andrew (00:22)
Rachel DeTample is the head fermenter at River Cottage in Devon. She's come to understand that fermenting is about paying attention to the vegetable in front of you, the season it came from, and the soil it grew in, and that vegetables packed straight from the field come alive in a way that vegetables from the supermarket just don't. We talk about the chemistry happening inside of a jar, why she trussed an old forgotten ferment from the back of the cupboard over a fresh bag of salad, and how she rewilded her own gut microbiome.

We also get into other things she's working on, including a heritage seed project and a food event in Sicily that not only connects guests with the food they will taste, but the soil it came from. Her new book, The Fermentation Year, comes out today, and it follows her through a full year of ferments, from the farms she's taught on to her own kitchen.

She incorporates how memories play a role in preservation and shares a story about how preserved lemons always bring her back to a special moment with her mother.

Andrew (01:21)
you have a history of of working around food. it seems like you've always been around food. So I'm curious why fermentation was your thing.

Rachel de Thample (01:33)
Yeah, it's a good question. And the answer always goes back to my my grandmother and my granddad, because they lived like a lot of people used to live, by more survival, growing their own food and my granny preserved it because there was a lot of it. And it was just part of a natural rhythm that, you know, most people used to have and we lost connection with. And I think my grandparents carried it on

bit longer than some people's did. So I grew up with that foundation. It was always there. And what was interesting is I, you know, didn't think that it was unusual because I don't actually remember my yeah, any of my friends I didn't hang out with their grandparents, so I don't know if they had the same background. But I it actually the difference in my life

compared to the rest of the world, didn't dawn on me. Actually not even when I went to university when I was living in student halls, but it was when I went to London. And I think actually I had my own kitchen then and I had to feed myself. So that's I think it was the first time I had to feed myself as well. And I remember being on Oxford Street in January and seeing cherries and strawberries and thinking that was odd. whereas most people would walk down now and say, that's just a normal

Thing, not most people, but a lot of, you know, probably the majority of people.

so that's where I started to become really curious about food systems because I realized that the little bubble I grew up in wasn't necessarily the same as the rest of the world. And I was studying journalism, so I was in London as a student and I was studying journalism, and I my sort of initial goal, I wanted to be a war correspondent.

Because I wanted to talk about things that, you know, that that affected, you know, the the way we live and the global landscape. And then over time I realized that food is a subject that brings joy, but also, you know, affects those bigger picture, bigger issues, has all the political and economic and ecological aspects to it, but it also brings people joy. Because I worked in a couple of newsrooms in the States and

There were some grim moments of putting microphones in people's faces when, you know, their child had been murdered or, you know, their grandparents. There were lots of murders, lots of horrible things. Not always. There were also like some really fluffy stories that were complete nonsense. But I just

Andrew (04:02)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (04:02)
didn't I didn't like that aspect of it. And I thought this actually is, you know, I saw the an experience that sensational side of the news where I thought food's actually a great subject because

It's not I mean it can be sensationalized, but it's it has so many aspects and really we need food and it brings people joy, but also it affects you know the greater the greater whole of you know the planet and and everything on it. So it

Andrew (04:30)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (04:31)
it was my sort of subject of choice. I grew up in a really foody family as well. But the fermentation aspect, so my granny's part of her pickling repertoire.

was making sauerkraut and my granddad always had on his dining table a a jar of fermented chilies. They were just pickled chilies in when I grew up, but actually he used salt brine. So they were fermented. He just the word fermentation didn't come into my spectrum probably until my thirties. Maybe early 40s even though I think it was my thirties, but you know it's it's it was a word that was new to me, but it was a concept that was so familiar.

That it didn't even need explanation.

Andrew (05:13)
Sure, yeah. And so was that with your grandmother, was that coming from her heritage? Like was that something that was passed down to her?

Rachel de Thample (05:21)
Yeah, it was. and it even deeper than that. My my granny had this book. actually no, it was a book I picked up in a a vintage shop. And I found there was I remember being in Rhode Island, 'cause I grew up in Texas and but my sister studied in Rhode Island and I remember being in this shop and picking up this whole series of really interesting books that really started to tell

the difference. You know, it's a but it's a lot of food history. One of the books was Pennsylvania Dutch Cooking, which was Dutch meaning Deutsch. so German immigrants that came through Pennsylvania and then down further south, which would be my family heritage. so I have a lot of German heritage, and French Alsacian heritage which is where my name's from and there's a lot of pickling history there. But my granny would have learned from her, her mother and

Vice versa, it would have been handed generation to generation.

