A History of Air and Fire

Welcome back to this fourth installment in my essay series about fermentation, and how it can transform your food – and your life…

In the previous essays, we talked about what fermentation is, from two different angles. What we haven’t answered yet, though, is the question “Why” – as in “Why am I writing a full essay series about fermentation in the first place?”, and even more importantly “Why should you read it and follow along?”

In order to answer this (very valid) question, we’ll first need to talk about why people throughout the ages have been making copious use of fermentation in all its forms…

For example, why do we produce and buy cheese? Why do people hand down sauerkraut pots or some special fermentation vessels for their local kind of beer to their kids and grandkids? Why did somebody, way back when, start to ferment grains or flour and bake bread with them?

Hm, it seems that answering this question about “why” might not be as simple as we might have hoped for, doesn’t it? So let’s start with the most accessible point of reference – with ourselves.

For example, why do you buy and eat cheese?

(Of course, that’s assuming you do! 😀 If not, simply play pretend and follow along, please.)

And hey, we finally found a question which is (seemingly – but we’ll get back to this soon) easy to answer: We buy and eat cheese because we like the taste and because we enjoy eating it.

So how about wine or beer, why do people buy and drink them? Again, because they like the taste and enjoy drinking them, of course. But already things are starting to become more complex. As of course, wine and beer contain alcohol, and people drink alcoholic beverages for all sorts of reasons, and not just because they enjoy the taste.

Obviously, alcohol has its very own effects on us, on our bodies and our consciousness. Alcohol (or rather: not alcohol in itself, but the act of drinking alcoholic beverages with groups of people) is also a powerful means of group-building and of bonding.

And throughout the ages and across many cultures, alcoholic beverages have also been used in various ways for spiritual and religious purposes, e.g. as sacrifices, for connecting with higher beings or to carry energies and charges from higher realms down to us.

Quite clearly, the seemingly simple question of “why” is leading us down a veritable maze of answers, isn’t it? 🙂

Let’s have a look at another ferment then, the one we started the series with: sauerkraut.

In a comment to the very first essay of this series, one of my readers reported how he never liked kraut until he tried the actual “live”, i.e. non-pasteurized, sauerkraut.

Now, I have to admit I’ve never tried the store-bought kind.

(I mean, why would you? Making your own batch of sauerkraut is really, really easy, costs almost nothing and tastes soooo good!)

So I don’t really have a direct comparison. But if the difference is anything like the difference between mass-produced bread and home-made sourdough bread… Yuck!!

The more pleasant taste (and texture!) of a home-made ferment isn’t the only point of interest to us here, though. Instead, it’s the point that people buy and eat mass-produced sauerkraut in the first place, even though it’s shockingly expensive and doesn’t even taste great…

They do this for the same reason for which a sizeable number of customers spends quite a bit more to buy yoghurt with “live” cultures – health.

(We’ll get back to these yoghurts and their cultures in a later essay, btw – there is an interesting lesson in there all in itself!)

The fact that fermented foods are healthy is commonplace knowledge. You know, gut health. Improved digestion. Anti-inflammatory. Anti-microbial. Anti-everything. Fermented foods even clean your fridge from the inside while being stored there!

I’m just kidding with the latter, of course, and don’t aim to make any health claims with the former. I’m also going to take mercy on both you and me and will thus refrain from citing any studies which meticulously prove or disprove this or that health benefit of some specific kind of fermented food, ingested under conditions which will never occur in somebody’s everyday life, and financed either by the producers of said commercially available food product or by their competitors… 😉

Instead, I want to encourage you to simply eat more fermented foods – and then judge the effects (or non-effects) on your health for yourself!

(Bonus points if said foods (and drinks) contain living fermentation critters. And you’ll graduate with honours from this series if you actually ferment a sizeable chunk of these goodies yourself!)

So far in our exploration, we’ve already identified quite a few very good Why’s – reasons why people produce, eat and drink fermented foods:

Taste, and by extension other senses: smell, touch, sight, and mouth feeling. And with taste comes the enjoyment of eating an appealing and tastey piece of food.

