the Trials...and in this Case Errors, of Naturally Fermenting Vegetables

It wasn't my fault. I swear.

I blame the poor directions. You're lucky my husband threw it away before I could take a picture of it, because believe me there would be one up here. That nasty mold.

What the heck am I talking about?

Well, I got excited when we joined a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) where we get enough ORGANIC vegetables to be the main ingredient in every meal and still have left overs....for only $17 a week. After going out of town for a few days, and buying some vegetables that didn't come with the CSA, we ended up with a WEALTH of vegetables that we would not be able to consume before they started to go bad. That's why I was excited to read about natural fermentation. It's a way of pickling food without sugar or vinegar, just using salt, whey or some other starter.

I had read about it previously on some of the blogs I subscribe to, but had never really had the desire to try it since we were buying vegetables from the grocery store on an "as needed" basis, which meant we had a lot less. Can't we all use more vegetables in our diet?

So I chopped up some carrots into carrot sticks and added them to a canning jar with the salt water mixture. I covered it with a towel, but no lid, just like the directions said. See how this isn't my fault?? They said to leave the lid off! It seemed a little fishy to me since they're supposed to ferment for two weeks like that. But I trusted the directions.

Bad idea.

After only a week, there was a thick film of mold growing on the surface of the water. I had just started some green beans a day or two before, and even THEY had started to grow just a little bit of mold. So I went back into my email to search for a few of the blogs I read that mentioned lacto-fermentation. They say to put a lid on the canning jar, but to make sure to "burp" it everyday. Basically, open the lid once a day to release the pressure that's built up from the fermentation process, or the can may eventually explode.

The carrots were sadly NOT salvageable. Like I said, my husband threw them in the trash before I could take a picture of them (he knew I would if I got the chance). BUT the green beans were not beyond hope. So they have now been fermenting for almost two weeks, being "burped" daily. And we are about to see how my almost failed, sort of failed, but recovered experiment with natural fermentation went! (I hope with yummy fermented green beans!)