Andrew (06:21)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (06:21)
in a very natural way, it would have been like, okay, make this, or you know, we have pick we have lots of cucumbers, let's do something with them. which is what my son's grown up doing, which is really nice. So my mother did a bit of it, but not much. It felt like in the 70s or there was a massive generation gap of handing things down, but my family held on to it a bit.

I didn't spend as much time as I would have liked in the kitchen with my granny preserving, but towards the end of her life I realized I need to get in there and get some of this information because it's really important to me. not even it professionally, but personally. I mean, the thing I used to always take home in my suitcase, if I only took one thing from home when I was visiting after I moved abroad, it would be my my granny's pickles. So it

Andrew (07:10)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel de Thample (07:10)
was, yeah, a very, very big part of my life.

Andrew (07:13)
Yeah. you've done a lot of research and education, was there something that your grandmother taught you that nothing else ever could have?

Rachel de Thample (07:24)
Yeah, I think it's the thing that you can't really teach people apart from be confident and just get on with it and do it and don't actually look at the recipe. And so so when I teach, I did have one woman come up to me. It's the only time it's ever happened on the course, but I always say, you know, I will give you recipes, I'm gonna send them to you after. I prefer that you're not holding the recipes because I say half the stuff I say isn't gonna be in the recipes and if you

Take it verbatim, it's gonna change because I'm going to be very intuitive. And if you follow a recipe verbatim, this the ingredients are always gonna change. So there's you have to have a bit of intuition to really get to nil consistency or even just really good flavor. You need to have a bit of confidence and go off piece. So I tried to really instill that and my granny taught me that too. It was frustrating because in and I had one

frustrated guest on a course the other day saying, But I need the recipe, I need to look at it while you're talking. And and I said, But it's not gonna be the same. It's like just listen and go with like take in the experience and then, you know, be confident and run with it. But I remember being frustrated with my granny too, saying like, why can't you just write it down? She's like, it just don't it just happens.

Andrew (08:38)
Yeah, yeah. And I imagine that it changes so much too with the even a c a cucumber grown in Texas is gonna be different from a cucumber grown in the UK or in France or in Germany. Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (08:51)
Absolutely. And the cucumber

grown this year in the UK is totally different from last year because this year's been, you know, the weather's been exceptionally different from previous years. So it's yeah. So it's kind of understanding that then when you cut into, you know, a cucumber or onion to say, actually, I can tell that it's you know, getting that that intuitive knowledge.

Andrew (09:12)
it makes me think about terroir and when that comes into play with fermentation.

Rachel de Thample (09:19)
a hundred percent. And that's the sort of subtitle of my book is about rewelding your microbiome. And in the at the main angle is the seasonality, but how they actually connect. Because if you're importing, I always sort of pick on the Chinese leaf cabbage, which is a bit unfair to pick on one thing, but it's the iconic thing, people you know, who are interested in fermenting, a lot of people love kimchi and they want to make kimchi and they want to make the the kind of classic beach.

can't kimchi with the Chinese leaf. But Chinese leaf isn't easy to grow in the UK. A lot of people are growing it now. And it's only has a short window of a season. Although I know Adrian Izzard at Wild Country Organics, who I should talk about because he's really interesting in terms of soil health and he has a PhD in human nutrition. But he I did buy some from him in the spring. But if you're buying a locally grown produce, anything Chinese leaf

or anything else. it's going to have more microbes on it. And if you're buying it from your own local environment, it's gonna have the microbes that are going to be more beneficial to you, that specific package that helps you, you know, adapt to your own environment. so it's it makes a huge difference. And I

I there's not a lot of research around it, which is frustrating because there's a lot of the money

There's you know, there's not a reason so much at the moment. There's not a commercial motivation to put the research funding behind these things. But I would like to see, yeah, some research behind, you know, especially the soil it's grown in, how it affects the microbial diversity of different ferments. But you can see it anecdotally. so it's not scientific, but you can see it in the jar if you pick something fresh from the garden, pack it into a jar.

versus something you bought from the supermarket that's, you know, been sitting around at least for a couple of days and that's minimum, mostly weeks. the jar is like it's literally springing to life and it's bubbling all over the place where the other jar is is not doing very much. And I remember being on a photo shoot and the ingredient sourcing wasn't maybe to my liking, it wasn't as local or organic. And I remember making this jar of kimchi I'm like,

Is it okay? It's just it's not doing anything. And it was fine in the end, but it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, sort of alive with a huge party of microbes you know, feasting off of all those sugars. And it would have started most likely with a smaller sort of gathering of microbes because a lot of them potentially could have been, you killed off through chemicals and just, you know, transport.