Certain effects on our body and our consciousness, e.g. through alcohol.

Group-building, bonding, and social cohesion within a group – and also shared enjoyment, of course.

A connection to the spiritual world and the Divine in all its many forms, and in various ways: for example through food or drink sacrifices, through altered states of consciousness, or through transfer and storage of energy (as e.g. in the Christian Communion).

And finally, health benefits and other physical effects to come with them.

This is a sizeable list of reasons, isn’t it? But amazingly enough, it’s not complete yet, by far not – some of the answers to “Why ferment things?” which have been very important to humans throughout the ages are still missing from our collection. Let’s have a look at some more kinds of fermented goodies then, shall we?

We already talked about yoghurt and cheese a bit further up, but of course there are all sorts of other fermented milk products. Sour milk for example, or kefir, and a vast amount of others, most of them only practiced in some specific cultures or groups. There seems to be a pattern there – wherever humans have milk, there used to be fermentation.

And come to think of, this isn’t really a big surprise. Milk, especially raw milk, doesn’t store very well. Fermented milk e.g. in the form of sour milk or other fermented milk products, stores a lot better. Or, to be more precise: the (desired) fermentation cultures prevent some other, less desired, cultures from developing or taking over.

Thus we can add conservation of foodstuffs to our already impressive list of “good reasons to ferment things”…

Another fermented goodie we haven’t only talked about, but which you’ve already done a homework on, is bread. And (as will become much clearer from today’s homework) the sourdough in your bread fills a very specific role, namely the role of leavening agent.

Or, in plainer words: Without the fermentation process, your homemade bread would resemble a dense brick.

This leavening and fluffing up of your sourdough bread is caused by one of fermentation’s outputs, namely the gases.

(Remember the smell of the sauerkraut in my basement? Yep, those gases…)

It’s hardly surprising then that the English word leaven has its roots in the Latin verb levare, to raise or to lift. The Latin levare, in turn, has its much older roots in the Proto-Indo-European *legwh-, which, judging by its descendants in various Indo-European languages, must have meant something like “not heavy” or “having little weight”:

Besides the Latin levare and by extension leaven, some of the other great-great-great-grand-children of *legwh- are, for example, English words like “alleviate”, “elevate”, “light” (not the shining one, but the one which has little weight…), “relief”, and, apparently, also “lung”.

(As for the connection to the lungs, I stumbled upon the speculation that it used to be called “the light organ” because in a pot full of whatever comes from a slaughtered animal, the lungs would float on top, whereas other organs would sink to the bottom of the pot. Yes, I know it’s gross. I’ve also never cooked lung, so can’t confirm that this tidbit is true – but it was too fascinating not to pass on! 😀

For what it’s worth, my personal assumption as to these roots would rather have been that the lungs, through their obvious function, are connected to the not-heavy and upwards drifting element of Air. But hey, to each their own!)

In any case, the function of fermentation as leavening agent seems to have a loooong history – as evidenced by its roots. A surefire method of “lifting up” things like a heavy and dense dough must have been a very valuable tool for people at times when commercial yeast couldn’t be bought in a store just around the corner.

Incidentally, this “leavening” or rising up isn’t just important for food, though, but also for drinks. After all, sparkling wine and the foam on beer don’t come out of nowhere, but are another byproduct of fermentation’s gas output – although, granted, mass-produced beer and sparkling wine nowadays probably get their sparkle and bubble from artificially added gases and not from natural fermentation. But still…

But there is yet another thing which fermentation adds, for example, to sourdough bread, and which we haven’t talked about yet. Imagine bread without any leavening agent – dense like a brick. Eating it would not just have been hard on the teeth, but also on your stomach and digestive system.

And indeed, a lot of people report that they can tolerate real sourdough bread much better than they can tolerate yeast bread (or bread with whatever other leavening agents are nowadays in commercial use…).

