This is my mentor Willie Crawford, and he has asked me to do a special page on making sauerkraut and the benefits of freshly fermented foods in your diet.
First a little background Willie and I met in 1998 and were pioneers in Internet marketing .
I was a chef and wanted to do something that would free me from the constraints of working in a kitchen, and preparing food for my customers I love but I was dependent upon people finding me in that one restaurant. I sought to sell a cookbook and some other products online to make an income to support myself and gain freedom .
I sought out help and found Willie online . He was fairly new at the time as well but way ahead of me. He taught me many of the basics, like writing a newsletter, SEO, Website optimization, making a list. We both did cookbooks, marketed them successfully, and still are, and we even did a cookbook writing seminar together.
Willie has gone on to be wildly successful and sought after by folks all around the world to help them with internet marketing. He uses much of his profit to help others gain freedom, from poverty, bankruptcy, and feel a sense of personal power to create wealth.
Willie and I are both interested in the advantages of natural pro biotics that are created naturally when you mix vegetables with a little salt. With my German background, my father, grandma and grandpa, in the fall, both making gallons upon gallons of sauerkraut each year in huge crocks they kept in the basement all winter, as well as other vegetables like green beans.
They lived before supermarkets and refrigerators like previous generations of my family so it was a food source for survival through the long cold winter ahead.
Years ago I was reading about how to make your own cucumber pickles on the counter in a few days, without the canning jars, precise recipes for the brine and spices, canner, timer, proper pressure etc.
So I cut a few cucumbers, added a bit of salt to some water, cut 2 pickling cukes into wedges
and plunged them into water with a bit of kosher salt.
That would have been enough, but I wanted to put in some dill, garlic cloves and I LOVE the flavor corriander,
so I crushed a few and sturred them in,
In a day the cukes started to look like pickles, in 3 days they were ready, crunchy, dill, and slightly sour.
I was hooked |
So I cut a few cucumbers, added a bit of salt to some water, and cut 2 pickling cukes into wedges
and plunged them into water with a bit of kosher salt. That would have been enough, but I wanted to put some dill, and garlic cloves and I LOVE the flavor corriander so I crushed a few in there.
In a day the cukes started to look like pickles and I was hooked.
Next I made sauerkraut and experimented with other vegetables like sauerkraut, cauliflower and carrots. When I came to beans I became worried for some reason. I wasn't sure why. But I grew up hearing about the family that was killed by botulism from eating home made canned green beans. I guess I always thought it was the beans and not the canning method that produced botulism.
I did and you can do the research, and you'll find that no one has ever died from fermented vegetables, and I want you to have the same confidence I do.
 |
So let me introduce another pioneer into the modern world of fermented vegetables that has like Willie,
traveled all over the world sharing what he has learned back on the farm in the early 70's to preserve his crop and also he credits to helping heal him from a deadly disease. |
Sandor Katz, an unassuming but exceptionally brilliant an has a laid back way of making everything, uncomplicated, and inspires you to give this a get your hands into it, and do it because your not going to screw it up. It's hard to imagine looking at him that he is probably one of the smartest person on the planet about this subject.
I have 2 of his books that I recommend.
But please enjoy these videos. The are all short and topic specific. And afterwards you will learn a good solid basis for you to launch your pickling experiments and a reference to all the science of how it works, the health benefits and great ideas of all the different avenues you can take with this. |
Here
\