A Journey Back in Time

Welcome back to this fifth installment in my essay series about “Fermentation and Inner Work”, where we explore the world of fermentation – both the edible one and the one inside of you…

In the preceding essay, we talked about the “why” – as in both “Why have people throughout the ages and in all cultures made use of fermentation?”, and “Why an essay series about fermentation in the first place?”. We also mulled over the roots of the words “ferment” and “leaven”, and about fermentation’s close relationship to the elements of air and fire.

While today’s essay starts out where we left off, it will lead us far from here – and will also give us our first glimpse of another element’s importance for fermentation…

As you might remember, two weeks ago I teased you with the prospect of yet one more reason why people ferment their food and drinks, a reason which also has connections to my sauerkraut pot and to the roots of fermentation. In order to carve out this reason, we’ll need to go on another journey together – a journey back in time.

Ready for the trip? It’s a good thing we’ve got our time capsule at hand! Fitting all of us in is a bit of a squeeze, but once we’re all inside the capsule and the doors close behind us, we can hit Go.

The place we’re going to visit is a German city called Nürnberg. During our trip back in time in Nürnberg, our capsule travels past the Nuremberg trials (yes, it’s that town of Nürnberg!), past the rallies of the Nazi party, past the industrialisation of the region, past the foundation of the kingdom of Bavaria, and past the 30-year war which devastated large parts of Europe.

Snuggled up in the close confines of the time capsule, we travel yet further back, into the Late Middle Ages, the time when Nuremberg was one of the most important towns of Germany the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the town in which each German king held his first “Reichstag”, the convention where the king met with all the important people.

While it is tempting to interrupt our journey there, to visit the town in its late medieval prime, as an important center of trade and commerce, we haven’t reached the end of our journey yet (or rather, its starting point…).

(Yes, I’d much prefer a short stopover, too, as the air in here is starting to become a bit stale. Still, we’re almost there, and we’ll all get to stretch our legs soon.)

A few centuries further back in time we hurl, until our capsule starts to slow down and finally stops. The doors open, and we step outside, only to find ourselves on the town square of medieval Norenberc, as it was called back then. The clock on the capsule reads “July 16th, 1050” – which, incidentally, is the day Nürnberg was mentioned in a document for the first time.

(Or rather, it’s the earliest preserved document which mentions the town’s name. There must have been others before that for sure, as evidenced by the fact that Nürnberg was important even back then – this so-called “Sigena Deed” was issued by Emperor Heinrich III. in person on a stopover in Nürnberg, where he held a convention with some other bigwigs of the time. Which, in turn, means that right now we’re in the same town as the Holy Roman Emperor himself – now ain’t that cool?)

The market square is crammed, of course, as the news of the Emperor’s stay have brought a lot of people into town: craftsmen, peddlers of various wares, noblemen and their servants, petitioners who want to gain some favour from the Emperor at the convention, businessmen hoping to make some profitable deals, and of course all sorts of riff-raff.

(You better cling to your purses, folks, as the pickpockets back then weren’t any less nimble than they are nowadays!).

Orienting ourselves in the crowd, we spot several taverns around the square – the ideal place to stretch our backs and moisten our throats with a cold (fermented 😉 ) one after the somewhat tiring trip. But unfortunately, all of them are filled to overflowing – apparently, we aren’t the only people who had this grand plan…

Somewhat disappointed, we extricate ourselves from the excited crowd in the main square, and gather in one of the side alleys where it’s a bit quieter, when we spot an invitingly open door, and a small crudely drawn sign which seems to depict a tankard of sorts. From the inside, lively voices can be heard. And when we draw nearer, it’s rather clear that this, too, is a tavern of sorts, and so we enter…

In a tiny (and not exactly spotlessly clean) room, several people are having what looks like a pitcher of ale. The furniture consists of a motley assortment of ramshackle stools, and a barrel on a small table in one corner. A boy enters right before us with an empty tankard. The (unfortunately also not exactly spotlessly clean) woman which had been sitting next to the table rises, fills the tankard with some liquid from the barrel, and a couple of coins exchange hands.