This is only anecdotal evidence, of course, and your mileage may vary. But if “normal” bread always makes you feel full or bloated, or if you can’t digest it well, sourdough bread might be worth a try.

Thus we can add two more good reasons for people to ferment their food to our list: Fermentation’s ability to “pre-digest” food and to make its components easier to digest for us, and its function as leavening agent and for introducing gases (aka bubbles) to the ferment.

There is yet another reason for people to ferment their food and drinks, though – and it has to do both with my sauerkraut pot and with the roots of the word ferment…

The term ferment, again, has its roots in Latin, or to be more specific in the Latin word fermentum which means things like fermentation itself, yeast, a drink of fermented barley, sour, and, interestingly enough, also passion.

Fermentum was presumably derived from another Latin term, namely the verb fervere. It can mean things like to be hot, to boil or burn, to seethe, to be turbulent, to be warm, aroused or inflamed, and to be busy or agitated. The element underlying the concept of fervere is, quite clearly, Fire.

And come to think of, while fermentation produces gases and raises things (through the element of Air and its Proto-Indo-European root of *legwh-), it also adds some “Fire” to the things which are fermented. Once started, fermentation is a passionate process, boiling over, and can be rather turbulent.

(Very likely, your sourdough bread hasn’t shown that much passion yet… but we’ll get to other homeworks later in the series which will illustrate this point quite nicely! 😉 )

So is there another Proto-Indo-European root, a root which introduced the element of Fire into the ethymology of fermentation? Indeed there is, namely the root *bhreu-.

Its meaning, as far as researchers can tell, amounted to something like to boil, to bubble, to burn. And consequently, some of its contemporary great-great-great-grand-kids are terms like the English to braize, bratwurst (from German “braten”), broth, broil, effervescent, fervor and, fittingly enough, bread and to brew.

Quite an illustrious family tree, isn’t it? 😀

But what have the (airy and fiery) roots of the terms “ferment” and “leaven” to do with the sauerkraut pot in my basement – and how does the connection between them denote yet another reason for people (all over the world and throughout the ages) to ferment their food and drinks?

Well, we’ll get to this next time… For today, though, I still owe you something else:

So far, we have compiled quite a list of reasons to ferment food and drinks. Mind you, they are all very good and very convincing reasons to ferment more in our kitchens and our cellars (and to enjoy the fruits of our fermentation, of course)!

But this list, impressive as it might be, answers only one part of the question “Why” – namely why people ferment in the first place.

What it doesn’t answer is the other part: Why am I going to spend the better part of this year, and a lot of time and effort, on an essay series about fermentation? Couldn’t you just look up this stuff in cookbooks and on food blogs elsewhere?

Well, yes and no.

Yes, you could certainly look up recipes as in the Hands-On Homework sections elsewhere. After all, recipes abound, and fermentation instructions, too.

And no, you couldn’t just find the same stuff elsewhere – or at least I have never encountered anything like this series here before…

For as I’m sure you have noticed, this isn’t just a series of recipes. It’s also not just a practical course on how to ferment things (although it is that, too).

Instead, this essay series is a course in what I’m going to call “Inner Fermentation” – the art, the challenge and the joy of fermenting yourself first and foremost.

Throughout this series, we will ferment ourselves – with passion and fervor, Air and Fire, sometimes lightly and sometimes a bit more turbulently, we are going to brew and elevate some things in ourselves…

And this, dear reader, is the reason why each essay doesn’t just include a Hands-On Homework, but also an Inner Fermentation Homework. And I sincerely hope you will not just read (and hopefully enjoy) these essays, but will also participate in the homeworks and apply them to your own benefit.

