, no digestive upsets, no crying jags because of gas. And they sleep better, longer, and more soundly, often right through the night. It really makes for happy, healthy babies and reduces anxiety and sleepless nights for the parents. “It’s only for two or three months, then moms can go back to eating what they like, although I recommend continuing with a diet rich in fermented, probiotic foods.”

During this time when MamaKai is delivering food for the new mom, Angie swears by what she calls bone broths. The bones of beef, pork, lamb, and goat go into a big stockpot, along with onions, carrots, celery, carrot greens, and seaweeds, and the pot is simmered for thirty-two to thirty-six hours, until the liquid is reduced by half. Bones from poultry like chicken and duck get eighteen hours of cooking. Angie uses the bone broths in soups, stews, and sauces; as braising liquid; and as the liquid to cook rice or grains.

Bone broths, smoothies, meat protein, and fermented vegetables are the pillars of her diet for mothers during the crucial first few months of the postpartum period. That fermented squash, for example, is made from thin slices of peeled butternut winter squash with additions of ginger, garlic, onion, leek, sea salt, pink peppercorns, hot chiles, and anything else that takes her fancy except for the cabbage family members. “They go under the brine—it’s important they stay covered with brine—for about six weeks, at least,” Angie said. “I like them sour. And the ingredients need that time for the flavors to merge.” She uses a strong brine of one tablespoon of sea salt to each cup of water. She checks the ferment and skims any yeast growth from the surface of the brine, and stirs up the fermenting squash once a week.

“I like sauerkrauts made from fennel—but everything can be fermented.” She keeps her menus ethnically interesting and timely—she has a Greek menu, a Moroccan menu, a St. Paddy’s Day menu, and so on.

“One important step for me is to sterilize the fermenting vessels and storage jars. I rinse the fermentation pots with boiling water before I add the ingredients,” she said.

One of her interests is the Paleo diet—trying to eat the kinds of foods our hunter-gatherer ancestors ate before agriculture. That means pretty much eliminating dairy and breads. “I’m drawn to the diets of Native American people,” she said. Most pre-Columbian tribes were very much agriculturists: witness the development of corn, chiles, tomatoes, and potatoes; the making of milpa in Central America; and the extensive fields of corn, beans, and squash (the three sisters) enjoyed by indigenous people throughout North America.

A typical MamaKai menu is twenty-three items, divided into “freezer friendly,” “eat fresh quickly,” and “longer shelf life” dishes. Each dish is given a full description. One of the ferments she offers is fennel herb kraut. Here’s what the menu card says about it: “Lacto-fermented foods add lots of healthy and very beneficial bacteria to our guts, aiding in digestion, maintaining a healthy digestive tract, as well as boosting our immune systems as being the first line of defense against outside invaders. We wholeheartedly believe in eating a wide variety of lacto-fermented foods and beverages, and will be sure to have a rotating variety of seasonally fermented menu items to help you and your family stay extremely vibrant and healthy. Fennel herb kraut is made with onion, fennel, celery, celery root, garlic, chiles, rosemary, parsley, oregano, dill, seaweeds, sea salt, and filtered water.”

Angie has also created a sixty-page companion guide to help educate women about the nutritive value of fermented and other foods. In stocking clients’ refrigerators with live, nutrient-dense foods, she has devised a business that relieves new moms and moms-to-be from many of the anxieties that can overwhelm new families. Angie is just thrilled, she told me, to have found this path in life—one that truly makes a difference in people’s lives, and one that relies on fermented foods as a central part of why and how MamaKai thrives.

A Visit to the Cultured Pickle Shop

Cultured is the name of the company that makes a wide range of fermented foods in Berkeley, and the Cultured Pickle Shop is its retail outlet. It’s a fascinating place to visit because it gives you tons of ideas for what to culture with lactobacilli. In case you’re not up on the process, there’s a display on the north wall that reads “The Bacterial Progression of Lacto-Fermentation.” Below the caption are four photos of bacteria in the order in which they colonize vegetables undergoing a lacto-fermentation. First in are the
Leuconostoc mesenteroides,
which get things ready for the growth of
Lactobacillus brevis.
These in turn prepare the ferment for the appearance of
Pediococcus cerevisiae.
Slowly the
Lactobacillus plantarum
begin to take over and eventually become the dominant fermenters.

Other progressions can and do happen, but this is a common, typical one. All are beneficial in the preservation of food by the conversion of sugars into lactic acid.

As you enter the Cultured Pickle Shop, there is a small space for customers, about the size of a six-by-nine jail cell, with a large cooler at the east end and a large chalkboard with the specials being offered. A sign that reads “Employees Only Past This Point” stops you almost as soon as you enter. And that’s understandable. In the large inner room, employees man (and woman) the tables, preparing the ferments, and it wouldn’t do to have customers wandering about.

The cooler is stocked with familiar fare—many kinds of sauerkraut, fizzy kombucha, kimchi, and so on. And here’s what was being offered on the specials board on a recent weekday: Kimchi

—Watermelon rind

—Celery and cauliflower

—Pumpkin and bok choy

—Mustard greens and leeks Tsukemono (Japanese for pickle) —Kasu-zuki (burdock and cucumber) —Miso-zuke (burdock and turnip) —Nuka pickles

Kombucha

Year-round availability —Celery

—Beet

—Fennel

Seasonal availability —Tangerine-turnip

—Grapefruit-daikon

—Asian pear–peppercorn

—Pumpkin-peppercorn

—Turmeric-ginger

Seasonal Specialty Ferments —Beet and fennel

—Red daikon with chrysanthemum greens, jalapeño, and shiso —Beets and celery with dill and juniper —Spicy oregano purple carrots —Radish and fennel with bee pollen —Celery, sunchoke, and radish with jalapeño and coriander —Pumpkin with green onion and espelette peppers —Classic or spicy dill pickles —Indian pickles and limes —Moroccan preserved lemons —Chili paste

—Tokyo cross turnip with turmeric brine Berkeley is a wonderful community, always a step ahead, and here Cultured is offering the community what heretofore had been available only to home fermenters. It’s very much like the availability of organic food in the 1940s through the 1960s—that is, if you wanted it, you pretty much had to grow it yourself. Home fermenting is so easy and fun, though—and so magical as you watch your vegetables, milks, juices, and flours turn into nutritional powerhouses—that I’m hoping it remains a home-based movement, and not just a slogan on a cooler at Whole Foods.