Fermenting Made Simple: Delicious Recipes to Improve Your Gut Health

By Emillie Parrish

Looking to improve your gut health in a fun and flavourful way? This collection of 80+ recipes is a friendly, no-fuss primer on the joys of fermented foods.

In this down-to-earth, no-fuss primer on fermented foods, Emillie Parrish introduces home cooks to deliciously easy DIY cultured foods and the principles of probiotics for health and well-being.

Organized into chapters on fermented vegetables; nuts, seeds, and beans; grains; dairy; sourdough; and beverages (plus ideas for adding your ferments to snacks and meals) the book’s 80+ recipes emphasize simplicity over specialized ingredients or equipment. The book is entirely vegetarian and includes a number of recipes specifically for gluten-free or vegan diets. From kimchi, pickles, and salsa to ginger bug, yogurt, and spreads, you'll soon have a kitchen full of tasty fermented foods.

With beautiful photography, thorough guidelines on sanitizing, advice on mould (it’s not all bad!), and best practices for storing your ferments for the short- and long-term, Fermenting Made Simple will teach you how to make affordable, no-cook and zero-waste pickles, condiments, snacks, and treats. All of your meals will burst with flavour!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Touchwood Editions
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781771513654

Emillie Parrish

Emillie Parrish is a home cook and blogger who draws on her background in science and healthcare to fuel her interest in fermentation. She lives and works in Victoria, BC, with her husband and their two children.

Book preview

Introduction

I’ve been asked many times if fermenting is the same as pickling. It’s not a simple question to answer because while fermentation is a form of pickling, it’s also so much more. For example, here are just a few different ways to define fermentation:

Scientific definition: The use of microorganisms to change carbohydrates, fats, and protein.

Grandma’s definition: A way to preserve food without cooking or refrigerating it.

Chef’s definition: A type of food preparation.

Health buff’s definition: A source of probiotics.

My personal connection to fermentation started when I was in my early 20s, though I didn’t realize it at the time. The summer before I was set to start a master’s degree in neuroscience, I had a job as a research assistant at the University of Victoria. I’d also had a paper accepted for a cognition and memory conference that was being hosted by Simon Fraser University, in the Lower Mainland of BC. A bunch of my friends and I were planning to go together, as a sort of geeky Hurrah, we all got into grad school celebration.

On Friday morning, hours before the start of the conference, I woke up with sharp pains in my abdomen. But I had too much going on to pay any attention to them, and I just assumed that it was a combination of indigestion, nerves, and the start of my menstrual cycle. I popped an Aspirin and went to work. By lunchtime, I could barely walk. A visit to a drop-in clinic resulted in a prescription for stronger painkillers. Even though I insisted that I was suffering from an unusual amount of pain, the doctor barely looked at me after I mentioned my menstrual cycle. I finished work and raced off to catch the ferry to Vancouver.

About halfway through the ferry ride, I realized I was going to die. While that might seem dramatic, it was true. I knew I was going to die if I didn’t get help right away. Not just because of the pain but also from a deeper instinct about how incredibly sick I was. My parents lived in the Lower Mainland, so I called and asked them to pick me up from the ferry. And I left my friends to continue on to the conference without me.

The next day I awoke from an appendectomy and found myself attached to an IV cocktail of antibiotics that cycled on a four-hour drip schedule. It was more than a week and at least four different antibiotic regimes before I was finally declared well enough to go home. I was wrecked, and not just from the surgery. The antibiotics had left me stripped of bacteria and my digestive system a mess. It was bad. Bad in a way that only someone who has had a massive dose of antibiotics can really understand.

I knew that I needed to help my micro-biome recover. But I was a poor grad student who had spent more time learning about how language was mapped in the brain than microbiology. I decided that eating a few tubs of yogurt and taking a cheap acidophilus supplement was enough.

In the meantime, I continued to suffer from a number of digestive issues. Ironically, even though I ended up working as a health-care planner, I never linked my digestive problems to the massive dose of antibiotics. Every aspect of my job as a healthcare planner began with a focus on best practices and the most current research available. I knew that vitamin D supplementation was vital and that openable windows make for a healthy office space, but in the early 2000s, no one was talking about the health impacts of antibiotics. I approached my digestive issues from a purely symptomatic perspective that didn’t take into account the interconnections among my health concerns.

