#apropriate tech

Consider nukadoko, a fermented rice bran from Japan. Stir together salt, water, and bran—with optional ginger, dried fruit, and spices. Then ‘plant’ some vegetables like radish, beets, or carrots, burying them deep in the ‘soil’. Stir up to three times a day, preferably with your hands: get those skin microorganisms in there. After a week, you’ll have an active fermentation. Pretty soon it’ll be so strong that you can plant any vegetable in it and it’ll be pickled within one hour—these are then called nukazuke.