Funky things all arounds us + botching it
I love the word botch. Gonna use it more.
I apologize for my second sabbatical of the year, sometimes one needs two to three months to drop off the face of the planet. IYKYK.
Over the past month, there have been some super cool happenings within the Holobiont realm. Slime molds, botched pickles, an abundance of mold, sharing sourdough starters, new podcasts, magazines, art, and the list goes on. Not to mention a super duper juicy update that I can’t wait to share. Things just keep on coming, the world keeps spinning, time keeps on moving and I am being DRAGGED behind barely holding on. She’s in the trenches. Onwards anyways.
Today I want to share some pickle-making tips and how I explain to my parents, who tell everyone that I am a chef (I have never worked in a kitchen in my life), why the pickles I fermented for them taste terrible.
PLUS some things that invoked a lot of questions and inspiration for me lately. But first, I’ll explain my botched pickles.
Botching it
At my parent’s house, there is a second fridge (why do parents always have two fridges?). That fridge has about 12 jars of pickles which are not very good pickles. They’re mushy, lacking flavor, and are not up to standards.
Look, it was a quick, dirty, and rushed ferment session because I had to get on a plane and if I didn’t ferment the cucumbers the cucumbers would rot. They rotted anyway and I am ashamed. I procrastinated as one does and paid the price. The lesson here: time management and maybe a trip to the psychiatrist.
How to not F*** up your pickles #pickletips
Aromatics
Peppercorns, crushed garlic, dill, fennel, grape leaves- you get the picture. Aromatics are not only crucial for smell, color, and flavor, but they impart microbial superpowers to the cucumbers by instilling that crisp and clear flavor we all know and love. Otherwise, you get mushy sour cucumbers.
Long and cold fermentation
Normally, the rule of thumb is to leave newly packed ferments in a room-temperature environment for 5-7 days depending on what is being fermented. With cucumbers, I recommend a shorter room temperature environment incubating period (three days) followed by a long haul cold ferment in the refrigerator (forever).
Do these two things and ur pickles are gonna be okay <333
Funky things all around us
Things i’m reading, looking at, thinking about, and pondering.
Fun fact
Did you know that the +100 trillion microbes inside our guts weigh around 2 kilograms or 4.5 pounds? The human brain weighs about three pounds for reference. So that gut feeling thing? Butterflies? Stress cramps? Maybe something to ponder there. Perhaps a brain doesn’t have to look like a brain to be a brain?
Places
If you find yourself in Costa Mesa, CA you might want to check out the Ferm farm. Not a farm in a traditional sense, but more so in a microbial sense. Sourdough starters, scobys, kombucha on tap, local meats, kimchi grilled cheeses, lacto-ferments, the list goes on.
As our obsession with gut health increases, I predict we’ll be seeing more of these places pop up. Clientelle on the West Coast and larger cities are more likely to be open to such business ventures as there’s already an abundance of small local food businesses. Not to mention a growing emphasis on restoring our food system from the bottom up. I’d be interested to see how this business model would compete in more traditional suburban areas of the US where modernized infrastructure and local food business ventures are lower in numbers.
Books
What happens when you create a new animal and place it in the sea? This book explores the beginnings of salmon farming in Norway. Like many things in our society, we just take things too far and find ourselves asking: at what cost? Take a deep dive into this five-year prize-winning investigation about Norway’s salmon farming business and see for yourself what that cost may be.
👽 I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life. By Ed Yong.
Yong challenges us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light. Good work, Yong.
Print Media
A super duper cool magazine that looks like the inside of my brain.
The Trouble with Ferments as Medicine The Science Behind Our Latest Gut Obsession
An interesting read about our modern ‘gut-hype’ and the cognitive dissonance within the commercialized fermentation business.
🐸 Emergence magazine: Ecology, Culture, and Spirituality
I always say it and I really do mean it: everything is connected. Emergence magazine elegantly reflects that without having to say it and I think that’s how you know it’s good work. Bookmark them, buy their work, listen to their podcasts, and support small publications!!
News
🦇 Bats struggle during the organic farming transition
This study kept track of native bat populations during the transition from a conventional farm to an organic farm. An important thing to note: where there are bats, there are insects. Where there are insects, there is biodiversity. And where there is biodiversity, there are bats. This is a very very tiny circle but get where I’m going with this.
The study found that during the transition there was a decrease in bat populations. As healing continued, the bat and insect population boomed. Perhaps there’s something to be said about lulls in transitions and coming out on the other side. Or rather, that sometimes you need to go backward before you can go forward. But in a more applicable sense, the study is a tiny insight into a wide range of sustainable transitions in the future and what that might look like.
🤑 Precision fermentation market to reach $34.9 billion by 2031
The future of food. What do you say about labs growing real animal products without the actual animal via synthetic biology? Is it really an animal product? What do all you vegans say? Italy banned it to preserve its gastronomic heritage and to protect existing industries. For example, In the US alone, it’s projected that by 2030, over half of the cattle population will be rendered obsolete due to precision fermented cow’s milk protein.
Great news for the environment, but very scary for the dairy lobby. I wonder what they are trying to do about this. But as I said earlier, into the future we go whether we like it or not. Opinions aside, if you’re looking for an investment opportunity or potential business venture, maybe you should look into precision fermentation.
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More entertaining things coming soon xoxo
~fin~
can't wait for the upcoming news!!!! gonna catch up on that podcast <3