Frogs, Festivals, Feta, and Ferment of the week

Did you know I started as a home cheesemaker?

A couple of days ago, I heard tree frogs singing for mates for the first time this year. I stopped, (whatever it was, I was doing) to acknowledge this moment when I noticed that the frogs knew that the earth had tilted a little more in favor of Spring. Their song was accompanied by the sound of water in the creek and a steady dripping coming from a light drizzle collecting in a faulty gutter. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like I lived in the misty moist Pacific Northwest again and not a drought-stricken landscape. I know this is no end to that reality but the rain, the running water, the full ponds, the frogs, are good for my morale. I left the window open that night so I could listen to the soothing sounds of a wet landscape anytime I woke up.

Water…

This past Saturday, Christopher and I spent some time behind a vendor table, “helping” our friend Claudia, at a local cheese festival. This event started in 2005 by a local creamery—who is world renowned for their blue cheese. When Artisan creameries were popping up throughout the state—what a time for a cheese lover such as myself. In 2010 this festival was one of the first big events Christopher and I tabled at with our tiny, fermented vegetable company. We were the odd table in a tent full of creamy cheeses made from milk produced from lush green Oregon pastures. It was a tightly packed space and people moved past us in a moving line—grazing. Our table usually gave them pause. We didn’t offer toothpick skewered chunks of cheese. We offered tasting cups of colorful soured vegetables. We did cause people to look up, often bemused. Put yourself back in 2010 for a moment, fermented vegetables were still suspect to the average consumer. It was a challenge to get people to even taste a wee bit of sauerkraut, let alone buy some. These people, though, were stuck in front of our table, with us, until the train moved. They couldn’t get out of line or they compromised the next cheese samples. We liked to explain we were a nice break and that these soured vegetables were actually full of digestive enzymes that would help their bodies digest all that rich fat of the cheese. We also explained that cheese was fermented with the same lactic acid bacteria as all that cheese.

We served jars and jars of samples. At the end of the day, we were exhausted with throats raw from talking. We were both unsure of what we’d gotten ourselves into (as in is Southern Oregon ready for these foods) and excited by the people who were enthusiastic. I do remember selling a lot of squash chipotle kraut that day. For the next two years we were at various events and markets. It was then that we realized people wanted to understand these foods. We spent most of our time chatting and educating. I taught people how to make the vegetables in the booth, or in classes held in our commercial kitchen. Some people criticized our business sense to teach people our recipes. It never failed to amuse me. First, fermentation is nothing secret, it is ancient, part of every culture on this planet. It’s not recipes as much as understanding what the microbes need and working within their parameters. Second, it was clear my students made their own and were my best customers. We never “lost” customers, in most cases as soon as someone understands how something works, the more appreciative they are.  

A snapshot of our market days circa 2010

I am happy I turned my energy to educating, and away from a product company.  As much fun as it was at the time, as much as I know I had to fulfill that dream, I never once think, I want to do that again. Instead, I continue to be fueled by seeing people embrace fermentation as something they do.

Thirteen years later, the festival has changed considerably. Claudia is a cheesemaker, who teaches people how to dip their toes into the magic of cheesemaking with her books and cheese kits, under her brand Urban Cheesecraft. Claudia’s approach is to show people with a gallon of milk and an hour they can make their own fresh cheese. Claudia was there to encourage people to not just eat cheese but make some cheese. As we spoke to people, I was surprised by how disinterested they were in talking about how the cheese they were eating or wine they were drinking was made. (I clearly still have work to do to get a jar of vegetables fermenting on every counter.)

Kirsten and Christopher pretending to be tabling.

But maybe the real story of that day was the lack of cheese vendors, at a cheese festival. There were many more wine makers, beer brewers, and distillers than in the past. We talked to someone who is a long-time participant in the Oregon cheese scene and they shared that part of the problem is that many of the small Oregon creameries have gone out of business for one reason or another. Retirement or the difficult economics of a small, local, and life consuming business being at the top of that list. As we continue to talk about hyper-local economies this feels like the wrong direction. Sigh. I completely understand though, there is nothing to encourage people beyond pure passion to do this work. In 2010, we ourselves still had dairy animals, and I made cheese daily for friends and family. In fact, when we’d decided to make fermented vegetables that was pivot from my initial desire to have a small creamery. Our fermentation kitchen was originally built to be a creamery.

Cheese was my first ferment, in the late 1990s we had a few dairy goats, that became more dairy goats. And after fighting with a cream separator that never seemed to work, we brought home a milk cow, for the sole purpose of butter. My oldest son and I taught ourselves cheesemaking through the two books we had. Over time I had regular customers for a cheese we all called the brown bag cheese, for the simple reason that I would wrap it in an unbleached waxed-paper sandwich bag. This particular cheese began as a salt-brined cheese, a feta recipe. However, as it is with microbes and terroir it became its own cheese in much the way San Francisco sourdough is unique to San Francisco. I can’t give you a taste comparison to a cheese you know, mostly because it was its own thing and partly because time has erased the flavor nuance of my memory of it.

Despite the love of cheese and cheesemaking, as we built the kitchen it became clear that with our marginal pastures that we couldn’t sustain the size of herd we would need for the volume of even a micro-creamery. The stress this number of animals would cause to the land we live on didn’t feel like stewardship. Growing vegetables and buying vegetables from neighboring farms felt more in line with where we were. We loved the symbiosis created between ourselves and the farms. We were able to take unsold produce and overages to make delicious ferments. It’s funny now, but at the time food waste was acknowledged as a worldwide thing to fix to reduce food’s carbon food print but it felt like a great thing to do—keep perfectly good vegetables out of the trash. This felt like a natural way to source and support our local foodshed. At our hyper-local level it was perfect we could pivot our production when 200 pounds of sweet onions showed up and our more adventurous market customers were happy to see the “ferment of the week” show up. (Ferment of the week also begins with F, the question is, will I share a ferment of the week from a time past or my feta recipe with paid subscribers?)

One more thing…If you are anywhere near Denver and at all koji curious I will be collaborating with Mara King who is the Director of Fermentation for IE Hospitality group on Sunday, March 26.

Deep dive into fermentation techniques that utilize koji.

-how to grow koji in a restaurant or at home
-building incubator
-the growing process, what to expect, how to get the best results
-what to do with it? what are some of the koji possibilities?
-extended Q&A, ask us anything!
-tasting of different misos, aminos, koji beverages etc.
-make 16oz jars of pet miso to take home
-snacks and refreshments will be served

$125.00

1pm to 4pm at Hey Kiddo

3rd Floor, 4337 Tennyson St Suite 300, Denver, CO 80212