This looks promising, and we are thirsty enough to focus on the liquid, and not on the state of the room. 😉 After a short discussion involving a copious amount of handwaving and finger-signalling (unless your medieval German is any better than mine? No? Well, thought so…), the woman produces some empty tankards from somewhere and fills them for us.

(It’s a good thing one of you had the foresight to put some medieval coins into their pocket – way to go, mate!)

Stepping to the side, we raise the brew in a toast to the noble donor, and take the first, tentative sip…

It’s a fermented drink, that much is clear. The liquid inside could be an ale, only it isn’t quite. The smell is somewhat different, more herbal. And the taste… the taste is something else entirely. Like a beer, but then not a beer. More herbal. A bit bitter also, but not the bitterness of hops, but another note.

It tastes… well, it tastes great, especially after the long and cramped journey in our time capsule.

And before we know it, we’ve all emptied our tankards down to the very last drop. Returning them to the brewer with ample praise (although she doesn’t understand a word we say, our intent must be fairly obvious), we stagger back into the narrow side alley – where we realize, to our amazement, that this “beer” (for lack of a better word) has gone straight to our heads.

(And that’s not just for the lightweights among us, mind you! Even the sturdiest of us is feeling the effects of this seemingly light drink quite clearly.)

Obviously, whatever had gone into this mysterious (and delicious) beverage is something more than just hops and malt. But hey, who are we to complain about a great drink? Feeling a bit light-headed, but refreshed, we return to the main town square, with only miniscule use of the alley walls for course correction on the way, and enter our time capsule among animated chatter and relaxed laughter.

A hearty press on the right button closes the door, and another press on Go makes the capsule move through time again – but this time forward, closer to the present.

This leg of the trip is, thankfully, much shorter. We’re still bubbling over with excitement from our first Nürnberg experience in 1050, when the capsule door opens yet again onto what must be the same town square. The capsule clock shows the year 1303, and our first glance around the square is almost a shock:

Where before we encountered an exuberant, lively mass of people, the atmosphere is strikingly different now. Some vendors still peddle their wares on the almost empty square, but a lot of the stalls look decidedly bare. People shuffle around listleslly, and the few who talk with others do so in a hushed tone. Excitement has given way to a depressive and almost hopeless atmosphere.

Somewhat puzzled, we take it all in, and then decide to try our luck in the same side alley again as last time. After all, the hidden tavern might still exist, and maybe the great-great-great-whatnot-daughter of our earlier brewer is still serving this delicious beverage!

But alas, we have no such luck – the door which was invitingly open last time is now firmly closed, and there is no handdrawn sign of a tankard anywhere in sight. After some more fruitless search up and down some other narrow alleys, we finally return to the market square, where the big, bold signs of the larger taverns still dangle in the slight breeze.

We consider having a drink there (and some hearty lunch – after all, we’ve been travelling for quite a while now!), but the gloomy atmosphere doesn’t feel inviting at all. After a quick discussion, we all agree that lunch will have to wait for the next stop, and enter the capsule again, which obligingly starts moving with a slight purr upon a press of the button. What a very weird experience, especially in contrast to our first stop!

Our very last stop on this curious trip takes us to the very tail end of the Middle Ages, when Nürnberg was a very big and important center, not just politically and commercially, but also in art. Again we exit our capsule right there on the market square – and again, alas, there are no small taverns to be found in any of the narrow side alleys.

We do see a couple of people disappearing behind a wooden door after a conspicious series of knocks and conclude that there must be some moonshining going on, but it is quite obvious that these people are afraid of being discovered by the authorities, and would not welcome us as strangers barging into their hideout.

If we want another one of these delicious drinks, then, it seems we’ll have to make do with the larger and more prestigious (and probably also more expensive) taverns around the town square and along the main roads and try to get one there.