Andrew (11:59)
Yeah, I mean that makes perfect sense. there has been some research gone into the level of nutrients and how they decrease after harvest kind

Rachel de Thample (12:08)
Yeah.

Andrew (12:09)
of rapidly.

if you can almost be in the field

And ferment straight into the jar.

Rachel de Thample (12:14)
Yeah, and

I do that a lot in my workshops. I I'm lucky because I've always sort of gone to places like River Cottage, where you know I have that access. And when I first started teaching fermentation, I was doing it at a place in London called the Skip Garden in King's Cross. and it was as it sounds, it was some skips that were turned into gardens filled with organic soil and they had a orchard skip and a salad skip and

you know, veg patch skip. It was great. And we were picking the veg and herb strope from there. And then I started teaching at River Cottage. And because I've been drawn to farms, now I get approached by a lot of farms too saying, Come and you know, come on our field and and pick some things. And it's great because every ferment's different but and it has its own unique collection of microbes and flavors. but it's just fun creatively as well. Taking, you know, a base recipe and then

letting the landscape inspire it. And that's really what my new book is about. And it's really the first chapter I go through all the basics and then I go through my fermentation year as they've unfolded, you know, taking things I've been making for years or things I did last year specifically when I was doing the book that I want to I wanted to document almost for myself to make them again and to capture that memory. But really I want people to make their own fermentation year as well and to sort of take those basics and be inspired by how I've

adapted them and then, you know, create their own using what they have and and what inspires them as well.

Andrew (13:44)
Mm. And in the intro, there're so many of these beautiful little nuggets in your intro, that you touch on that I want to kinda dive into a little bit more. and one thing was you said that fermentation is in your DNA and that it's also probably within everybody else's, but we don't know about it. you mentioned a a fermented family history. So

Rachel de Thample (14:07)
Yeah.

Andrew (14:08)
Explain that. What is that for for me and everybody else?

Rachel de Thample (14:09)
Yeah. Yeah,

well I mean I think it's just fermentation is the way that we've evolved as it's survival technique really to take the ingredients around us and to preserve them in a really simple, easy way. I always find if I'm sort of presented with a glut of anything or any scraps, fermentation is always my go to way of dealing with it because it's just really easy and it needs very few inputs.

a bit of salt or some sugar or some honey. And really that's all you need to kick start that process in some sort of vessel. being, you know, most people have I I mean most people have too many jars. Jam jars kicking about or, you know, pots

Andrew (14:52)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (14:53)
or something, anything. but so I think it's yeah, I I think it'd be interesting hopefully, you know, people reading the book might start to, you know, kind of research a little bit and find out, you know.

if you know, ask about old recipes or or they might remember things that you know you forget things a lot too. Because when as I've evolved my career, especially on the fermentation side of things, I didn't even realize they were I knew they were there, but I didn't connect the dots really until I started sort of sitting down writing, like, gosh, actually, yeah, my granddad that chili sauce that was fermented and it was always there my whole life. Every time I walked into my

Grandparents' dining room and the dining room was right by the front door as well. So it was like at the heart of the the house was the dining room, and that's where everyone sat. they but we never sat in the living room actually. We always sat around the dining table. but I think, yeah, I think most people would have will have something. And then it kind of gives you more interest or insight into deeper, you know, family, family roots as well, you know, where you came from and where, or if you have a recipe in your your family history too.

it probably does link in to, you know, something that was passed down as well.

Andrew (16:07)
And now a basic question. There's pickling and then there's fermenting.

