I was told by a friend that the English language has a new word, a verb: to kraut. It comes from Sauerkraut, fermented cabbage, a pickle known all over the Western world. To kraut is to make fermented pickles.
Pickling was for centuries one of the ways to preserve vegetables for the winter. What i mean is not pickling in vinegar but preserving with the help of bacteria, in fact a lacto fermentation process. sauerkraut, kimchi, ...all the same.
Pickles like this have gone almost completely out of fashion in the Western world. A shame because lacto fermented pickles are very healthy for your digestive system, your immunsystem and your general health. So what do we do? We spend a fortune on Yakult and other high priced products to get the same benefits as we used to get from our fermented foods.
So I am on a quest, let's start pickling again. It is easy, it is fun and it is delicious.
If you are interested, read Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz
and watch Sandor's video.
Enjoy
Christiaan