Kitchen Table Chats #20 – Lots Of Scottish Oats, Food ‘Fashion’ & Andrea’s Chicken House

Today’s episode is dedicated to covering the wide world of fermented drinks – all accessible to you, makeable in your own kitchen, right now. We talk about over 20 different fermented drinks, including scoby ferments, whey ferments, grain ferments, wild ferments and we tell you how you can incorporate these super-health-giving, delicious foods into your life.

What about cooking and eating ancestrally when you’re in times of turmoil, or busy chaotic times – like having a new baby, or when people are sick, or when you’re moving across countries! In this episode Alison and I are going to talk about all of these things because we are going through all of them. We will share some of our strategies and plans for using up food stores before a move, or preparing food in advance when there’s a baby coming, and how we’re going to keep our systems running despite all of the disruptions going on in normal life.

Spelt is a wonderful, economical alternative to wheat. I’ve been baking with it for a decade now and I love its deep, nutty flavour, its flexibility and its digestibility – many people who don’t get on with wheat can enjoy spelt, especially if it’s in a sourdough loaf. Whether you’ve tried spelt or not, this episode will give you everything you need to know to get the most from this grain in your own kitchen.

Take the left-over bones from an animal, combine them with water and some gentle heat and then wait. You’ll be gifted with one of the most revered food stuffs worldwide: Stock. It’s nourishing, comforting, tasty and the base of so much good food. Listen in to hear us wax lyrical over this simple food, then talk about how we make it, the different types and how we use it in our kitchens.

If you asked both Andrea and I who’s inspired us the most we’d both put our guest today, Sandor Katz, right up there in our top couple of names. We’ve read his books, underlining phrase after phrase, we’ve taken his advice; we’ve made his ferments, so many of his ferments. He’s inspired, educated, and hand-held us both through our food fermentation journeys.

Before we read the books that our guest today, Chris Smaje, wrote, we knew we didn’t want a world where fake food, food manufactured in factories was what we ate as a society. We didn’t believe that protein made in stainless steel vats could give our minds, bodies, souls and communities what they need to survive and thrive. But what we didn’t know, is that manufactured protein, fake food or precision fermentation, however you want to term it, literally will not work.