Sustainability

Sustainable living: good for me, for you, for our future
 
In summer and autumn, our farmers supply us with a wealth of harvested products. In the old days, survival depended on building up stocks and making food keep over extended periods of time. Today, even if fresh fruit and vegetables are available at the supermarket at any time, preserving food makes just as much sense, if only out of respect for foodstuff. Now that the preserving season has arrived, MS-Steinzeug offers a highly practical tool for preserving vegetables: a fermentation crock pot with a volume of 10 liters (21 pints) made of sturdy stoneware and coming with a lid and stone weights.
 
Preserving sauerkraut without electricity
The special thing about preservation using a stoneware fermentation crock pot is that – unlike in the case of canning or freezing – no electrical energy is required. While canning always leads to a loss of valuable nutrients, lactic acid fermentation results in the vegetables being enriched by additional vitamins. Making, for instance, sauerkraut is really easy: “I place a 10 cm (approx. 4 inches) layer of finely cut white cabbage in the fermentation crock pot, add salt, and pound the sauerkraut until juicy. Working in this manner, I add layer after layer until the pot is full”, says Markus Schmitt. He is the third generation owner of the company MS-Steinwaren in the small town of Spabrücken in Germany from which tegut… buys its fermentation crock pots. Bay leaves and junipers can be added for taste; alternatively, add white wine, if you want to make wine sauerkraut. When this is done, place the two half-moon shaped stone weights on top of the cabbage. Pounding the cabbage breaks the cell walls so that the cell juice is released. Salt withdraws more water from the white cabbage and makes the juice keep until fermentation starts. Make sure no oxygen comes between the stone weights and the cabbage; otherwise, a rotting process will be started instead of the desired fermentation.

If the cabbage is kept at room temperature during the fermentation process, the fermentation time is reduced to three to four weeks – at cooler temperatures it is five to six weeks. After about two to three weeks the sauerkraut is ready for consumption, says Markus Schmitt. The sauerkraut keeps for two years in the fermentation crock pot, without any particular requirements as to the storage conditions. Nearly all of the food-spoiling agents are destroyed as a result of lactic acid formation. Additional preservatives are not necessary. Not only white cabbage but also red cabbage, carrots, peppers, all sorts of string beans, cucumbers, onions, white beets, radishes, celery, beetroot and many other vegetables are suitable for preservation by lacto-fermentation.

Highly appreciated and valued world-wide
This type of preservation has been known at least since the Neolithic or new stone age, Markus Schmitt has learned, “and not only in our culture.” Foodstuffs pickled in this manner in Asian countries include the Japanese tsukemono and the Korean kimchee (or kimchi) which is made from fermented Chinese cabbage and served with nearly all main courses. Korean scientists believe the consumption of kimchee is responsible for the low rate of colorectal cancer in their country. In Ayurvedic medicine, lactic acid fermentation is credited with producing a warning effect. By now, it has been scientifically proven that sauerkraut (whether made from white, pointed or Chinese cabbage) helps stimulate the immune system and regulate digestion.
 
Markus Schmitt is committed to offering his customers products of the highest quality. He is pleased to see that more and more people are returning to the natural, traditional preservation of food in the fermentation crock pot. “When you prepare your food yourself you know what you get,” he says. There is, however, yet another reason to use the fermentation crock pot: “The delicious taste!” enthuses one local who for many years has been making her own sauerkraut for her family together with her husband.

Sandra Limpert
Journalist, Tann (Germany)