Author: Alison Kay

On the Polish/Czech border are the Krkonoše Mountains. There lives, according to myth, Krakonoš, the God who gave sourdough to the people. He also invented Kyselo, a sourdough soup with mushrooms and caraway seeds. When the mountains are misty, it is said that he’s cooking up a batch of Kyselo.
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I got lost in learning about this myth, and other Western Slavic fermented cereal soups, yesterday. It feels like magical manna that helps me create and alchemise in the kitchen. I feel so grateful that technology can bring this kind of information to me and allow me the grace and joy of borrowed ancestral food wisdom to improve my health and delight my taste buds.
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So here’s go number three at a sourdough discard soup, my take on this wonderful tradition. I managed to temper the discard well enough this time so it is completely lump-free! I’m half way through writing the recipe up, so if you want to recreate in your kitchen, you’ll have a guide.
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If you know anything more about the traditions of fermented cereal soups, come, tell me. I can’t get enough!

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I am knee-deep in cacao’s pharmacology; past page 100 in the 700 page ‘The Secret Life of Chocolate’. And I’m beginning to see that, wisely applied, cacao is truly a medicine.
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‘Wisely applied’ is something we have strayed a *long* way from.
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The West loves chocolate with milk. But milk binds to the polyphenols in cacao, stopping their absorption.
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Sugar increases their absorption *but* simple sugars suppress immunity after consumption. Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, break down slowly, helping our body take on the polyphenols whilst not doing the damage associated with simple sugar.
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And Ancestral Wisdom knew this: the Mesoamericans took their cacao in drinks with maize and minimal added sugar.
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I couldn’t research without playing! I’ve made another batch of 100% cacao chocolates. This time I roasted the beans longer and lower than generally suggested and I made half the batch with cacao butter, half the batch with coconut oil. Taste-testing today 🙂
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Check my story today for chocolate-filled videos and pictures.

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I needed a boost this morning: Fried fermented millet/sorghum polenta slices, a fried @lavalledelsasso egg and a pesto-ish mix of parsley, walnuts, garlic, lime and olive oil.
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I topped it with home-made black salt, new season olive oil and then sat down with a knife and fork to tuck in.

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Lectin free twins. Two millet and sorghum sourdoughs. The one on the left is tumeric and walnut flavoured, the one on the right is topped with ground linseed.

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It seems like an open-and-shut case. But it’s not.
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Six months of research and my opinions are very different to what they were. I’ve written the details in a piece which you can find in the link in my profile.
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As always, I’d love your thoughts.

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This thyme feels like more than *just* thyme to me.
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I bought it, along with some cabbages and brussels, from a lady who grows and sells her veg at the tiny local market here in Pontassieve.
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We’ve been in this town almost a year and in that time we’ve come to know (and love) the farmers from whom we buy our meat, eggs and dairy.
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Vegetables have been the last part of our food shopping without a face. By that I mean, up until now, I’ve mostly not known the person who grew them. Finally, this month, I had the head space to make an attempt to change that.
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Thursday evenings will host our ‘walk together to the market and get veg’ routine. I hope that we’ll get to know (and love) the small producers there, including the lady who picked and dried this wild thyme.
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If so, it’d feel to me like we’d settled. We’d be part of the precious fabric of this land. We’d sustain and be sustained by the beauty, knowledge and effort of this community.
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And I’d be able to breathe out.

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We’re not the only family to eat spare water kefir grains on sourdough pancakes right?!

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Chocolate Water Kefir. Totally 6-year-old son approved!
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I had a brain wave whilst making cacao husk tea: man, this’d be goood fermented. So I cooled it, added sugar and let my kefir grains at it! After a second ferment with orange and cardamon it’s delicious.

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A new batch of Sowans, the traditional Scottish fermented drink, ready for a 7-day ferment.
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I make a batch of this every other week. It’s whole oats, flaked at home, then put through a sieve. The bits I use here are the crumbs that fall through the holes in the sieve. I put them into jars, add water, stir and then leave to ferment for a week.
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Every morning during that week, I give them a quick stir. Towards the end of the week, I taste the liquid. When it’s funky enough for me (I like it funky), I stir it and strain it through a sieve to remove to bran particles. I leave the remaining liquid to settle. Over time it separates into liquid and oat starter.
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I use the liquid, Sowans, as a drink, a starter and to bake bread. I cook up the oat sediment, called Swats, as a porridge, use it as a thickener and bake it into sourdoughs too.
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Phew. Trying to explain that clearly took some thought. I’m hoping that, later in the year, I can put together some videos demonstrating how I make this and more of my kitchen alchemy projects. I’m also hoping to create a newsletter and have an exciting project with Andrea @farmandhearth on the burner. Lots of things fermenting – both literally and figuratively over here.
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Happy weekend to you all. x

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