Ferment Yourself

Last fall, Josh and I moved from Pensacola to Colorado Springs. I drove and in the backseat of the car, I had my cat Donovan, a smudge of Alabaster (our sourdough culture), a jar of lacto-fermented brine, and about 7 pounds of fermenting miso. Each night, I brought Donovan into the hotel, then the crock of miso, then the cooler with the other ferments. I felt like a crunchy yoga mom.

Moving ferments cross-country was stressful. I almost left the miso in the car the first night and the Tennessee summer heat would have cooked it alive. Then, I forgot the cooler of ferments in our hotel fridge in Kansas on the last night and we had to turn around and pick them up.

Although the ferments aren’t expensive, or difficult to make, I feel a lot of attachment to them. I started Alabaster when Josh and I started dating. Somewhere along the way, fermenting became a part of my identity.

Now that it’s been a few months, we’ve finally settled in Colorado Springs. The climate is different and I feel myself slowly adjusting to a new culture. I’m no longer in Hawaii with the “Aloha Spirit” or in Florida with “Southern Hospitality”. But this is life… perpetual motion and continuous change.

Fermentation has become like gardening to me. I try to create environments that will be beneficial for the cultures that I want to grow. Sometimes, other things grow that you don’t want and you have to reorient the culture. Scrape off the gunk and keep trying.

This metaphor is easy to extend to us too. We create our own cultures and occasionally grow gunk that needs to be scraped off. We build the conditions that lead to our own culture. In many ways, these ferments are not so different from you or I. Kinship can take many forms, I suppose.

It’s been a while since we’ve posted. Last year was stressful. Moving across town in June, then moving cross-country in October was too much. Now that we’ve unpacked, I’m ready to get back to writing.

Some of the cultures that are fermenting in our kitchen currently include: red miso in a kioke (wooden barrel), a nukadoko (rice bran pickles), lacto-pickles, persimmon wine, persimmon sake, rice wine vinegar, mirin, and persimmon cheong.

Happy New Year’s!