We Get Gut Health: workshop review
We Get It’s Jo Bridger attended our first fermented foods event at Castle Farm. Missed it? Here’s Jo with a roundup of the night.
I recently attended We Get It’s brilliant fermented foods workshop delivered by Lucie from Bath Culture House and Sue from Infinite Wellbeing.
After many years as a food scientist, Lucie created Bath Culture House. She now spends her days making a range of fermented foods and teaching others how to do the same. Sue is a registered nutritional therapist and runs our weekly Get-Together at Cafe Walcot (10:30 to 12:30 every Friday morning – come say hi!), helping those affected by cancer. Sue and Lucie thought it would be fun to run an introduction to fermented foods at the gorgeous Castle Farm in Midford, combining food, laughter and a safe space to chat and learn new skills.
Castle Farm is a truly stunning place on a summer’s evening and was a fantastic location for the workshop. We started with a delicious supper consisting entirely of fermented foods made by Lucie. As well as sauerkraut and kimchi, there was a fermented courgette salad, fermented nut cheeses and a range of other foods, which all looked great and tasted wonderful. We also enjoyed a shot of beet kvass (fermented beetroot tonic), a new product Lucie has been developing.
While we ate, Lucie and Sue talked about the numerous health benefits of fermented foods. We have so many bacteria that live on and in our bodies that their genes outnumber ours by 200 to one. Recent research has shown that the diversity of this microbiome can have a significant impact on our health, and that by eating pre-biotic (things that feed the bacteria) and probiotic (things containing beneficial bacteria) foods, we can improve our health and wellbeing.
After our educational supper, we moved outside to make our own sauerkraut from red and white cabbage, with the sun setting in the background. This involved vigorously massaging shredded cabbage with salt for twenty minutes or so, until the cabbage released enough juice to make the brine required for the fermentation process.
After adding spices such as ginger, cloves or cardamom we then tightly packed the massaged cabbage into a Kilner jar, topped it with a whole cabbage leaf and used whole carrots to anchor the sauerkraut down beneath the juices.
As we headed home proudly clutching our sauerkraut jars (with instructions to leave them on the kitchen surface for two to three weeks to ferment), I found myself inspired to incorporate more fermented foods into my life, and perhaps to make a few of my own.
The We Get It team would like to say a big thank you to our wonderfully talented duo Lucie from Bath Culture House and Sue from Infinite Wellbeing for providing us with an educational and inspirational evening. You both rock! Thanks also to Castle Farm for hosting – we love the venue – and special thanks to Riverford for gifting us vegetables for the workshop. And if you attended the first ever We Get Gut Health workshop, big thanks to you too! Proceeds will go towards helping more people dealing with cancer in Bath.