Binomen Art - Brassica

Left: Brassica in Red Cabbage; Right: Shredding Red Cabbage

In this Binomen Art piece, we spell out “Brassica” using red/purple cabbage – Brassica oleracea. B. oleracea is part of the Brassicaceae (Cabbage) family. The B. oleracea species includes many of our common foods like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, kale, and others. How can this be? It is because these vegetables we know by the same genus and species name are subspecies. B. oleracea has seven groups of subspecies of which cabbage is under the Capitata Group. All subspecies of B. oleracea came from the wild cabbage. There is a wonderful article on The Botanist in the Kitchen site called The extraordinary diversity of Brassica oleracea. In the article, the author explains how the very different looking vegetables arise from emphasizing different aspects of the plant body. For example, the leafy B. oleracea vegetables, like kale and collard greens, have been domesticated to emphasize the leaves. B. oleracea like cabbage have been domesticated to emphasize the terminal bud – hence one big head. The cut up cabbage went into a wonderful batch of sauerkraut like this one from a few months ago.

Left: Sauerkraut Overflow; Right: Shredded Red Cabbage

Fermentation Pot – Kimchi

Left: Vegetables for Kimchi; Right: Adding Fish Sauce to Kimchi

We made this kimchi in our fermentation pot (history) using the guidance from the Sandor Katz’s Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. In his book Katz writes “Kimchi is a spicy Korean pickle, made in a impressive variety of styles. It is prepared by fermenting Chinese cabbage, radishes, or turnips, scallions, other vegetables, and often seafood, with ginger, red hot chili pepper, garlic, and often fish sauce.” We did not use fish in this batch. We did use fish sauce as shown in one of the photos where drops of it are seen falling into a glass container of kimchi.

We ran out of space in our ceramic fermentation pot, so we pressed a few glass containers into use that let the color of the pickle be appreciated.

Left: Packing Kimchi Mix into Fermentation Crock; Right: Close Up of Vegetables for Kimchi Mix

Sauerkraut - Batch II

Left: Fermentation pot, week 1;  Right: Jarred and ready to share the last of batch II, week 4

For sauerkraut batch II, we used 1 head or red cabbage, 1 head of white cabbage, 2 red turnips, and 2 white turnips. The result is decidedly pinkish red colored, but nonetheless delicious. Go here for a view of sauerkraut batch I.

Pink sauerkraut

Fermentation Pot - Our First Sauerkraut

Left: Our Handsome and Homemade Fermentation Pot.  Right: The Resulting Sauerkraut in a Jar (3 weeks from the start)

Over Christmas break a friend gave us this wonderful kimchi - fermentation pot that he made. (Thanks Dennis!) He also turned us on to the fermentation movement and books by Sandor Katz: The Art of Fermentation and Wild Fermentation. Our first try a few days later back in Seattle was simple sauerkraut using green cabbage (Brassica oleracea Capitata Group) following the sauerkraut recipe in Chapter 5 of Wild Fermentation. We thoroughly enjoyed the result and now are on our second attempt (result is here). This time we are using turnips (white and red) and cabbage (white and red), about five pounds all together, and a little salt, 2-3 tablespoons.

The Preparation for Fermenting the Cabbage for Sauerkraut

Sandor Katz References