Well, so be it – after all, we haven’t had lunch yet, and that earlier drink is still having fun inside of our heads and minds…

It turns out that the prices in these official taverns really are outrageous in comparison, and that the beer, while being a decent beer, is quite bland in comparison to the beverage we got to enjoy earlier. It tastes… well, it tastes like beer. A good beer, to be sure, but simply beer. No herbal undertone, no exciting and somewhat exotic smell and taste. Just a good, old-fashioned, slightly bitter beer.

Any attempts at getting the innkeeper to pour us some of the other stuff are fruitless – if we interpret his gesturing correctly, that stuff is not available anymore. A shame, really!

(Although it might also be a blessing in disguise, given that the first drink went straight to our heads and made us somewhat giddy, and at least this second beer doesn’t have any unusual effects.)

After emptying both our tankards and the plates of delicious bread and meat which we had wisely ordered to fill our empty stomachs, we make our way yet again back to our trusted capsule. Alas, it hasn’t become any wider, and so we squeeze in again one last time, and return back to the present, and to this essay…

This was a weird trip, wasn’t it? Quite clearly, something must have happened to significantly change the way beer was brewed in the Middle Ages and beyond, or rather: several somethings – and quite probably not just in Nürnberg.

But what, and why?

The tradition of brewing beer, or rather: our perception thereof, has been shaped by so-called “purity laws”. After all, besides water and yeast, a “good” beer contains just hops and malt – or doesn’t it?

Well, for us, nowadays, yes.

(At least in Germany. Other countries have other laws and regulations, and thus your mileage may well vary!)

But this hadn’t always been the case – as we experienced ourselves, back at our first stop in the Nürnberg of 1050, in that dirty little tavern in the narrow side alley…

Back then, and for centuries (and possibly millenia) before that, people brewed what we’d nowadays call beer, or ale – but not just from hops and malted barley, but from all sorts of ingredients:

A variety of herbs and spices went into the bowls, jars and kegs, together with the local water, and with some source of nutrient for the fermentation critters. The latter sometimes was malted barley, sure, but people also used other grains, or other sources of sugars or carbs like honey (crossing the boundary to mead).

Their recipes? Traded down within families, improved over generations, and dependent on their local sources and their surroundings.

Of course, the taste of these beverages, these ales and beers or however else they were called, varied wildly depending on the ingredients and their treatment. And with each person being free to brew as they pleased, everybody could produce and sell beverages – at first, that is.

Then happened what always seems to happen in organized human societies: bureaucracy took over, rules and regulations where passed (always for a good and reasonable cause, of course!), and, in equally time-honoured fashion, some people knew how to exploit them (or to get them passed in their favour) for money or for influence.

In short, humans did what humans usually do – and the variety of what might have been called “beer” throughout the centuries shrank dramatically.

Nowadays, we’d hardly recognize some of these earlier drinks as beers at all. But to a tavern dweller from the Nürnberg of the Early Middle Ages, our selection of what we call beer must look laughably simple and narrow – and disgustingly bland and dampening.

(Nope, the last word isn’t a typo, but we’ll get to that further down…)

Thus back at our first stop, at the Nürnberg documented in the earliest preserved Emperor’s deed, what we encountered was the still lively and thriving culture of home-made beverage fermentation from a wide variety of ingredients.

The ale which the brewer served us in her small room in that narrow side alley might have contained malted barley, but it might just as well have contained some other grains instead.

And there might have been some hops in it, but most likely not – after all, there were so many wild herbs to choose from in the countryside surrounding the town!

And with Nürnberg’s status as a major town of trade and commerce, she will most likely also have had access to some exotic spices, and not just to the ones growing in her small town yard’s garden, or bought from a local farmer at the market.

Thus what we enjoyed back there was a herbal ale unlike any we can get nowadays, and probably unlike any we can imagine.

