A jar of Kelli Walker’s beautiful beetroot and cabbage kraut
Simple ferments can do wonders for your gut. Even better, the very best vegetables to use are the ones you grow yourself.
It can be little daunting when Kelli Walker offers you a shot glass of orange-coloured liquid and dares you to drink it, her eyes twinkling. It isn't alcoholic but trying to describe the flavour defies words. Perhaps umami, definitely a complete overwhelm for the taste buds. A second or two after swallowing, it creates an entirely new flavour in your mouth with a little goodbye kick.
The liquid is left over after Kelli and the Forage & Ferment team have finished making their popular carrot, ginger, turmeric and marigold sauerkraut. It's full of good bacteria, yeast, and probiotics. Kelli is now bottling it to sell as a wild tonic shot challenge, but also for people to add to salad dressings and marinades.
To cleanse the palate, she offers a tall glass of her home-made water kefir, flavoured with beetroot and ginger. It's faintly sweet but mostly tangy, sparkling with bubbles.
“The flavours get me,” says Kelli. “They're the complex, tangy, zingy, zany, funky flavours of ferments.”
Kelli has been hooked on fermenting since she made her first sauerkraut, inspired by the amazing gut-health benefits, the simplicity of the process, and the tangy flavours. She now sells her own ferments, producing a range of sauerkraut, kimchi, and drinks to gourmet food stores around NZ, and at her local farmer's market.
One of her favourite things about ferments is that the result is very much your own, even if you follow her recipe
to the letter.
“It's not about ‘I couldn't make mine taste like yours'. It's not about right or wrong, it's about creating your own ferment. In Korea, there's no set recipe for kimchi because every family has their own way of making it, and it tastes different. Everyone does it a little bit differently.
“I love the alchemy of it, the witchyness of it. I can experiment, be creative, be playful and fun, and test myself.”
But it's not just tweaking the recipe that makes a ferment from your kitchen taste different from one made by Kelli. Lactic acid bacteria from the environment become part of the fermentation process. It lives on the skin of the vegetables you use, and your skin too.
“Your one will always taste different from mine: you've got different vegetables, you're in a different environment, and you have lactic acid bacteria on you and your vegetables, and that's all local terroir. Every time you make a ferment, your lactic acid bacteria are going into it. You're creating something unique to you and your family, your region.”
This ancient method of preserving food is something Kelli is passionate about.
“It might sound a bit romantic, but you're reclaiming some basic knowledge and life skills. This is one of the oldest ways and the most nourishing ways to preserve food, and there's power and magic in it. And it's easy to do!”
Why cabbage is king
Cabbage is the star of two of the most popular vegetable ferments, sauerkraut (‘sour cabbage') and kimchi, a spicy pickled cabbage from Korea. That's thanks to the cabbage's carbohydrates, sugars, and its structure, which means it doesn't go mushy and limp as it ferments. Cabbage is also quite mild and can be easily flavoured.
Cabbage varieties, green or red (purple), can be used interchangeably in recipes. Kelli loves red ones for their pretty colour, and their high nutrient levels. Red cabbage have high vitamin C levels, and are rich in antioxidant anthocyanins, which give them their vivid colour.
Age can make a difference to the flavour, says Kelli.
“In my experience, younger cabbages produce a sweeter ferment as there are more sugars in it. You can also use an older cabbage, a big boy that's been in your garden for a long time, but I wouldn't ferment with a cabbage that's been sitting in your fridge for three weeks.”
"I love the alchemy of it, the witchy-ness of it. I can experiment, be creative, be playful and fun, and test myself."