Corn Moon & Fermented Vegetables
Traditional agrarian people know this time the corn moon season, the time closest to autumn equinox - September 21st. We have been harvesting corn and roasting it over the open fire. This is the time to gather grains, vegetables, fruit and beans in order to store enough nourishment for the colder months to come.
Try this delicious corn recipe!
Sweet Potato Corn Cakes
Wash, chop and boil or steam 2 medium sweet potatoes.
Meanwhile, shuck raw corn off of 2-3 cobs by running a sharp pairing knife vertically down each ear of corn.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a cookie sheet with olive oil.
Mash cooked sweet potatoes into a mixing bowl with:
shucked corn
2 eggs
1/4 cup olive oil
a pinch of salt
milk (almond, rice, or cow)
Mix well.
Add and mix well:
1 cup flour (spelt, almond, or rice)
1/4 teaspoon each: salt, cumin, coriander
Place heaping spoon-fuls of dough onto cookie sheet. Flatten each one with the back of the spoon.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Enjoy with beans, roasted chicken, or a late summer salad.
If you would like to grind your own corn (or any may want to purchase a hand-cranked grinder or an electric one. It can be as simple as an espresso bean grinder or more complex. No method is better than the other. Here are some options:
www.komomillsandflakers.com (try the Komo Fidibus Classic)
www.grainmillshop.com
www.lehmans.com (hand-cranked mills and more)
Lacto-Fermented Vegetables
Gratitude to Sandor Ellix Katz for guidelines from his book, The Art of Fermentation (Chelsea Green, 2012)
Timeframe: 1-4 weeks (or more)
You will need:
Ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket, one-gallon capacity
Plate that fits inside crock or bucket
One-gallon jug filled with water (or a scrubbed and boiled rock)
Cloth cover (pillowcase or towel)
5 pounds cabbage or a mixture of other vegetables*
3 tablespoons sea salt
Chop or grate cabbage, finely or coarsely, with or without hearts, however you like it. I love to mix green and red cabbage to end up with bright pink kraut. Place cabbage in a large bowl as you chop it.
Sprinkle salt on the cabbage as you go. The salt pulls water out of the cabbage (through osmosis), and this creates the brine in which the cabbage can ferment and sour without rotting. The salt also has the effect of keeping the cabbage crunchy, by inhibiting organisms and enzymes that soften it. 3 tablespoons of salt is a rough guideline for 5 pounds of cabbage.
*Add other vegetables. Grate carrots for a coleslaw-like kraut. Other vegetables I’ve added include onions, garlic, seaweed, greens, Brussels sprouts, small whole heads of cabbage, turnips, beets, and burdock roots. You can also add herbs and spices (caraway seeds, dill seeds, celery seeds, and juniper berries are classic, but anything you like will work). Experiment!
Mix ingredients together and pack into crock. Pack just a bit into the crock at a time and tamp it down hard using your fists or any (other) sturdy kitchen implement. The tamping packs the kraut tight in the crock and helps force water out of the cabbage.
Cover kraut with a plate or some other lid that fits snugly inside the crock. Place a clean weight (a glass jug filled with water) on the cover. This weight is to force water out of the cabbage and then keep the cabbage submerged under the brine. Cover the whole thing with a cloth.
Press down on the weight to add pressure to the cabbage and help force water out of it. Continue doing this periodically (as often as you think of it, every few hours), until the brine rises above the cover. This can take up to about 24 hours, as the salt draws water out of the cabbage slowly. Some cabbage, particularly if it is old, simply contains less water. If the brine does not rise above the plate level by the next day, add enough salt water to bring the brine level above the plate. Add about a teaspoon of salt to a cup of water and stir until it’s completely dissolved.
Leave the crock to ferment in a corner of the kitchen. Check the kraut every day or two. The volume reduces as the fermentation proceeds. Sometimes mold appears on the surface. Skim off what you can and don’t worry about it. It’s just a surface phenomenon. The kraut itself is under the anaerobic protection of the brine.
Rinse off the plate and the weight. Taste the kraut. Generally it starts to be tangy after a few days, and the taste gets stronger as time passes. In the cool temperatures of a cellar in winter, kraut can keep improving for months and months. In the summer or in a heated room, its life cycle is more rapid.
Store in jars in the fridge for up to 1 year.
Try to start a new batch before the previous batch runs out. Remove the remaining kraut from the crock, repack it with fresh salted cabbage, then pour the old kraut and its juices over the new kraut. This gives the new batch a boost with an active culture starter.