(Although, of course, traditions can be revived, and recipes re-discovered or re-invented. And who knows, we might just talk about brewing some sort of herbal drinks again later in this series… 😉 )

It contained a combination of various herbs, brewed according to a highly guarded secret recipe, honed over generations of homebrewers and small innkeepers. And of course, everybody in the neighbourhood knew exactly whether he (or she) preferred this innkeeper’s ale or that of the brewer one alley over.

Of course, everybody also knew exactly which of these fermented drinks had which kinds of effects. And quite likely, a lot of people were brewing some drinks for their families at home, too, with herbs and and other ingredients selected specifically for their effects:

Some for health, some for taste, some for spiritual or religious reasons (at least back before the Christian churches started keeping a close eye on these things, that is), and some for their inebriating or psychoactive effects.

The last word is not a mistake, btw. There are records of “beers” which contained such interesting components as henbane, a plant of the nightshade family. Henbane is fairly poisonous (and can be deadly). It’s also psychoactive, as evidenced by the fact that it was an important component of the “flying ointment” allegedly used by medieval witches to fly (although “flying” in this case probably means one’s mind or soul taking off, rather than one’s body…).

Even such powerful herbs as henbane were sometimes used in everyday beer, albeit only in small amounts. But other herbs have effects, too… And as you can imagine, and as experienced from our drink back in that medieval town’s side alley, the combined effects of all the ingredients of some such beers would have been quite unexpected, as least for people like us who are used to hop-based beers! 😉

For hop also has some very distinct influence on us, even though we usually don’t question it when we think about beer! Among other things, it has a tranquilizing effect.

(Some of its components also have estrogen-like effects on human bodies – which, ironically, makes beer a beverage not very well suited for a lot of men…)

So what changed? Why and how did this longstanding and very intricate and rich tradition of fermenting beverages become so much narrower and less varied?

Well, as I said before, the normal course of life in human societies happened. Rules and regulations were imposed – all of them for good reasons, of course!

For example, Nürnberg experienced a major famine in 1303, at the time of our second visit – which, incidentally, would explain the subdued and depressive atmosphere we encountered there. And due to this famine, the town council decreed that only malted barley could be used for beer and not any other grains, as these others could be used to bake bread.

Over the course of the next couple of centuries, even more regulations came on top of that, all adding restrictions on the kind of ingredients which could be used in brewing, on the recipes, and the techniques.

The result was what we experienced during the last stop on our journey back in time (and can still drink nowadays): Purity laws, mandating a regulated beer which must only contain certain ingredients, has to be brewed according to specific recipes, using approved techniques.

This doesn’t necessarily make a bad beer, mind you – but it makes for a much blander experience, with a lot less variety and options!

(Of course, bureaucracies being what they are, things like pricing were also sometimes regulated even back then – which might sound great on first glance if you want to have a beer or two with your friends, but apart from the business implications, a restricted price also restricts which kinds of ingredients can be used in a beer…)

Later on, and again for seemingly good reasons like fire safety, the town of Nürnberg started to regulate the buildings in which brewing was allowed at all. Of course, there were public servants to monitor the compliance with all of these rules and regulations, and to meter out fines, which is why the mooonshiners on our last stop in Nürnberg were trying so hard to hide their business…

And just like today, different factions pursued their own interests:

The churches, for example, were happy for beer to only contain hops and no longer any of the multitude of other herbs, as hops in particular made people (especially men) a lot less, uhm, excited and frisky than some of the alternatives.

They, and some other big players in each region, were also more than happy about any regulations which squeezed smaller producers out of the markets, as this increased their own share.

The authorities, in turn, (i.e. the town councils, and the gentry and churches with their holdings) treasured the steady (and verifiable) flow of taxes and income.

(Yes, there are remarkable parallels to certain things today. Just as humans always gonna human, bureaucracies always gonna bureaucracy…)

What fell by the wayside were the small producers, the men and women who brewed and sold their local beers according to age-old recipes, traded down and enhanced in their families for centuries.

