This is the time of year to carry stacks of Ball (or Kerr) jars home for epic preserving projects. At least, that's been my reality of late, with so much produce--beets, onions, garlic, cabbage, basil, corn, tomatoes, zucchini--to deal with. It is always exciting to think up the possibilities for preserving these harvests, whether they are from the backyard garden, local farm, or farmer's market. Last year I was focused on the canning process as a way of preserving food as jams, pickles, and sauces, though I am becoming more versed in fermentation as an easier and more nutritious form of putting up the summer harvest.
Pickles are technically anything preserved by acidity. Canned pickles have been brined in an acidic solution, which is usually vinegar, and canned in the boiling water method at home. This allows the pickles to be shelf stable and last long. Some pickles, like the zesty dilly beans here, are fermented and 'pickled' in a salt water brine, where yeasts and bacterias produce their own acidic environment that preserve the food for us to enjoy. Instead of killing all microorganisms to sterilize the pickles as in "quick" pickles, fermenting cultivates a specific probiotic environment that preserves the food and many of the nutrients lost in boiling and cooking.
Fermented foods are incredibly good for our health! The bacteria that ferments food, often our friend lactobacillus, not only preserve the good nutrients in the veggies being pickled, but also produce healthy enzymes and vitamins during their metabolism, which enhances the food's overall nutrition. In addition, probiotic food like these support healthy digestion by supplementing and assisting our very own gut flora living in the digestive tract. So much of our physical and mental health has been correlated to our unique microbiomes, or the billions of microbes living in our gut. There are many factors that contribute to a healthy gut, and eating fermented vegetable, which contain living active cultures, is a great way to boost your microbial ecosystem and your overall health.
