Susun Weed's Wise Woman Forum

Is there anyone else here who is familiar with this book? I love it. There is a website link www.westonaprice.org. It talks of studying nutrition by studying traditional cultures. It teaches how to make our own fermented foods, pickled vegetables, cultured dairy, preserved meats and fish, fermented beverages. I love how this addition to our diets has helped us all.

Anyone else added more fermented/pickled/marinated/cultured foods to their diet? I am curious of your experience.

karen joy
nourishing wholeness anywhere

I am glad you have this book. This is the main cookbook I use. This book and Susun's are the books I would run into the burning house to retrieve. I was not sure when I began trying things out of this book. Now we love the pickled vegetables. I had a lot of problems the first few times I tried making kefier. I am still not sure what I was doing wrong. Since we are using pickled vegetables a few times a week my husband no longer uses tums.

Eileen

Hi Karen, I read your response in the Childbearing Year "room" but haven't had time to check out the recipes yet. I lost my job last week (layoffs in the IT sector) and have been dealing with that lately - I've decided not to look for work and just focus on preparing for the baby, but it's a bit of an adjustment for me to make.

Anyway, about the foods, I actually live in Toronto, Canada, so I don't think a lot of the brands you mentioned are available here. I might be able to find something similar though. The laws up here regarding the sale of raw dairy are actually pretty strict so it's almost impossible to buy. I called one organic farm for advice and they said I'd pretty much have to buy my own cow and then milk her myself. Any farmer caught selling raw milk will lose their license. I've heard there's a Mennonite community about 3 hours outside the city where I might have some luck, but that's really not feasible for me right now.

I will check out the website, etc., once I've finished adjusting to my new, unemployed (and much broker) status.

Blessed be,

Alice

I too have this book and love it as well. I already make yoghurt but, haven't tried the kefir yet[8)] I tried the japanese sauerkraut, it was good i used mustard cabbage instead of napa cabbage[:p] than i tried the the pickled daikon radish[xx(][xx(] it was horrid i could not get past the smell [V] i just tried the saurkraut recipe just put it in the refrig. haven't eaten yet will let you know[?] has anyone tried the yoghurt dough yet[?] sound great i want to try it. Denise

I haven't tried the kefir yet either. And I keep bombing at all the dairy preparations, like creme fraiche, buttermilk and yogurt. The first spoils and the other two go slimy!

I also haven't tried kombucha yet either. What does it taste like? Is it expensive? easy to prepare?

The yogurt dough -- one of my favorites, and so easy. I LOVE the rugelach recipe with it. This lasts for days and is a great traveling snack.

I just ran out of my pickled vegetables made last fall. Some good, some not too much. I don't care much for the pickled garlic (I tried raw and cooked) and the pickled ginger I guess I just didn't cut thin enough to be like store bought. It's too strong I loved the daikon radish though! I did find that the longer it sat the better it got. By spring it was heavenly. It is one I plan to stock up on this year, along with the pickled cooked beets. Yum. My son, almost 3, loves these all too and calls them all piickles. I am thrilled he is associating this taste with pickles rather than that sweetened vinegar stuff. The cucumbers tasted okay but were mushy. Maybe becaue they were Boothby Blondes. I used to adore Bubbies sauerkraut because it wan't cooked. Now after making my own, the Bubbies doesn't taste so alive, though it is still good, especially now since I have run out of my stash.

Some other loves of mine were the raisin chutney. Great with brown rice. This is one thing I loved about all these pickled things is that my cooking was kept simple all winter. I would cook up a pot of rice and a pot of beans which could last several days. I then coud vary the meals with the condiments -- pickled stuff and/or dairy. The preserved lemon too is great on rice or in salads. In winter I still like salads so would mix leftovers rice, beans, squash etc with grated root vegetables (my splurge though was buying cilantro and parsley to add too) and dress it all with oil and vinegar (herbal of course) and/or use some preserved lemon.

karen joy
nourishing wholeness anywhere

Oh my goddess!!! I am sooooooo happy to see this conversation! MMMMMMMMMMMMM!!! I am a fermenting fool! My favorite is the Korean Sauerkraut. Ginger carrots is easy and yummy, and a great way to turn the anti-fermenters on to the wonders of fermentation!! My pickles are about ready for sampling, but I found last year that they were better after a few months in the fridge. I took the brine when I was done with the pickles and put kombu seaweed in it....way to make the flavor last and last....mmmmmmmm yum, i am getting all slimy and excited just thinking of it[:p]

i am going to go look up those other favorite recipes of yours, I really haven't ventured into other recipes, the writing is great and so is the westonprice and realmilk web sites! thanks for the reminders ladies!!

oh yum so happy[:D]

tt

p.s.-where is this yogurt dough recipe? and what is rugelach?

oh and as for the experience health wise...i stopped eating ferment for the past 4 months (because I ran out[:(]) and found that I was burping a whole lot less. good to know for when I go visit family[:0]

Hi Karen Joy,

I've been making my own kombucha for a couple of months now. It's quite easy to prepare, but since it develops and grows rather fast, you just have to check it every day (it's growing so fast that it's almost a pet for us; I greet it every morning [:D]).
It tastes like a mixture of apple cider and lemon juice. Sometimes the taste has slight variations, depending on higher or lower temperatures during the process of making it and harvesting time.