What also fell by the wayside is the variety of drinks and brews – and their variety of effects, including healing and spiritual ones. But we’ll talk about the latter in a later essay. Today, our focus is on the tradition of brewing, and how it changed over time.

Of course, people could and still did homebrew to some extent. But not everybody was able to do that, was allowed to, or wanted it, for a variety of reasons. And while some of these age-old brewing traditions might have stayed alive especially in the countryside for much longer, by the time industrialisation had hit with all its effects, they had pretty much gone extinct.

(At least in Western countries. As of course, some century-old kinds of brewing are stlll being practiced elsewhere!)

In short, all of these changes also induced a considerable transformation in the tradition of brewing:

What we know as “beer” nowadays is remarkably different from what a person back in, say, medieval Germany would have considered to be a beer – or rather, one of many possible beers. And for the most part, the people who nowadays celebrate our beer purity laws, because they don’t allow producers to add weird stuff, have no idea what they are missing, and what got lost.

But to me, the amazing thing is not that beer brewing and everything related to it have changed so much over time, in parallel with all the other changes in human lives and our societies.

No, the amazing thing is that we still brew and drink beer!

Just think about how many other things got lost completely over time… and here we are today, and could still meet on Nürnberg’s town square and have a cold one together.

Yes, it’s a different kind of beer for sure – but the traditions of brewing, of malting, of drinking together… they’ve stuck with us, through thick and thin, and through all the changes we as humans and our societies experienced.

And this, dear reader, is the other reason why people ferment food and drinks, and why we eat and drink them: tradition.

As humans, we have long-standing traditions of fermenting and of enjoying fermented goodies. These traditions are rooted so deeply in us and our societies that we cling to them for as much as possible, even through massive change.

And of course, these traditions of fermenting aren’t just shaped by us, and by society’s (written or unwritten) rules and regulations – they also shape us and our culture. But again, we’ll get back to this much later in the series… 😉

So how does all of this relate to my kraut pot?

Quite simply, this pot is part of a tradition. A family tradition, in this case. But it’s not just the pot itself, but also the acts around it, the ordering of the kraut in autumn from a certain source, the way of pressing it into the pot, the family meals and favourite recipes.

And of course, we share this tradition, or remarkably similar ones, with a lot of other families. As humans, we are part of a densely woven net of traditions, within our families, regions, social groups, countries, and peoples.

And as we grow our own roots into the rich soil the people before us have prepared with their traditions, we ourselves establish the soil of traditions on which people after us can grow their roots.

Fermentation is but a small part of this net of traditions – but it’s a structurally integral part, one which has accompanied humans since the dawn of time.

As to the third element besides Air and Fire, the one on which we’ve touched with today’s essay, we’ll get back to it in more depth next time. Although by now you might already have guessed which one it is…

Inner Fermentation Homework

In today’s Inner Fermentation Homework, we’re going to explore (surprise! 😉 ) traditions.

As we have seen from our travel back into medieval Nürnberg, traditions aren’t static – quite the contrary. On the other hand, they do contain some stable core, otherwise they wouldn’t be a tradition, would they?

Another thing to note is that traditions can encompass quite different kinds of groups of humans, they can stretch over vastly different timeframes, and unite or separate different locations.

In the two weeks until the next installment of the series, your task is thus to reflect upon traditions in your own life:

Consider, for example, which traditions you live, either consciously or subconsciously – both in your daily life and on special occasions:

Which of them do you embrace, and which do you only follow grudgingly, or half-heartedly, or because “that’s the way it is done”?

In the next step, reflect on the similarities and differences between the traditions in your life:

For example, which ones are rooted in your immediate family or any other small group of people, and wouldn’t mean much, if anything, to people outside? Which ones are rooted in nations or people, in religions, in places or regions?

When, how, and where did they originate?

Which purposes might these traditions serve? And which ones might they have served in earlier times?

How have your traditions evolved over time? And how have they stayed the same? Can you identify the stable core of each?