Rachel de Thample (16:11)
Yeah, it's a this one of the common most common asked question and people get really frustrated by the answer. But if you look up, which I've done several times, is the the Oxford Dictionary or any dictionary's definition. I always go to the Oxford Dictionary randomly, but it's the first sort of definition relates to cucumbers. and cucumbers can be pickled in vinegar or

In salt brine, but further down the line it basically says, you know, vegetables suspended in a in a liquid. so that liquid can be it can be vinegar, it can be vinegar, salt, and water, or it can just be salt and water. And I did a really fun event a few years ago, and I'm going back next year to the Norwich Science Festival, and they wanted me to do a presentation on the science of.

preserving in general, not just fermenting, which gave a great opportunity to compare the difference between a vinegar-based pickle and a salt brine-based pickle, because a salt brine-based pickle will kickstart the fermentation process. Whereas if you have vinegar, which is a fermented product, but you if you put some vegetables in a jar and cover them with vinegar, even if you add a bit of salt and water as well to the mix, which normally people do

To just dilute the harshness of the vinegar, because vinegar can be very sharp. And if you eat a pickle, that's just 100% vinegar based, it's a little bit kind of takes your breath away sometimes. So often it's softened with salt and water. But if you put some vegetables in a jar with salt and water, that and you do that with raw vegetables. so you can do it with cooked, but you want to do it with raw vegetables.

The microbes on the vegetables, so all vegetables have living organisms and microorganisms, they will start to increase because lactic acid bacteria specifically really like salt. So they're hate what's called halo tolerant, which just means they can they can cope with a high amount of salt. And the bad bacteria, should there be any, Listeria, salmonella, botulism, the ones that people get a little bit

freaked out or a lot freaked out by they actually hate salt and if you pack them into a jar that's airtight that's further opportunity for those good microbes to thrive because they love being in an anaerobic or an oxygen free environment whereas the bad microbes hate that environment so you have a really great safe place and so

What happens as they multiply, they're multiplying because they're feasting off of the sugars and starches in the vegetables. So it's a self-contained package. It has good microbes and it has food for the good microbes. And they start to break that down and then they multiply in number. And while they're breaking down the sugars and starches, they make the vegetables more digestible. So at the science festival, I had I did a blind tasting at the beginning, and I had some vinegar pickled.

carrots and I had some salt brine pickled carrots and I put them on the table. And I did dilute the the vinegar ones with a bit of salt brine so they so I wasn't sort of tricking them into thinking you know the the difference was you know more more subtle rather than a really harsh bullen vinegar taste. So it was very classic way of doing with vinegar, although I didn't cook the carrots because I wanted to keep as much similar as possible. And also there are health benefits if you're using raw apple cider vinegar and raw carrots

It's it's a very healthy pickle. But the one the science, if you break down the nutritional sort of aspect of the f the fermented one, it's even more healthy because the the sugars and starches are pre-digested. So it literally contains less sugar, less calories, and all the other nutrients are easier to absorb because of that sort of barrier, digestive barrier be being broken down.

And so I had these two pickles on the table. There were a hundred and twenty people at the event and two people put their hand up for the vinegar pickle and the rest of the room was full of hands for the fermented one, which was great because that was the start of the event. So had the vinegar pickle won, my arguments wouldn't have meant as much because they would have like, well, we still prefer the vinegar pickle, but it was nice that it won on the taste test as well. So that's that's the difference. So you a pickle really is just yeah, pieces of edge suspended in something.

But if you do salt and water, it's cheaper, easier, and you get more benefit from it. And actually it's faster flavor-wise, because if you're maturing a vinegar pickle, which is the sort of the whole point of that, is to let the natural juices of the vegetables come out and dilute the harshness of the vinegar a little bit further so it's less full on. And normally it's recommended to do that for a month to six weeks. Whereas a fermented pickle, it only needs two.

weeks and that's a longer ferment to go through all the full fermentation process. It will s kick start that process in five days. So you can even eat it in five days and it'll be fermented if you leave it two weeks. science shows that you get more microbes evolving and the sugars are fully broken down by that point. So yeah, so it's faster

Andrew (21:29)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel de Thample (21:31)
and better on all fronts, I think.

Andrew (21:34)
And then so then what happens if it continues to go? So where does refrigeration come in and is that a necessary part? I mean I'm sure it's with all different types of things that you're doing, but you

know, for

Rachel de Thample (21:46)
Yeah.

Andrew (21:46)
me as a as a very novice home fermenter, I have a a batch of apple cider vinegar that I'm starting. It's two it's two weeks now.

Rachel de Thample (21:54)
nice. lovely.

Andrew (21:57)
I tried it once before and I I created a a big moldy jar.

Rachel de Thample (22:02)
no.

