When a colleague mentions that his lunchtime takeaway sandwich had “something crunchy and cabbage-like in it that could have been sauerkraut”, you know fermentation has gone mainstream.
Kombucha, kimchi and kefir are no longer alien concepts – there are bottles and jars fizzing quietly in both professional and domestic kitchens all over the country.
Dearbhla Reynolds has been exploring fermentation since motherhood reawakened memories of childhood and she made the connection between the twin influences of her mother, a home economics teacher, and her father, a chemist, and her belief that “food is medicine”.
"To describe my childhood, it would taste of honey and home cooking. It would smell of a hearty stew and hedgerows coupled with the heady mix of iodine, ether, borax, liniments and gauze from an old school pharmacy," she says in the introduction to her book, The Cultured Club – Fabulously Funky Fermentation Recipes, published this week (Gill Books, €27.99).
Now, her own family are her chief tasters, and have progressed far beyond the “buttermilk mixed into mash or the smell of soda farls baking on the griddle”, she remembers from her own childhood.
“How lucky for them that the scent of their childhood will be the pungent waft of kimchi or the tang of kombucha or that they happily drink beet kvass with out even thinking twice.”
Surge of interest
Reynolds’s husband Ed recently underwent major surgery and, as he “loves the flavours and the way it makes him feel”, some post-op food as medicine was prescribed.
“He donated a kidney to his brother, and he requested that I sneak him some kimchi into the hospital,” she says.
“My daughter Holly, now seven, has a seasoned tongue and appreciates lots of flavours, though I do have to disguise the taste of milk kefir in her smoothies. My youngest, Jude, who is four, loves all these foods. He has grown up with them really, so he loves sauerkraut, kimchi, dilly beans – or pricklys as he calls them.
“But don’t get me wrong, they will head straight for the sugar aisle or the most processed food, if left to do so. Children intrinsically have bad taste.”
Since she first started teaching classes and spreading the word on fermentation, Reynolds has seen a massive surge of interest in the subject.
“Yes, it has been quite remarkable, considering when I started out five years ago, no one was aware. I was trailblazing and feeling quite isolated, so personally I am delighted.”
So, we may be eating more fermented foods, and learning more about them, but it is a slightly daunting subject, and some reading is required before you get stuck in. For someone interested in getting started, what should they begin with?
Good bacteria
“Really, the techniques are very simple, there is just a mental shift that needs to happen. I would say that if you have a sweet tooth, then start making water kefir. If you already like the tang of a good natural yoghurt, then start making milk kefir.
“And if you are ready to take your food to the next level, then start with something like a salsa or a little flavourful sauerkraut. All these foods can be mixed in with, or paired with, other flavours, disguised, or eaten straight out of the jar. So I would say, start somewhere, your palate will change and your appreciation of living food will become an addiction.”
The tomato salsa recipe on this page is a good example of fermentation at its simplest.
“It really is as simple as that, but the difficulty is the belief and the trust that we are doing it right. The complicated bit is the microbial transformation which is happening.
“The jar is transforming into an aerobic environment, it is producing carbon dioxide, it is allowing good bacteria to dominate and in the mix it is creating extra enzymes and vitamins. It is science and it is art, and in this space there is magic.”
To celebrate the launch of The Cultured Club – Fabulously Funky Fermentation Recipes, Dearbhla Reynolds will present a fermented foods tasting table at at Hatch & Sons, St Stephen's Green, Dublin, on Thursday, November 17th at 6.30pm. Tickets are available from gillbooks.ie/the-finishing-school.