(If you don’t know for sure how things have been in the past, don’t get hung up on getting everything right – simply use your common sense and the knowledge you have.)

And what exactly does each of your traditions encompass – and what not?

Then see if any of them are connected to the topic of our essay series:

Are any of them related to fermentation? Or to food or drinks in general?

Finally, reflect upon your own traditions and on those around you consciously one more time, knowing what you know now, and perceiving them much more clearly (at least I hope you do! 😀 ):

Which ones do you want to keep? And which ones do you want to embrace more than before? What effects might this have?

Which ones would you rather drop, and why? What effects might dropping them have?

Which ones could do with some change – and how could you go about this without affecting their stable core?

And are there any traditions which are missing from your life? Any empty spots in it where a tradtion should or could be? If so, how could you fill them with a tradition – or with what might eventually become one?

(Pro tip for my readers with small kids: Never, ever, establish something as family tradition if you’re not perfectly willing and able to keep adhering to it for the rest of your life! 😀 )

Hands-On Fermentation Homework: Dried Sourdough Starter

This week’s Hands-On Homework is mercifully short – and very simple. 😉 What you’re going to do today is dry some of your sourdough starter.

You will need…

• a sheet of baking paper or a baking mat, or alternatively a baking tray, stainless steel plate, or the like
• optional: dehydrator or oven
• a small storage vessel with close-fitting lid, e.g. a glass jar with screw-on lid, one of your usual household storage thingies (small size will suffice), or similar
• some of your sourdough starter

Spread some of your starter out on the baking paper (baking mat, tray, plate, …) as thinly as possible, and let it dry.

(Make sure you keep enough of the starter for other purposes like baking bread, if you want to continue with this! If necessary, feed it beforehand to increase its mass.)

Ideally, you want the starter to dry as quickly as possible, but not in too hot a place (in order to not damage the sourdough culture). For example, putting it into a warm room, but out of direct sunlight, would work well.

If your current climate and circumstances will not allow for the spread out starter to dry properly (e.g. your place is very cool and/or humid), you might have to resort to using your oven or a dehydrator if you have one. In this case, it’s important to keep the temperature low, i.e. at 30 degrees max, in order to not damage the cultures.

How long the drying process takes is going to depend on the surroundings. Just touch it from time to time. The starter should be completely dried through, until it chips off or you can break it into flakes. If it’s still somewhat bendy, it’s not dry enough yet.

Once this batch of starter has properly dried through, put it into your small glass jar or other storage vessel, and close the lid tightly (you don’t want the starter to become humid again).

Put it someplace dry, reasonably cool and out of direct sunlight. Or, in other words: Not in your fridge, but also not right next to your woodstove and not on a Southern window sill… 😉

That’s it – this is all there is to do in this Hands-On Homework! 🙂

What are we going to do with this dried sourdough starter? Well, all I can say right now is that we’ll need it again in a later homework… much later.

In the meantime, you’re very welcome to continue using your starter for bread and all sorts of other goodies. Of course, you don’t need to restrict yourself to the two recipes I provided in the previous couple of essays. There are all sorts of delicious sourdough recipes out there for you to experiment with and enjoy!

Conclusions and Outlook

Today’s essay was, in a way, an essay about roots: about the roots of fermentation, but also the roots of tradition – both the ones passed down to you, and the ones you might pass down to others.

In fermenting food and drinks, we are well and truly standing on the shoulders of giants, of people long past who had an outlook on and knowledge of fermentation much vaster than ours.

Still, some of their wisdom made it down to us, and some of ours will make it down to others way down in the future. But as any tradition needs a stable core, despite all changes and adaptations, or it wouldn’t be a tradition, so does any ferment need a basis to ferment upon.

In the next essay, we’re going to explore this basis – and with it also the mysterious third element we’ve touched upon today…

The next essay will go up on on Sunday, April 12th. And as usual, I’m looking forward to your thoughts, questions and comments below! 🙂

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Image: Robert Schwarz on Unsplash