Andrew (22:03)
Well, my problem the first time was I don't have weights. So

Rachel de Thample (22:07)
Yeah. So are you doing

apple like an apple scrap vinegar with with the scraps and yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew (22:11)
An apples crap. Yeah, so I have a an apple tree in my yard and

because of the drought a lot of apples are falling. I didn't want them to go to waste. So having

Rachel de Thample (22:19)
Yeah, lovely.

Andrew (22:20)
my hand at I still don't have weights, but I'm twice a day I'm mixing it in so that

Rachel de Thample (22:24)
nice.

Andrew (22:24)
yeah.

Rachel de Thample (22:25)
You can just use I I don't I actually I do people have gifted me weights but I don't use them actually. I usually just grab a like a espresso cup or an egg cup or or I just put some ungreased paper, baking paper. Or the other day I went and grabbed some mulberry leaves from the the mulberry tree and some fig leaves. I was just grabbing leaves to put down over because I was making some vinegar that I've left at River Cottage.

And I was just putting some leaves to push them the the fruit down under the the liquid, which helps too.

Andrew (22:57)
so you just push the leaves so that the apples don't come out and see the oxygen.

Rachel de Thample (23:02)
Exactly, yeah.

Andrew (23:03)
And then there's water liquid on top of the leaves. Ooh.

Rachel de Thample (23:05)
Yeah, exactly. So yeah,

that helps. So you have no excuses with the weights. You can forge your weights.

Andrew (23:10)
Good. Good. Great.

what was I getting at? yeah. I'm getting back into the the bacteria. So you mentioned that fermentation

Rachel de Thample (23:18)
Yes. yes.

Andrew (23:20)
makes us more human because we're mostly bacteria anyways. Dive into that.

Rachel de Thample (23:23)
Absolutely. Okay.

well, one aspect, I mean well if you're increasing the good bacteria in you then you are become you know, you're increasing the life within you and you will feel you will feel more human. so because sometimes Yeah, no it is, it absolutely yeah.

Andrew (23:41)
Which is an interesting question in itself. It's like what does it make feel human?

Rachel de Thample (23:46)
But you know, when you're feeling a bit rubbish and you just say, I don't feel quite human, or I don't feel quite right. And often for me, it's always like, I haven't actually had enough kefir or I haven't haven't topped up my microbial sort of, you know, balance. so you feel a bit off off peak and out of balance. But also the process too, I think, of making of engaging with with plants and natural materials. I mean, there's so much research coming out along those lines, which is really interesting.

I watched a program with Dr. Chatterjee, which came out earlier this year, and I wrote down loads of stats from that. And he has some interesting stats about just being in nature and how good that is for cortisol levels. And cortisol, you know, is a stress response. And I'm drinking coffee right now, which is never great for cortisol levels. But being in nature can reduce cortisol levels somewhere in 30%, just going for a walk.

or I think it's actually just going for a walk itself, it could be anywhere, reduces it by 30 something percent, and it's being in nature reduces it by 50 something percent. So if you're walking through the woods, that that will have a greater effect on how you feel and your mental well-being. when you're making things too, there are some really interesting books about making things with your hands. Because if you go back through human history, you know, we had to make our

tables or houses or clothes our food, you know, we didn't have things doing it for us. And I think this is a really important conversation. yesterday I was listening to a podcast and there was something about growing your own food just being like a novel idea and you know something you can do for fun to get the artisanal artisanal side of things. I wanted to I I don't want to be aggressive, but I was I was not very happy about this interview. And it was with Elon Musk.

And it was about AI and and he was flipping all over the place between saying AI is gonna create this world of abundance and you know we won't need to do anything and the robots will just make everything for us and it'll be this amazing utopia. But then he flipped and said, or they could just take over the world and destroy us all. It was just it was ridiculous.

Andrew (26:03)
Okay.

Rachel de Thample (26:03)
But I I do get a bit angry about this sort of

I think, you know, there's a place I think AI can be very helpful, especially like annotating meetings and things like that. It's great. Things are really boring that aren't fun and don't add to the human experience. But I think making your own food, growing your own food, making things with your hands is actually scientifically and very important and very important for cognitive health. And the less we engage with that sort of side of things is gonna be dangerous for you know human intelligence, which we need to

you know, hold on to and not just hand over the all all intelligence, you know, I think it's really important. And when you're making food with your hands, you're adding your own microbes, but also you're adding your own energy, but also it it makes you feel great. and it's there are studies that show it does actually help with cognitive. So it's not just the mental health, the way you feel, but it's helps your brain cells that engaging with the the creative process.

as well and I think it's it's really important. But I also personally, and this is unscientific, I think food tastes much better when it's made by hand. And it was funny because I went around a few I was in Italy earlier this year and I went to a few different vineyards. And I remember touring this one really high tech vineyard and they had some crazy machines. I mean they were very impressive but everything was really sterile. And

I sort of made up my mind before I tasted the wines, I wasn't gonna like the taste of the wines because it seems so mechanical. And and I'd been on a biodynamic vineyard where they pick everything by hand and everything is really natural. Everything's in a very small, self-contained area. And and I love their wines just bring me so much joy and they touch something deeper than just flavor and and that lovely buzz you get from a nice wine.