Looking back, I realize that I was suffering from a ruined microbiome. I was washed out and tired all the time. My gut issues were so bad that food barely stayed in me for any length of time. I couldn’t eat out at a restaurant without worrying about where the bathroom was.

I had a number of medical tests, including a few fairly invasive ones. In the end, the only decisive piece of advice was to avoid eating gluten. But that didn’t explain why I also couldn’t tolerate most grains as well as cashews or celery.

I didn’t connect my digestive issues to my microbiome until about ten years later, when I was sitting in my family doctor’s office with baby Una on my lap and little Max squir-relling around on the chair next to me. We were discussing Una’s allergic reaction to eggs and coconut, and Max’s sulphite allergy and sucrose intolerance. Their food issues, coupled with my own food issues, meant that keeping everyone fed was difficult. I was exhausted.

The doctor suggested probiotics, but I initially dismissed the idea. We had already seen a naturopathic doctor and dietician and tried several expensive probiotic supplements. How could probiotics solve our dietary problems?

Have you tried fermented foods? she asked.

The only fermented foods I could think of were yogurt and sourdough. We ate yogurt often enough, and my husband, Brad, loved baking sourdough bread. However, I really didn’t know much about fermentation. So I bought a copy of Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation and made my first batch of sauerkraut.

Fermenting wasn’t always easy. Especially in the beginning, when not only did I not know what I was doing but I was also barely keeping up with parenting two small children while trying to launch a career as a writer. I threw out a jar of sauerkraut because it went mouldy. Freaked out because there was yeast on my cider vinegar. Worried that I was poisoning my family by feeding them fermented beet pickles.

However, by the end of that first year, Una could tolerate eggs, Max could eat processed foods without breaking out in a rash, and I’d learned that I could trust my home-fermented foods. I had more energy and felt healthier than I had in years. So I let go of my uncertainty and embraced the art of fermentation.

With this book, I’m hoping to help you do the same. The recipes are designed for beginners and experts alike. I’ve chosen them for their reliability and simplicity. And they are perfect for people like me, people with busy lives and tiny kitchens. People who don’t necessarily have 24 hours to spend on making a loaf of sourdough bread, or the space to store a crock of sauerkraut or a yogurt maker. Eight years after making my first jar of sauerkraut, my skills and confidence have increased along with my appreciation of the flavours offered by fermentation. Where I used to think of fermented foods just as a way to get a boost of probiotics, I now have a new definition: Fermentation is a quick and simple way to prepare healthy food.

What Is Fermentation & Why Are People Talking About It?

Why are Fermented Foods Popular?

Health

Taste

Affordability

Zero Waste

Types of Fermentation

Yeasts

Bacteria

Mould

Symbiotic Cultures

Scoby

Sourdough

Apple Cider Vinegar

Whether you know it or not, you already love fermentation. Probably most of your favourite foods are fermented. Everything from beer and wine to chocolate, cheese, and bread involves fermentation. It provides a dash of flavour to most meals, whether it comes from the balsamic vinegar in your salad dressing or the soy sauce in your stir-fry. Life would be bland without fermented foods.

Why are Fermented Foods Popular?

Nearly every culinary tradition uses fermentation in one way or another. In the Western world, before we had running water and electricity in our kitchens, fermentation was a hugely important part of food preparation and preservation.

While most people envision barrels of sauerkraut and pickles in farmhouse kitchens when they hear the word fermentation, that barely acknowledges the role that it played in our ancestors’ lives. Milk naturally soured into yogurt and cheese. Grain needed sourdough fermentation to be turned into bread. Often, wild yeast brewed beverages were safer to drink than unfiltered water.

When food hygiene was next to impossible and a snowy winter meant that food was scarce, fermenting became a way to ensure a safe and nutritious diet.

While historically fermentation was vital for year-round access to safe and nutritious food, there has been a huge resurgence in the popularity of fermented foods, primarily as a way to improve gut health and general wellness.