Oh, and lest you think that we will only be concerned with two of the four elements, and the other two might fall by the wayside… now that would be mean to poor Earth and Water, wouldn’t it? Of course we won’t do that – they will simply have their grand entrance later! 😉

Inner Fermentation Homework

So let’s tackle your Inner Fermentation Homework first, then, before I lose your attention to today’s Hands-On goodies… 😉

We’ve talked a lot about reasons and purposes today – about more obvious ones and more hidden ones. And we have come up with a rather longish list of reasons for people to ferment food and drinks (and I’m sure that with a bit of diligence, we could expand this list even further).

But as we realized last time, fermentation isn’t just that which happens in your bread dough – it’s also an underlying principle. And this principle can be applied to other things in life, things besides cabbage (aka soon-to-be kraut), milk (aka soon-to-be cheese) and grape juice (aka soon-to-be wine).

In particular, it can be applied to yourself: to your thoughts, your actions, your emotions, your habits.

Thus your homework for today is as follows:

During the two weeks until the next essay comes up, examine situations in your life (including your own actions and reactions, but also those of others) with a focus on reasons and purposes.

Why do you do what you do, think what you think, feel what you feel?

And why do you not do (think, feel) what you don’t do (think, feel)?

The same question, of course, applies to the other affected parties in each situation: What are their reasons and their purposes?

While you do this, keep in mind one very important lesson from today’s essay:

Apart from very rare circumstances, there is usually more than one good reason for people to do (think, feel) what they do. And usually, at least some of people’s reasons and purposes aren’t fully obvious and in plain sight.

(And just for the records, “people” here very much includes you and me!)

Thus for those two weeks, contemplate not what you and others do (think, feel), but why you do it – and while you reflect on it, be open to the idea that one person, including you, might have more than one reason and more than one purpose in each given situation, and that some of them might not be as obvious as others…

Hands-On Fermentation Homework: Sourdough Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today’s essay was all about the “Why” of fermentation: its purpose and effects, and what you can achieve with it. And correspondingly, your Hands-On Homework today makes use of fermentation to achieve one specific purpose – and it’s not the one you might expect from a sourdough recipe!

(And on top of this learning experience, it will also gift you with a plate of absolutely delicious chocoloate chip cookies – another good reason to do your homework… 😉 )

Stuff you need

The recipe below contains a seemingly weird mixture of US volume measurements (cups etc) and European weight measurements (grams). I found the original recipe on a US website, and over time have slightly simplified and adapted it to suit our needs and tastes, hence the discrepancy.

In order to follow along with today’s homework, you need:

• 1 cup (240 ml) of sugar (brown, white, or cane)
• 13 Tbsp (185 g) butter (at room temperature)
• 1 egg (medium-large; 2 if very small)
• 3/4 cup (180 ml) of your starter
• 1 3/4 cup (420 ml) of all-purpose flour
• a small pinch of ground vanilla (alternatively vanilla extract; or a good quality vanilla sugar to replace part of the sugar above)
• a generous pinch of ground cardamom
• a generous pinch of ground cinamon
• a pinch of salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 200 g chocolate chips (dark, milk or white
• baking tray and (optional) baking paper
• a mixing bowl, a smaller bowl, mixer or food processor (or a whisk and decent arm muscles… 😉 )

Feel free to adjust the amount and kind of sugar and spices to suit your own taste. In case you want to experiment, other optional and fitting spice choices would be ground ginger, nutmeg or allspice.

Note that unlike for the bread recipe, you can’t put some dough back into your starter jar in the middle of this recipe! I.e. you need to keep some in the jar in order to keep your culture. But you can certainly use this opportunity to feed your starter, or to beef it up a bit with additional food in case your cookie baking efforts should have depleted it somewhat…

Important: Even if you don’t plan to continue with your sourdough after today’s Homework, don’t throw away your starter quite yet (and don’t use all of it in the cookies.) We will still need it for one more Homework in two weeks!

