Soil, Seasons and Style of Cultivation; Three S's to Drive Sauerkraut Quality and Flavor

Kres Kitchen “Three S’s” for driving Quality and Flavor

Ongoing use of synthetic fertilizers and high-yielding (but lower quality) crop varieties are destroying a lot things - including our palate. Somehow we’ve learned to accept bland and blah; low quality fruits and vegetables that don’t taste very good and don’t offer much in the way of nutrition. The simple truth is that nourishing foods with BIG FLAVOR do not come from depleted soils or modern lab-innovations. The path to reclaiming quality and flavor can be found in nature - where the provenance of raw plant food cultivation has been studied and improved for hundreds thousands of years.

Soil matters. There’s a big difference between a carrot grown in healthy living soil and one that is grown in dirt “hiked-up” on synthetic foods to boost harvest. Healthy soil is teaming with biological diversity known in regenerative farming as the Soil Food Web. This food web is made up of various populations of microorganisms that cycle nutrients in response to what the plant needs and when it needs it. Living soil has a natural capacity to manufacture fertility which means fewer requirements for supplemental organic fertilizers and complete elimination of chemical synthetics. Healthy living soil is more resilient to climate stress, builds better capacity for holding oxygen and water allowing roots go deeper, creates less runoff (acts as a sponge), and houses one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems on earth. Yes, we’re obsessed with our soil - and rightly so.
Seasons matter. Summer carrots taste very different than carrots harvested during cold weather months (December to March/April in our climate). Root vegetables, like carrots, are sweetest in flavor after undergoing a process called cold-sweetening; a natural survival technique where starches are converted to sugars to prevent freezing. For some sauerkraut varieties, like Carrot & Caraway, I prefer a cold-seasoned harvest for the best bold and briny flavors. Additionally, carrots harvested in July will have a different microbial ecology than carrots harvested in December. Living soil is never static and is always changing. So… shortened daylight hours, different precipitation types and amounts, cooler soil temperatures - all these factors contribute to subtle changes in the fermentative ecology. Don’t forget, setting fresh local ingredients aside, the microbial community is the ultimate creator of BIG FLAVOR in lacto-fermented foods. Growing and harvesting with the seasons expands our opportunities to explore authentically local flavors and diverse communities of gut-loving microbes.
Style of Cultivation matters. The heirloom and non-GMO seed varieties we select, the biological soil mix we make onsite for seedling starts, the thermal compost we produce annually, the use of cover crops, the avoidance of chemical pesticides/fertilizers, the use of organic mulch (e.g. wood chips) over plastic (e.g. geotextiles), the complete departure from tilling our soils, and the ongoing nurturing of mycorrhizal networks; this is our way.

Our path to wholesome deliciousness begins in our soil where a regenerative style of cultivation nurtures our ecosystem by first improving soil fertility, and ultimately by fostering ecological diversity. We embrace our NE Ohio seasons which provide natural pathways to exceptional culinary enjoyment.

Below is an illustration of our farm-to-fermentation cycle for our popular Carrot & Caraway Sauerkraut. Don’t let the simple ingredients fool you! Cabbage, carrots, caraway and salt - plus nature’s wild cultures; this is all we need to generate the most complex flavors and nutrient bioavailability. Remember, by the time we arrive at the professional kitchen many of the outcomes anticipated for this ferment have already been locked-in… the three S’s.

This is our craft.