Wondering if you’re ready to join the fermentation revival? Here are a few reasons so many people love making their own fermented foods.

Health

Much of the recent interest in fermentation comes from an increased understanding that probiotics are good for our health and general well-being. This is supported by a growing body of research linking probiotics and fermented foods to all sorts of health benefits.

So why are fermented foods and probiotics so good for your health? It all comes down to your microbiome.

Your microbiome comprises all the microbes that live in and on your body. Your body is a tiny (micro) home (biome) for yeasts, bacteria, fungi, and viruses. Microbes live everywhere: on your skin, in your lungs, and in your digestive system. In fact, human cells make up less than half of the cells in your body.¹

So it isn’t surprising that the health of your microbiome would greatly impact your general health and well-being.

Here are just a few ways that your microbiome can impact your health:

Your microbiome is your first line of defence against infections. It supports healthy immune functioning.²

The microbiome supports gut health and digestion by helping to break down foods and absorb nutrients.³

There are links between alterations in the microbiome and cancer.⁴

There is growing evidence that the microbiome plays a role in the development, or prevention, of obesity and type 2 diabetes.⁵

If you have a sweet tooth, it is quite likely because you have sugar-loving microbes in your digestive system.⁶

From this short, and by no means complete, list of how our microbiome can influence our health, it’s pretty clear that caring about the health of your microbiome is practically the same thing as caring about your personal health.

Many factors contribute to the make-up of your microbiome: what you eat, the air quality where you live,⁷

and the microbiomes of everyone you come into contact with.

Your microbiome is equally affected by everything you do to prevent bacterial and viral infections, including taking antibiotics and using antibacterial cleaning products and hand sanitizer. I definitely recommend taking the advice of your doctor and local health officials in regard to antibacterial and antiviral measures. I wouldn’t be here without the help of modern medicine. However, there are plenty of dietary changes you can make to keep your microbiome healthy:

Make your own fermented foods. This will not only give you some good-quality probiotics, it will also improve the wild strains of yeast and bacteria in your home, providing a dose of probiotics for your skin and lungs.

Eat lots of prebiotic foods. Prebiotic foods are carbohydrates that enter the intestine mostly undigested. They feed the microbes in your digestive system. Anything that is high in fibre or resistant starch is considered prebiotic. Unlike other starches, fibre and resistant starch are not broken down early in the digestive system, and they are mainly digested by microbes in the large intestine. Foods that contain high amounts of fibre or resistant starch include whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, raw and unpeeled vegetables and fruits, and starches that have been cooked then cooled.

Avoid refined sugar and all alternative sweeteners. White sugar, honey, maple syrup, and fruit juice feed sugar-loving microbes. Many alternative sweeteners are not digested by our bodies, which makes them low-glycemic and fine for diabetics. However, they also enter the intestine undigested and feed the sugar-loving microbes. If you have a sweet tooth, try to stick to raw fruits with the skin on or whole-grain baked goods, which will provide a dose of fibre with the sugar. This will slow down digestion and feed your microbiome at the same time. While this cookbook isn’t exactly sugar-free, I have plenty of sugar-free recipes on my website: FermentingForFoodies.com

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Taste

Japanese chefs understand exactly how important fermentation is for bringing umami to meals. Umami is the savoury richness found in broth and meats, as well as many fermented foods. From miso to fermented pickles, fermented foods are perfect for adding a TON of flavour. One of the main reasons fermented foods are so good at making dishes taste amazing is that they are a natural source of monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG.

Unfortunately, MSG has a pretty bad reputation because of the white powdered MSG that is added to processed foods. However, natural MSG is a cook’s best friend. That’s because glutamate is an excitatory neurotransmitter. This means that your taste buds get really excited when you eat foods that contain MSG. So adding a bit of natural MSG to your meal enhances the flavour of food and the overall taste experience.

While MSG is found in certain foods—mushrooms and tomatoes, for example—it is also created by fermentation. That is why adding a bit of wine, vinegar, soy sauce, miso, or cheese to a dish makes the whole meal