The Soaked Bean

Seeking Nourishment, Finding Traditions

Sour Pickle Spectrum

By

dill

It’s my belief that most things in life–health, sexuality, political ideology, spiritual inclination–can be found not within binary but somewhere along a spectrum, even things as seemingly simple as, say, pickles.

Go into any old-timey Jewish deli and you’ll see what I mean.  There on the counter near the register you’ll find two, often three great big glass jars of cucumber pickles: half-sours, sours, double-sours all suspended in murky brine. The sour pickle spectrum.

cukes

I, personally, like my pickles sour as can be.  Blame it on adrenal fatigue (and the subsequent craving for salt), blame it on a vata-imbalance and a constant need for grounding, blame it on my Iraqi heritage (my dad has this endearing habit of linking my love for any vaguely middle-eastern food–olives, pistachios, figs–to this), while you’re at it, blame it on my Polish/Ukrainian heritage or my Jewish heritage for that matter (I love how the boundaries between what is traditionally “Jewish” food and what is traditionally “Slavic” are so beautifully blurry), any way you slice it, there’s no denying that I fall on the extreme end of the spectrum.

And not to make other versions of pickles feel less than, but if I’m being completely honest the classic cucumber pickle is my pickle of choice.  It’s one of those foods that has made its way onto the plates of such seemingly disparate cultures: the bowl of sour pickle soup from Poland, the sour pickles served with timman from Iraq, the smoked-meat sandwich w/ a side of sour pickles from Montreal, the triple-cheeseburger with extra pickles from the U.S. of A.

pickledill

It’s a food that transcends borders.  One that feels familiar, conjures up some sense of nostalgia no matter what your cultural heritage (or ayurvedic dosha, for that matter).  It’s a food that, for me, signals the start of deep Summer when days are long and spent submerged in grass, or lake, or hammock beneath stretched hours of sun.  I find this kind of food-nostalgia, “comfort” food in the truest sense, to be deeply nourishing, chicken soup for the soul.

And, when made traditionally through the process of lacto-fermentation (using just salt, water and time), it’s a food that is brimming with probiotics, or the beneficial bacteria that hang out and help out in our intestines strengthening not only our digestive health, but our immune health, our mental health.  As my Ethnobotany professor used to say whenever a medicinal plant also happened to taste delicious, bonus!

salty

Deep Summer means jars of pickles with varying degrees of sourness fermenting in my cupboard for various lengths of time.  Waiting to be crunched into alongside BLT or leg of oven-fried chicken or diced into egg-salad.

The two main factors that affect the sourness of cucumber pickles are:

  1. The amount of salt added (more salt = more sour)
  2. The amount of time (more time = more sour)

This week I’m sharing my method for medium-sour pickles.  I invite you to experiment this Summer and see where you fall on the spectrum!

pickles jar

Sour Pickles

Ingredients

2 and 1/2 heaping tablespoons sun-dried sea-salt (like Celtic sea-salt)

4 or 5 cucumbers

3 cloves garlic, peeled

couple stems flowering dill

Directions

  1. Sterilize a quart canning jar by filling with boiling water.
  2. Slice cucumbers into wedges.  Drain water from jar and let cool.  Pack jar with cukes, garlic and dill, until jar is completely full.
  3. Add salt.  Fill jar to the top with cold, non-chlorinated water.  Seal and shake to distribute salt.
  4. Leave in a cool, dark place for at least 3 days.  (I like to ferment medium sours for 5 days).  (You can ferment these babies for months and months, BTW).
  5. After opening pickles, store in fridge.

 

Broth-Braised-Kale + Cooking Yr Greens

By

fistfulofkale

Is it just me or has the sway of what is #trending become that much stronger these past few years?  The web has become a looking glass into the apartments, the closets, the kitchens, the cafes, the “lifestyles” of inspiring folks around the world.  #Inspo is to be found everywhere, and, ironically, its effect has been to prune away nuance in favor of #trends, which have begun to shape the most fundamental parts of our lives, including what we eat.  Especially what we eat.