But yeah, the wines when I tasted them and I could have just it could have been just seeing all the machines and making an instant judgment, but I just didn't think they tasted as nice. It would be interesting to do an event actually with the Wine and Spirit Education Trust and see and get some mechanically produced wines versus some more naturally made wines and do a blind tasting and see how they how they compete.

Andrew (28:18)
That would be. You know, and I I I also wonder if the reverse would be true. So if you were to you know, have the mechanically harvested versus the hand harvested, but you swapped the imagery and it it truly is that mental connection.

Rachel de Thample (28:34)
Yeah. The mental. Abs

yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I find sometimes actually I have in my fridge a which I'm saving for an event. It's a it's a recipe from my book, Sour Roots. so I'm trying to be not use the word sauerkraut flippantly because kraut refers to cabbage. So it's a root vegetable ferment made with like made like sauerkraut where everything's shredded and I was a lot of root veg. So I did

push it all through my magic mix, which I rarely do unless it's like a big, you know, industrial sort of quantity. It was only three jars. But I had a suede, a celeriac and loads of parsnips and I just pushed them through. But yeah, I should have made a handmade version and just done a taste test myself too. But I did get in there and massage the salted so there was a bit of hand element going on. But I think yeah I think when I'm teaching I love the shift and I wrote about it in my book, but just the mood.

When people get into the bowl massaging the salt into a cabbage, everyone's so happy. It's just, it's really funny. And you can tell the people who don't make food that much homemade at home because they're the ones that are really elated by the experience. And it's almost revelationary. Like, my God, this is this is so nice to do.

Andrew (29:53)
Yeah.

one thing that I think is so lovely about your book is you bring memory into it so much.

Rachel de Thample (29:58)
Mm.

Andrew (29:59)
And I wonder if in that experience with your students they're connecting to this childhood memory of like, you know, 'cause when we're children there are th these first moments of putting your hands in your food and it's a magical thing and it's the first time

Rachel de Thample (30:12)
Absolutely.

Andrew (30:13)
that you're learning that. So

Rachel de Thample (30:15)
Absolutely. Yeah, I remember, I mean, one of the greatest joys of my life was feeding my son and watching him engage with food for the first time and like holding a peach for the first time and just like putting it up to his face and it just like dripping everywhere. And absolutely, but yeah, I do get that. And it's lovely. I I wish I had a note of how many times people on courses have said just like just spontaneously, Shout out, my god, I'm having so much fun. And it's just

There is something very, childlike with it. And I think on a lot of the courses, I mean there's we do a lot of bread courses at River Codder, so there's a lot of there's actually a lot of hand ac action. But I think w on the fermentation course though, we're probably using our hands more than on some of the other courses.

Andrew (30:59)
And in the course are you like you said, you you often get to use the field and the vegetables. So do you take people

and do they get to harvest and then

Rachel de Thample (31:06)
Always.

Yeah, even if it's a handful of herbs, like a bouquet of herbs. So we always at least harvest a bouquet of herbs. Even if it's raining, I give you know I it's optional if they don't want to go out in the the pouring rain. but I always actually have a jar a a tray of dried herbs. If it is really terrible outside, then we can harvest from that if nothing else. But there's always something from the farm and that's really important for me. And that's really important, I think, for the guests too, because they come to River Cottage for that.

they you know they can go to any cookery school where there's they don't have that el element of the land and that's a really important part of River Cottage is you know that's Hugh's whole you know MO is you know connecting with the land. So I think if people go to River Cottage and they don't have that opportunity, I feel like I feel like I'm shortchanging them. But also going back to memory, you know, they're taking home these jars of things. And I you know I always hope when they open them they're like, that's when I was

At River Cottage, and that's what I love about teaching in different places as well. And also by making a different recipe every time I'm in a different place. So I have some kimchi somewhere. I was hunting for it yesterday that I made early June on a farm called Worthy Earth in Hampshire. And they actually had their own Chinese leaf that time of year. And they had some broad beans. We made kimchi, which is a great canvas for.

