So it's bye-bye to kale, sayonara to quinoa and ta-ta to gluten-free in 2015 as we shove them unceremoniously in the proverbial dustbin we like to call "Rubbish Foodie Trends started by someone American" and a warm welcome to Eastern-style ferments. Pickles. Sour things. Things that make you go "mwah".
Before you start, it's not that weird. Think the sauerkraut on your hot dog, the now-ubiquitous kimchi, sourdough bread, (proper) yoghurt, the fresh tang of dill pickles with your burger, but also look out for tempeh (a fermented soybean burger), kefir (a fermented milk drink) or kombucha tea. But beware: not all pickles are fermented and not all ferments are pickles. Pickles are just veg preserved in an acidic medium, most usually vinegar. They're great and tasty and better for you than a cookie. But the real gold is in the ferments, where a starter culture, salt and filtered water create an acidic liquid that does pickle but also essentially ferments just like alcohol. The process allows the highly beneficial lactobacillli bacteria that live on the surface of EVERYTHING to create lactic acid and that's what our bodies really want. Apparently (We're not sure if this applies equally to wine but we're including it anyway...).
The health benefits are pretty all-encompassing, according to dieticians, nutritionists and countries whose cultures embraced pickling as preservation centuries ago (think Poland, East Asia, Germany and Eastern Europe, Scandinavia). The probiotic and enzymatic value of fermentation is off the scale. It enhances the vitamin content of foods; it preserves and enhances the enzyme content (no we're not sure of what that is either, but hey, we're sucked right in); it improves the absorption of nutrients; and it improves digestibility. This last is the biggie: those in the know are swearing by the use of fermented foods in the treatment not just of IBS and other gut-related problems, even going so far as to cite them as beneficial in warding off cancer, but also improving various skin diseases including severe acne, eczema and psoriasis.
Where to find them is a bit trickier, especially if you're going to insist on them accompanying every meal you have, which the experts recommend. Restaurant-land hasn't really caught up with this, apart from a few newbies in London Town. You're far better off sourcing them online or in ethnic shops, but again this is one trend that's much cheaper and simpler to make at home, especially the vegetables and nearly everyone can access some half-decent sourdough these days - not supermarket ones...
Frankly, we're really liking this trend and we're hoping it sticks around. For one, it makes a change to introduce lip-smacking tang and sourness to our overly-sweetened diets (there is NOTHING more refreshing than pickles with ribs or burgers, for example); for another, it's a culture that's been around for centuries, an olden-day food trend that we've let slide in these crazy days of electricity and a Maccie D's on every corner, one that preserved our food for weeks and months to come, seeing us through winter, keeping us alive until the waters flowed again *stares mystically into the far past*. Without knowing it, we were enhancing our enzymes and improving our probiotics; now we're subject to all kinds of gut-related disasters that may be preventable. And that's got to be worth getting pickled over.