Instructions

1. In the mixing bowl, whisk the soft butter and the sugar. They should be well whisked up and fluffy.
2. Add the egg and the spices, and again whisk up well.
3. Stir in the starter.
4. Mix flour, salt and baking soda throughly in the separate bowl
5. Fold this mixture of dry ingredients into the wet mass. Don’t overmix, or you’ll beat all the hard-won air out of your dough again.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Cover the bowl, and refrigerate it for at least an hour, and up to half a day (see notes below).
8. Once your dough has properly rested (and fermented, see below), preheat your oven to 175°C / 350°F upper and lower heat.
9. Use a tablespoon to set heaps of dough onto your baking tray. I usually use baking paper, but to note if you don’t: The original recipe strictly advises against greasing your tray. I’ve never tried, just passing this nugget on.

   The dough itself is rather sticky, and it’s easiest to work with two spoons to set piles on the tray. I also don’t measure exactly, but just take a generously overflowing tablespoon of dough for each cookie and plop it onto the tray.

   Make sure you leave enough space between your future cookies, as the dough will flow apart and spread – depending on their size, up to or about 12 cookies per tray will work fine (i.e. you’ll need to bake two trays, plan accordingly).

10. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes (the actual time depends on your oven, the size of your cookies, and on how mellow or crisp you like your cookies).
11. Take them out of the oven, and let them rest on the tray for a few minutes. Then transfer to a wire cooling rack (or eat them right away, they’re delicious while warm!).

Some remarks on resting times and on fermentation

You might have noted with some bewilderment that this recipe uses baking soda. I mean, isn’t this supposed to be a course on fermentation? Then why don’t we use fermentation to let the cookies rise?

We could do that, of course (although, in all fairness, I’ve never tried with this particular recipe, and thus can’t vouch for the results). But sourdough, even rye sourdough, can perfectly well be used to ferment and help rise a lot of other things, and not just bread – yep, including sweet treats!

Still, I’ve decided to use these chocolate chip cookies for today’s Hands-On Homework for two reasons:

First, this recipe very helpfully stresses one of the take-aways of today’s essay, namely that fermentation has many “Why”s – many reasons, many effects, many purposes. In this particular case, we’re making use of your sourdough starter (and of fermentation) not to help a dough to rise, but to add flavour…

And secondly, the cookies are simply delicious, and I wouldn’t want to deprive you of them! 😀

So, about the resting time and some other related stuff:

As I said, the effect of the sourdough starter in this recipe is to add flavour. But letting the dough rest in the fridge might seem somewhat counter-productive, as it will slow down fermentation. The main purpose of refrigeration in this case is to make the dough somewhat easier to handle.

It’s a bit of a sticky mess anyway, especially as there is a sizeable amount of rye-based starter in it – hence my advice to use two spoons for setting the “balls” of dough onto your baking tray…

Refrigerating the dough for an hour makes it at least a bit easier to handle. (Although I’ve also put the covered bowl into a cooler room instead of into the fridge on occasion, and it also worked out ok, albeit a bit stickier).

The minimum resting time, about an hour in the fridge, consequently doesn’t allow for much fermentation, but is more or less the minimum of what you need to let the dough come together and for it to chill through. I.e. if you go with the minimum resting time, your cookies will only have a hint of a sour zing (coming from the starter), which is also attenuated somewhat by the sweet spices.

If you want more of a sourdough punch, you will need to let it rest longer, for up to half a day or overnight, depending on your taste. If you’re in more of a hurry, you could also let the dough rest outside of the fridge first to speed up fermentation, and then only refrigerate for the last hour or so.

Either way, feel free to experiment with different resting times until you have found your personal sweet spot. (and these delicious cookies make experimenting with yet another batch soooo tempting… 😉 )

Conclusions and Outlook

In the next essay, we’re going to finally figure out what the roots of the terms ferment and leaven have to do with my kraut pot – and with an important part and purpose of fermentation throughout history and in cultures all over the world…

I hope you (and your loved ones, in case you are generous enough to share… 😉 ) are going to enjoy the cookies!

The next essay will go up on on Sunday, March 29th. And as usual, I’m looking forward to your thoughts, questions and comments below! 🙂

---

Image: Theo Topolevsky on Unsplash