Packing all sorts of crazy stuff into. We put some strawberries into the spice paste. They had their own preserved dried chili, so we made our own gocci goro with that. And the kimchi is amazing, actually. I had luckily I had quite a few jars. But I also, when I was in Italy, I was on two different farms and I made a jar, very different jars of kimchi on each farm. And I've just finished and I just pulled the recycled jar out of the dishwasher empty.

just with the label on it of the the kimchi from this farm called Quinta Sapure. And it also had strawberries in the mix, but they have a variety 40 different varieties of heritage strawberries. Some are white, some are pink, some are like really deep scarlet. And we used I got my son to get some Roman fish sauce to add instead of classic Korean fish sauce. We used some like Roman style gerom.

in the the spice paste and it was really yeah completely inspired by the landscape and it was yeah really special and that I can't eat it now but the memory will linger in my mind of that jar and it'll never be recreated because it was just very much of of the moment and I can make something similar but that's I think that's quite nice actually where we're constantly

Andrew (33:44)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (33:44)
reproducing things that have this kind of medium

flavor profile and it's the same with wines and that's nice to see natural wines evolving because you know wines there are a lot of wines that are made and they have to add all sorts of crazy stuff. I know some winemakers that worked in the industry and that side of things and some of the crazy stuff they add to get this sort of homogeneous consistency that lacks, you know, it moves completely away from nature

when you're doing that.

Andrew (34:13)
It's interesting with wine too, because even still there will be certain years we'll make better wine.

Rachel de Thample (34:20)
Absolutely.

Andrew (34:20)
Even with all of the intervention and like trying to make the same tasting product, you

Rachel de Thample (34:23)
Mm.

Andrew (34:26)
know, you're still using a natural thing that went through the weather of that year.

Rachel de Thample (34:32)
Yeah.

Andrew (34:34)
Which is different from the w weather before and you know. But fermentation

Rachel de Thample (34:36)
Absolutely.

Andrew (34:37)
it's a beautiful thing because

you get to extend that moment. if you're

Rachel de Thample (34:41)
Yeah.

Andrew (34:42)
on this farm and in these places, you get to, I mean, I'm sure that you put a few of those fresh strawberries

in your mouth and

have those fresh. And and

Rachel de Thample (34:49)
Absolutely.

Andrew (34:50)
then you're also preserving them and then bringing them home and and it's even even when it's done and in the dishwasher, you're still relishing that that moment.

Rachel de Thample (34:58)
Absolutely. Yeah. And I'll probably keep that jar forever and and that memory forever. No, and it's yeah, it's really special. And also it's nice when you're making these things. It's nice doing them on your own as well. It's a great way of relaxing, but when you're doing it with people too, because I remember all the people around the table for that moment as well. And that's that's really magical as well. And and I write about in my book 'cause I remember

My mother taught me so much and then she forgot a lot of what she taught me and and also didn't practice a lot of things that she sort of used to do more routinely. and I remember teaching her what she had never done before, to make preserved lemons, and we were making all sorts of different citrus, and we were in my kitchen together making these. And it was so nice A to be able to share a skill that she was completely new to with her and to make these. and I remember

She passed away four years ago now. And every time I open a jar of preserved lemons or a citrus, I remember making those with her in my kitchen, which is, you know, just really magical. And I remember I think I ate all the jars we made together before she passed away. But when my granny passed away, I think we still have some jars of her preserves because we didn't want to we just want them there as like a totem to to her awesomeness in the kitchen.

Andrew (36:17)
Yeah.

that's so beautiful.

how long would that you know, the totem is gonna be the totem, but how long will a living

fermented thing live on the shelf?