Food trends have existed for a good, long while.  Wherever there was abundance, there were foods that rose and fell in and out of fashion (like the Roman tradition of stuffing a bird within a bird within a bird which has, incidentally, cycled back as the “turducken”).  In the last five or six decades, since food production was taken out of the hands of individuals and placed in the proverbial hands of industry, these trends became broader, more globalized.  Suddenly, you could eat the same Kraft dinner in Calgary, Canada as in Mumbai, India as in Christchurch, New Zealand.

In the past decade, we’ve turned away from industrial foods like Kraft dinners but the globalized food trend has only grown: the açai smoothie bowl, the green juice, the spiralized zucchini noodle, the avocado toast, the raw kale and quinoa salad.  No matter where you’re living, you’ve probably tried at least a couple of these foods in the last years, n’est-ce pas?  I sure have.

brothkale

Especially, the last one.  The raw kale and quinoa salad.  I must have made this salad at least three (or thirty) dozen times along my learning-the-ropes-of-nourishing-myself way.  But, the thing is, I don’t love raw kale.  In fact, I don’t even really like it.  If I’m totally honest, I never have.  No matter how tenderly its massaged, it’s still sort of, well, rough, and the time it takes to chew one forkful can feel like an eternity (the mastication of a never-ending bowl of raw kale is, I believe, Dante’s 8th circle of Hell).

So why was I eating so much of it?  Because it was so damn good for me.  At the time, in the early twenty-tens, raw kale and quinoa seemed the pinnacle of health-food, of “clean-eating”, and different versions of the combination flooded the web.  W/ so many folks singing its praises, who was I to think differently?

Six years further along my nutrition camino, I’m here to tell you that raw kale ain’t it, at least nutritionally speaking.  In fact, all of those dark, leafy greens that are so damn good for you (like chard, collard greens, spinach) are 10x better when they’re not only cooked, but well-cooked.  I’m talking about a good 20-minute simmer on the stove.

kaleinpan

Cook Yr Greens, Break Thru The Walls

Cooking is alchemy.  Something new is created w/ the addition of the elements–fire, water, oxygen–and time.  The raw food movement has a point: some foods do lose nutrients during this process (milk is one of the best examples).  But the majority of foods, specifically plant foods, benefit greatly from this alchemical process.

All of plant-foods’ nutritional juiciness–the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients–are stored in their cells, which are surrounded by walls.  These walls are made to withstand breakage and to protect the cells, thus it’s necessary to “break through the walls” if you want to obtain all those juicy nutrients.  Cooking or other alchemical processes like fermenting, sprouting, and preserving are all methods of breaking through the walls and “unlocking” nutrients.

In regards to dark leafy greens, specifically, it’s important to remember that certain nutrients like vitamins A, E and K are fat-soluble, meaning they need to be eaten w/ a fat in order to be absorbed by our bodies.  Kale and the other dark leafies are super-sources of vitamins K and A, so choosing a cooking option that includes a fat, like sautéing, “breaks through” yet another wall, letting you get the most out of yr greens.

Lately, I’ve been braising my greens in some mineral-rich bone-broth.  It’s a simple way to incorporate more bone-broth in my day (when I’m not feeling like straight-sipping on a mug), and makes a tough green like kale absolutely silky.  I’m always amazed at the color at the end–a rich algae-green,–and how much the greens cook down, making the daily recommendation of 3-4 cups of dark leafies feasible.

Are broth and kale both #trending?  Yep, definitely so, but this is a recipe based on traditions not trends and it’s one that not only makes me feel good but also tastes heavenly.  Give it a try and consider that the rise of food trends isn’t a bad thing, it’s just important to remember to think and to eat for yourself.

algaekale

Broth-Braised Kale

  • 1 knob ghee or tallow
  • 1/2 onion, sliced thinly
  • pinch salt
  • 1 clove garlic, sliced thinly
  • 1 bunch curly kale, chopped roughly
  • 1/3 cup chicken bone-broth
  1. Heat cast-iron pan on medium heat.  Once nice and hot, melt ghee.
  2. Add onions and salt generously, cook and stir until translucent then add garlic and cook and stir for another few minutes.
  3. Add kale and stir, mixing the kale, garlic and onions together.  If it seems like you’re using too much kale for your pan, don’t fret!  The kale’s going to cook down, majorly.
  4. Add bone-broth and turn heat to low.  Simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until broth is gone from pan.