Playing and Making a Mess of It

April 2010, base of Soyo Mountain, North of Seoul

Wild Foraging:

I'm looking forward to seeing the Cherry Blossoms very soon.The climate is dry right now and there are not many greens I can take from the field.  However, there are many root vegetables and with some practice I should find some root vegetables.

Pickled Tomatoes:

Three days ago, I pickled tomatoes. They should last me for the spring. I wanted something garlicky and sour but sweet to go with my rice and kimchi. I adapted a tradition recipe for salsa to what I had and didn't include what I had. In the end this was salt and garlic. Being in Korea, I kept the tomatoes in quarters so the tomatoes would be served along with rice. Traditional salsa is fermented for a few days. SO I did this.  The smell is great now. I had some today before putting the rest in the fridge.

Unfortunately, my camera is having an issue at the moment and I'll have to take it to a shop to have it looked at.

Homebrews:

My ginger beer was ready last Wednesday. Thursday, I had a friend over for an organic meal and we drank the ginger beer. We drank all the Ginger beer, about 4 bottles each. I drank four the day before. 

I'm not a big beer drinker. I find I am sensitive to the hops in beer and it makes me sleepy. This stuff was amazing. The ginger medicines were strong in the beer, and I felt really relaxed in a way beyond normal alcohol. It was really refreshing too. The taste  of my recipes was light like flavored water.


An herbalist I deeply respect makes beers with medicinal herbals, I took my recipe from his book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers.

It's well know by ethnobiologists that beer was not only a source of nutrition but a  way to preserve medicinal plants used to flavor it. Ginger beer is just one of many healthy incarnations.

Their trouble brews for those on a different path from me:

Henbane

"Refreshing and relaxing, a good catalyst for fun or trouble, for mixing or for mixing it up." - Dave Pendall, Pharmakopoeia

for Trouble:

See Henbane Beers.


Makeoli making:


Now that I've procured some organic rice, I wish to make some Makeoli. I wish to make Makeoli using the traditional way of wild fermentation. The process is close to ginger beer but a little different.  I am going to have to learn how to make this.

A little science:

Ginger beer is by some using an easy quick and simple application of bread yeast added to a sweetened ginger tea.

Or by the addition of ginger beer plant which is ginger which was been fed sugar and wild yeast grows on it. Ginger has a naturally occuring fungus on it called Aspergillus Orzae.

Just like these photos stolen from different sources:

The difference:

Makeoli is made from "Nuruk" which is rice that has been innoculated by Aspergillus Orzae. The fungus breaks the starch into sugar and then the wild yeast gather on the sugar.  At some point you add liquid and alcohol is made.

Thinking out loud:

However, I don't know the process of innoculating the rice.

I know Apergillus orzae grows on ginger, always. What I do not know is if it would still be present if you take the skin off of it. I have to play and make a mess of it first.


When it comes to Koji. I haven't worked my way backwards to figure out how its down. Trial and error, emotional intelligence, enthobiology, and a little reductive pathways will come in handy.

So I'll play scientist:

This is what I'm going to try. Take the ginger with skin on and put it on cooked rice. Let a mold grow.

Then I'll take ginger without the skin. Let a mold grow on it.

If it's on the outside and the inside it should grow both ways.


It's all play and fun for me.