Sunday, January 27, 2008

more and more fermentation

1) there is kimchee.
pink kimchee with ginger.
pink and green kimchee that is the same thing but more colorful.
and like infinite green kimchee with either too much ginger or too much jalapeno or half and half.

it is done.
and more will be made with cayenne peppers and maybe some sunchokes and black radishes.
you can buy it from me directly $5 per jar if you give me an empty jar, $6 per jar if you want one of my over-priced but very pretty mason jars. bartering is a-ok, especially if what you have to barter is legible or edible. me giving you kimchee for free is probably what will really happen. then maybe you'll give me a zine or something.

2) i am now confident that amasake can be made with minimal effort. i had some leftover rice so i reboiled it with some extra water for a few minutes, let it cool while i preheated an oven, then tossed in some koji spores and put it in the oven overnight. i didn't remember it was there until after i had breakfast but it would have been an ideal breakfast. it's really sweet.

3) veda is pickling cayenne peppers in cider vinegar and also making more kimchee.
chris pickles garlic and has alerted me to the existence of "butt hash," a fermentation process beyond the scope of this blog.
kate has noted that red cabbage acts as litmus paper does in acidic and basic environments. so if you ever need to know something and don't have litmus paper lying around, like whether the mysterious liquid is vinegar or swill or soap...you can always use some cabbage.

4) let's find out how many days it takes for cider to get alcoholic if you put in in a jar with a durag on top and leave it in a dark cupboard.

i used to misspell "cupboard" as "cubbard" before i had the duh moment of realizing it was a board to put cups on.

hasty pudding is really just grits.

huitlacoche is corn smut. does anyone know anything about it that isn't already on the wikipedia entry? like where i can get some.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't know anything about the wikipedia entry for huitlacoche, but Rick Bayliss is in love with it. His Mexican Kitchen has a two-page entry on it and several recipes for. He may, in fact, suggest sources, so it's worth checking out if you're seeking.

Anonymous said...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butt_Hash links, with good reason to the entry for "Deviancy Amplification Spiral." Though initial reports of Butt Hash use in Florida may have been spurious, a friend of mine has recently reported seeing jars of shit being fermented in rural Ohio. While neither of us consider this jackass shit worthy of even the most cursory of bioassays, we grudgingly admit that there's something admirably "zero-waste" about the whole thing.

Still...eww.

Also, new batches of kimchi and pickled garlic started today. Will have updates soon!

carmichael said...

thanks, sarah. i'll look into that rick bayliss business. i posted to you yesterday but the computer ate it. bad computer! i don't know anything about any cakes from st. louis and the person who does know doesn't have anything to do with this blog anymore. sorry about that.

chris, i think we've found the reasonable limit to zero waste policies. i'll pocket mulch and put bulk rice in quill office supply bags and but i won't butt hash. let me know about the garlic. some of the garlic i put in sauerkraut turned green. i am worried.

Vera LuĂ­sa said...

Well I don't suposse you can ship it off-seas?

:) I'd love to try your Kimchee..

Anonymous said...

my 96 year-old italian grandmother has furnished the following recipe for pickling garlic:

- fill a 1 quart mason jar with peeled garlic cloves
- pour a solution of 1 part cider vinegar and 1 part water, plus one teaspoon sugar to top
- keep refrigerated, or at least out of intense heat for "a week or two" before eating

as i have been unsatisfied with the results i've obtained from straightforwardly brining garlic, i think i'll give this a go before long. my kimchi, by the way is pink and delicious. i can send photos, if you like.

carmichael said...

chris-
i'm going to try your grandma's recipe. i'm also going to try brining. brining sounds so austere. but the garlic in my sauerkraut with watermelon radishes in it turned green in brine. this is probably bad.
i can make you a contributor to this blog if you want to write more and post photos. the more the merrier.

ette said...

Hey - if you still have kimchee, or pickles of any sort, I'd love to do a barter. Do you have an E-mail address?

carmichael said...

mjb-

email me:
carmichaelmonaco@gmail.com

i am out of kimchee, so i'll be making some this week. i can make some extra for you. what can you barter?