Tim Seaward

Hello Anne,

The fermented banana quickly became too intense a flavour, plus the banana simply dissolved into ... slime! An almost pleasant slime ... but far too strong for my delicate taste buds. No, I have not tried the date/raison thing yet ... I am just coming out of hibernation - with the garden!

I don't know if anyone is following this, but here is an update.  The grapes are fermenting well, the fruit now has taken some of the sweetness from the honey, and perhaps from the cider vinegar. I think it will need a month or so for the fruits to lose the crispness. The interesting thing is that the ferment is now producing a mother of vinegar, which is great ... but does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do with it besides making more vinegar?

This is so cool!  Here I am in deepest France and being given the 'recipe' for verjus!! Not only that but the giverecipe.com site by Zerrin talks of kids eating the green grapes to get the unique zap of flavour which must have brought tears to their eyes! ... I just had to do it ... and sure enough its like sucking a very, VERY unsweet lemon!! But hey I was a 50's child and we joyfully sucked onto our lead painted toys!!!

So, I have just got to make some grape capers. The verjus is already an amazing addition to the kitchen. I'll tell you how the capers go in about a weeks time.  

I've recently read of someone fermenting elderberries to make 'capers'. Has anyone tried the same with unripe grapes? (There are loads growing wild here in rural France and I would love to know if something can be done with them).

I am beginning to notice that any ferments from my garden are very intensively flavored where as organic shop bought veg produce a gentler more acceptable flavour. For instance, the shop bought cabbage produced a lovely flavoured saukraut, but the garden cabbage produced a saukraut that was almost too flavoursome and might have tasted better if I had done it in brine. I tried it three days after I had made it, and it to be too raw too salty. So I gave it a couple more days and found the flavour had totally changed. Can anyone advise me how to make the flavour just a little less?

WHOA ...! Just cooked the quinoa in their own ferment ... Unbelievable flavour!! You have to try this folks!

Grains that have been soaked then sprouted are ... AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS! I've tried sunflowers, wheat, and even rice. It is called 'malting' but when I tried it with wheat what I got was dried sprouted wheat that had the slightest maltiness ... it needed to be boiled, reduced and then the must removed to reveal the malt. The best time it worked was producing Essene bread ... totally excellent! Apparently the Essences would mash up the sprouts into a very sticky dough (great fun for the kids!), then place the mash on a rock and ask for the angel of the sun and the angel of the air to bless it. By the end of the day there would be the bread - hot, tasty, and cut ready to eat! (OK  ... I made up the last bit ... but it is truly heavenly!)

Thanks for the quick responses!

John ... It definitely does not smell moldy ...it smells, and tastes almost fruity! Oddly enough it is vaguely the same taste as the wild fermented oak leaves I'm trying. Should I add a little honey or date syrup (not sugar - too crude for me) ... or do I simply leave to become 'dry' quinoa-ade!? I do not drink alcohol (well OK, most of the fermented fruits have some in them, but I'm not after that rush).

Liz ... you mean eat the quinoa raw? If so, should I soak them AND sprout them? Never tried that before but, hey, anything to save on the electric! The quinoa are now happily cooking in my solar oven ... which, for me, seems to produced the best boiled rice ... ever!

Can somebody advise me please?

I soaked some quinoa with the idea of boiling them the next day ... but I forgot! Two and a half days later I remembered and made ready to put them in a pot. But I found a bowl of very frothy quinoa and soak water ...  so I tasted the water and it was almost like a light beer -  not unpleasant at all! Can this be used as a drink (ice cold, I think it would be very refreshing!) ... and I can still cook the quinoa? Or is this something that already exists ... perhaps with some kind of additional flavouring - if at all necessary?

Great! I will do that today.

I have begun to read Katz wild koji info. He implies that one can spontaneously manifest the koji spores on rice, once his simple instructions are followed. But I am a little confused by his use of the word 'inoculate' (page 299 line 5). What does he mean? What is to be inoculated? And by what? Does this spontaneously happen with no added item such as a purchased koji starter (which is the reason why I am looking into this - to initiate a homegrown spore)? Or do I still have to buy something?