Month: June 2021

Yes, this is actually what my fermenting garlic looks like. Gorgeous, eh?! I got clear on what this colour-change is (the allicin reacting with the fermentation acids) thanks to @savage.craic who does a whole lot of interesting ferments.
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Seeing colour changes like this in my ferments makes me feel even more like an alchemist! I like that 🙂
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If you don’t ferment garlic, I totally recommend that you give it a go. Peel the cloves, chop the big ones, cover with a brine (5g salt to 1 cup water is what I use) and find a way to keep the cloves under the brine level (using a cabbage leaf here).
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Then pop the jar in a corner for it to hide for 6 weeks and you’ll have a wonderful stash of cloves that aren’t as strong as raw garlic, but haven’t been as ‘denatured’ by the cooking process (which destroys the medicinal powerhouse, allicin).

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This ancestral beer, made with Italian spelt, gets fermented with the help of sourdough starter and the yeast and bacteria I have living around me. There are no commercial yeasts in it. And there wouldn’t have been in any beer further than a hundred or so years back, as yeasts were not a commercial thing.
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For centuries, before industrialisation, yeasts were valued so highly that they were associated with divine intervention and when they appeared they were honoured and nurtured.
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My favourite example of this is the yeast log. This was a piece of carved wood that was placed in the fermenter as the beer was in progress. It would catch the yeasts and bacteria. When brewing was complete, it’d be taken out and hung up to dry. The live organisms would remain on it in a dormant state. Then, when it was time to brew again, it’d be taken down and placed in with the liquid. Crazy simple, yet so effective.
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I want a yeast log. I can’t tell you how much I want a yeast log.
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Getting all my ancestral beer inspiration kicks from the #stephenharrodbuhner book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers. Will put a few pictures in my story if you want a nose.
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Shame you can’t have a taste of the beer too. It’s unusual. But good.

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I love bread that bursts where it feels like.
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I’m not into ‘ears’ and I haven’t got the patience for patterns on my bread. As you can see, sometimes I even forget to score!
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There’s such beauty in the cracks that loaves naturally make, left to their own devices. The processes involved in bread are so much bigger than me and, as a home-baker, I control so many of them. Why not just let this one be?
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And I often wonder if, like tea leaves, bread ‘bursts’ could be read.
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I wonder what this one’s telling me? Any ideas?!

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This is porridge – but not like I’ve ever known it. It is porridge made out of ‘waste’; left-overs from my ancestral beer-making process.
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To make the beer (which is again, not like any beer I’ve ever known!), I use local spelt, that I sprout and bake before fermentation. When the drink is ready, I sieve out the large spelt chunks and use them in bread-making. I then pour the liquid into bottles, flavour and then leave for a few more days to ferment. As that happens the sediment falls and settles on the bottom. It’s this that I use, after we’ve drink the beer, for porridge.
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This batch of beer was flavoured with molasses, fennel seeds and orange zest.
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Those flavours sit so beautifully on top of the tangy spelt and the consistency is smooth and creamy.
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It’s pre-digested and full of postbiotics and paraprobiotics.
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And, it makes the beer that we love completely zero-waste 🙂

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We made lard this weekend and, as always happens, after we’d created a stash of the creamy-white fat we had, leftover, the crunchy, delicious ‘cracklings’.
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Last time, I ground these up and made a sourdough layered Slovakian biscuit (thanks to @almostbananas). This time, I thought I’d keep them whole and stay in Italy – so I made this sourdough spelt sea salt,
rosemary and lard crackling focaccia.
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It was delicious, the lard cracklings gave off even more of their fat into the dough whilst cooking. Think crunchy, salty, nutty, fatty. We ate it warm from the oven.

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I didn’t move to Italy for lemons…well, not totally, at least 😉
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Raisin and Sicilian lemon yeast water on the go. I’m hoping this will raise a bread in a few days. And I’m going to have a go at drinking anything that’s left over – a probiotic bitter lemon, I’m hoping.

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Do you use fresh garlic?
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After having first bought some a few weeks ago from one of the farmers at our local Thursday market #mercatointransizione, I’m in love.
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We’ve had it sliced thinly, raw, in salads. I’ve fried it in lard and served with meat. I’ve even ghee crisp-fried it and sprinkled it on top of a fried egg.
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Apparently, it’ll disappear soon. It’s getting too mature. I’m both sad, as I’ll have to wait another year for it, but also happy that following the seasons and eating locally, brings such wonders to be enjoyed, remember and anticipated.
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Any tips for the last few bunches I’ll have?

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I know I am not the only one, right?!
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Multiple books on the go at once, wanting to make *all* the breads, exciting fermentation ideas pushing their way into every corner.
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And then, trying to do it all, I realise that I’m exhausted, I’ve not sat and done nothing all week, I’m overloaded.
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Having been through this cycle hundreds of times, I’ve learnt (kind of) to accept, breathe and know that not everything that bubbles about in my head can actually convert to practical bubbling in my kitchen and *that is OK*.
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Here’s how I know I’m getting better: Sometimes I catch myself saying to Rob, “let’s not do grind those oats/make that bread/start some sauerkraut today, there’s enough going on”. Alison, letting something go, shock, horror!
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Being passionate and wanting to do it all is just one of the things @farmandhearth and I talk about in today’s @ancestralkitchenpodcast – Kitchen Management and Avoiding Burnout. There’s also resource management, clarity, workgroups, routine, organisation and much more.
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You can find the podcast by searching from Ancestral Kitchen in your podcast provider, or you can stream it from my site using the link in my profile.
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And if you want to share some ‘doing too much’ stories, or tell me how you’re living with that part of yourself, I’d love to hear.

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Having an ancestrally-inspired kitchen is something I love. But it’s a lot of work. In order to stay sane and have time to get on with the rest of my life, I have several strategies. One of them is to involve my son wherever possible. It might take longer (especially the first few times!) but it shares the load and makes it more fun.
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This morning, we’ve both been working on cacao processing. We roasted these beans at the temperature that has been shown to both preserve the medicinal qualities and create good flavour (much shorter than a ‘normal’ roast). Once cooled we poured them into a high-sided roasting tin and set about using gentle mallet strokes to crush them just enough to separate the shells.
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Next will come the fun bit: going outside and using a hairdryer to blast off the shells. I put sunglasses on (the shells go everywhere) and my son has taken to wearing swimming goggles!
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Then, after crushing the nibs, we might actually get to making some chocolate!
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Tomorrow’s new podcast episode will be entitled ‘Kitchen Management and Avoiding Burnout’ – involving household members in tasks is one of the many things @farmandhearth and I will talk about.
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And in more podcast and chocolate news, @nocturnalherbalist, who wrote the 700-page The Secret Life of Chocolate that is my cacao bible has agreed to an interview. I’m very excited about it.

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