And it's really unexpensive to make it: all you need is water, green or black tea, raw cane sugar and a kombucha "mushroom" (well, it's not really a mushroom, but that's how people call it here, or "kombucha jellyfish", since that's what it looks like). Since these multiply so fast you can get them for free from local fellow-brewers or via the web.

You can do so much more with kombucha than just drinking it: I've used it as a lotion for skin problems and that worked out fine.
I even have a recipe to make kombucha bread (though I've never tried that out).

Definitely worth a try...
Leaf

Thank you Leaf! So now to find a local fellow drinker/maker! Kombucha is a vinegar mother, yes?

Tammy -- funny, I have found myself LESS gassy since eating these foods. Since i ran out, i have noticed it feels like food sits in my stomach more and feels heavy.

Yoghurt dough is on page 485, and rugelach is listed as "cream chees breakfast pastries" on page 488. Let me know what you think. My mouth is drooling. Now that I look at the resipe, it doesn't call for yorut dough, but is made similar to it.

karen joy
nourishing wholeness anywhere

Kombucha!
Praise the universe that I found this forum! [:o)]

My wife used to have one of these in the fairly distant past, and for the past few months I've been on a valiant quest to find anything out about these wonderful "mushrooms". She pretty much remembered fondly anecdotes that drinking what she called Kombucha juice helped her with a minor medical condition whivch the docs were at a loss to fully rid her of. She periodically asks if my herb-searching turns up this elusive mushroom.

Of course the distance in the past, and my own limited knowledge of such a creature, has hindered our search. I tried a number of web-searches for any spelling of "KUMBUKA", Combuccha, etc...and of course came back with nothing. I asked around a few friends out of state who were into mushroom growing (oyster, puffballs, and the power plant kind) but never had heard of it.

And to think all I needed to do was browse through the assembled knowledge of the wise women!

So.....[;)]

Would anyone be willing to ship a viable "colony" my way? I'm looking up tips on use/growing/etc now, but any first-hand experience would be great. My wife just says it's the best thing since sliced bread for keeping her feeling "tonified", but lost her source when she moved out of a barn she trained horses in.

Blessings, and more blessings!
(I'm just soooo excited to see this name in print so I can finally use the Web with the correct search terms!)[:D][8D][:D]
-Nate

Well, don't get me started about my mate kombucha... I have some great books and websources, though most of them are in Dutch I'm afraid.
Try this one in english: www.kargasok.tk (kargasok or tjainie grib is another word for kombucha).
And check this one out: kombucha art!!! Unbelievable but true... http://www.ngiulini.com/

Oh, and Karen Joy, though it looks like a vinager mother, it is NOT. Some people offer vinager mothers for rather high prices on the web; but these will never be able to make real kombucha. It's also important to follow the recipe and feed it well or the result drink just doesn't give you all the benefits it can.

By the way: have you ever tried waterkefir? Perhaps this works better for you... You need to make this with another type of kefir grains though. A great site I found about kefir is http://users.chariot.com.au/~dna/Makekefir.html

Enjoy!
Leaf

oh oh oh..i just love this cook book...but i havne't ever made the pickles...
i love making yougurt though...i even made soy yougurt for my vegan fiend friends...they were duly impressed
i will have to try the fermented veggies...i think cabbage...as i have one in the fridge...

thanks fo the topic!!

hi i too love that cookbook i've made the saurkaut.... very good. i made my with cow whey. then i made some with goat whey [xx(][xx(] i let it sit another month and still[xx(][xx(][xx(. i'm going to try the ginger beer and soda let you know how i did. [:)] snowwitch

Leaf,

I love kombucha and I bake my own bread every other day. I would LOVE to hear your recipe for kombucha bread. Could you pass it along?

Also, I've tried to make keifer using soy milk and almond milk but i'm not sure if the finished product is as beneficial as when using cows or goats milk. Does anybody know anything about this?

hugs,
Vida

Hi Vida,

To make kombucha bread you just replace 1/3 up to 1/2 of the fluid you use in the recipe (mostly water) by kombucha. If you make saurdough bread you might notice that the kombucha makes it raise faster. The crust of the bread is often browner too.

Let us know how it turns out!

Leaf