November 2021 | Putting Food By, with Sandor Katz
On this autumn episode of Partisan Gardens, we’re sharing skills for preserving our harvests and thoughts on the significance of food preservation and food sovereignty. First, Ren, a local grower, speaks with Tom, who has launched a biodiverse and integrated homestead in the Adirondacks. Tom discusses the variety of ways that they’ve learned to preserve their food crops. He walks us through some basic tips for getting started with preserving food: from wet canning, to dehydration, fermentation, pressure cooking, and cold storage. Afterwards, Laura and Emily interview Sandor Katz, who has worked tirelessly to revitalize popular interest in fermentation. He is the author of several accessible and fascinating books on the topic.
Today, he speaks to Laura and Emily, to share insights into his work. These include a range of amazing fermentations, specific preservation challenges, fermentation as a lens on the world, the potential for communally-scaled fermentation, and Sandor’s path to writing about food. Laura is a writer, a garlic farmer, a small scale kimchi producer, and co-founder of Common Home Farm outside Bloomington. Emily is a local farmer, home gardener, and a food and fermentation enthusiast.
We’d like to shout out the recent seed saving episode of Propaganda by the Seed, which gives detailed advice on harvesting and saving, and propagating your seeds. You can listen to it here.
Thanks to Ren, Tom, Laura, Emily, and Sandor for sharing their conversations with us.
The USDA canning resource guide is here.