ANYWAY. He forces ME to try the pickles, because he is proud of himself, and will hold it to my lips with a fork until I finally try it. Nevermind the odd white foam(?) that is on the pickle’s surface.

and so I tried it. And promptly spat it out as discretely as possible.

the only way I can describe it is that it tasted like a cucumber that gave up on it’s life in a midlife crisis, and spiraled into alcoholism.

I don’t know how he managed to make cucumbers drowned in salt water for a few weeks taste like they had downed one too many vodkas, but now I know cucumbers can get depressed and addicted too.

For months now I've been making pancakes out of a fermented mix of beans, grains, and sometimes other flours. I mix the flour with water and salt (first two pics), cover it, then leave it overnight. In the morning, I add an egg to each single batch, or two eggs to a double batch, and then cook them in a pan.

Basic recipe is 3/8 cup flour, 1/2 cup water, 1/8 teaspoon salt, then let sit overnight, add an egg and put some oil in a pan and cook it.

These ones are two different ones I made up. I forget what is in them but they're roughly half bean flour, and the dark one has ragi in it. I think the dark one also has mung beans, and I think the other one has lupin, soy, and chickpea, but I forget exactly.

I've gotten to where I can make these with no recipe, spontaneously mixing unorthodox flours (lupin bean flour has almost no starch!!! similarly for sesame flour) as well as various grains, not just "normal" grains like wheat, rye, barley, and oats, but any of the millets, not just "regular" pearl millet, but the weirder millets. Like these have foxtail millet in them just because that's what I have on hand right now. I've used nearly all the "weird" ones, kodo millet, little millet, browntop millet, and barnyard millet. I've used red rice flour. Sorghum flour. Water chestnut flour. Amaranth. Quinoa. Buckwheat. I have even ground my own flour out of things I couldn't buy the flour of, like proso millet. I sometimes put other seeds in them, or nut flours, like almond flour, or ground flaxseeds.

They are all 100% whole grain. I usually use 12 or almost 12 different ingredients each day, usually in roughly equal proportions by volume which is not equal by weight.

I'm so hooked. We eat these every day for breakfast, all three of us!

there r sooo many yummy and safe ways to consume raw and/or fermented foods but fermentation has to be done in conjunction with like. stopping bad+gross bacteria from growing on ur fermented food so that the good bacteria can do the fermentation.

this is oftentimes achieved by making the environment too acidic for harmful bacteria (kimchi, saurkraut, etc.), salting it for the same reason (cured meats, fish sauce), reducing light or reducing oxygen (sourdough, brined veggies). there r so many kinds of good bacteria out there you can consume safely through eating fermented foods but there are so many bacteria that absolutely just want to beat the shit out of you also.

Ferment Your First Jar in 5 Steps

Body copy: Because humans did this for 4,000 years before Whole Foods charged you $12 for it.

One cabbage. Two tablespoons of salt. Your hands. A mason jar. That's the whole ingredient list. No starter kit. No subscription box. No influencer code.

This is sauerkraut — the way your great-grandmother made it, and her great-grandmother before her. Osmosis does the work. You just chop, salt, squeeze, pack, and wait.

Full food science breakdown, history, and troubleshooting: Be Pro-Veggional: A Fermentation Guide