Rachel de Thample (36:28)
I mean, I usually recommend a year, but it will definitely keep going. so it it will vary from ferment to ferment and also the palatability. Some things just get better. things if typically the more salt you use too, the longer it extends the shelf life. The salt's role is firstly to to sort of create that environment for the good bacteria to

Have a party and multiply and thrive, bad ones die off. But also it firms up the pectins in the veg. So the more salt, the firmer it stays. So if you're using a lower percentage of salt, sauerkraut, typically you're adding two grams per hundred or two percent salt per weight of the veg. so it's a bit less. so the this the veg can go a bit soft over time. Still, some things stay quite crunchy, like Brussels sprouts, because they're quite dense anyway to start with. I remember opening a year-old jar of.

what I call Brussels kraut and it was really, it was really crunchy still. It almost, you know, was just slightly softened from raw and it was delicious. But things that are softer, like if you add some, you know, lots of chard and some apple into in with the cabbage, that kraut will go quite dark too, and not maybe as visually appetizing and the texture can go a little bit soft. some things that have more sugars too, they go a bit funky.

because the bacteria are eating the sugars and then when they're breaking that down, sometimes the brine can go a little bit thick and goopy. Beetroots the classic. It makes a really strange, strange brine in concentration. texture wise it's okay. but so when I go through the recipes in my book, I sort of say it will keep for a year if you want to test it as well.

The key thing you're looking out for in terms of safety is the pH, which is the acid apilinity measure. And for ferment, you want it to be quite acidic, which is actually a lower number. So it's highly acidic, but a low number. and 4.3 is the magic number. So studies and science shows that all the any bad bacteria can't survive below 4.3. You can get a meter, it's just like a little.

You can do get the litmus papers, but they if you're measuring, if you're dipping one of those because they're color coded, if you're dipping that into a beetroot kraut, kind of that's not going to be very helpful, but you can get one that sucks up some of the juice. It's about 20 pounds on Amazon or elsewhere. and then you can test the pH. And as long as it's below 4.3, even if it's 20 years old.

It's fine. Just the texture of vegetables might be a bit funny or the taste. So I have a fermented sweet corn recipe in my book. And I initially made some and there's a recipe for a fresh fermented, well, fresh fermented, but fermented sweet corn polenta, and you just ferment the polent the sweet corn and blend it into a fresh polenta. so it's not actually cooked or dried. but if you leave the sweet corn for a f for

probably longer than six weeks, it goes it goes starts to go a little bit funky. and it's because sweet corn as its name and sort of signifies is is lots of sugar. and the bacteria initially it's quite fun. It gives a little bit of a cheesy note, which means you don't need to add any cheese. You can make a lovely vegan polenta that tastes like it's rich with cheese. But if you leave it a bit too long it's really sour and a bit a bit strange. so I just make notes to that

from my experience flavor profile wise what I would recommend for certain ferments. While giving a a a broader sort of safety barometer of how to, you know,

how to check the jars.

We're doing a project at River College. what I'm really excited about, and similar to the Ark of Taste, but it's with Garden Organic. and I used to be on the board there, and they have a heritage seed library in seed saving, which you alluded to, is becoming luckily it's becoming more of a a sort of you know conversate a louder conversation. because

Andrew (41:06)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (41:07)
there's and Frank

of Bagini, who you've interviewed,

talks about it in his book, how many, I forget which how many, which percentage of all the seeds sold and in the world globally is owned by four companies or three or four companies. but it's

Andrew (41:24)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (41:24)
a huge percent, like 70, I think it's even more than that.

Andrew (41:30)
Yeah, and and also there's that and also the I think it's we've lost seventy five percent of our variety within our vegetables.

Rachel de Thample (41:38)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

So this project we're doing with Garden Organic and the Heritage Seed Library is mostly growing some of their varieties from the Heritage Seed Library, but they have regional specific varieties as well. So we're growing some of those and they have been grown year after year for decades in the part of Devon that we're in or in our county. So they've gone through and done county specific.

And their seed library is very different from a lot of seed libraries or rather banks. So they have there's the Millennium Seed Bank at Kew Gardens, and it which is a very positive project, but from my understanding, their seeds are kept in a vault and they're not taken out each year to be grown and then saved again. Whereas the Heritage Seed Library

The seeds are distributed every year to members. So you can't buy them commercially, which I quite like as well. So you become a member, you pay £2.49 or something along those lines a month. And then once a year you get access to eight seed packets. And then you get to pick whoever's first come, first serve. So whoever's in there right at the beginning, it's full, full choice.

And then you get sent these seeds, you're encouraged to grow them, save them, and then send them back, and then they're redistributed. And the the benefit of that is every year the seeds, because they have an an intelligence, a seed intelligence, is they're registering and storing information from that growing year. So this year the seeds are going, the plants are thinking, okay, wow, the climate is way hotter than it was last year. We have a lot less water. So how can we evolve to

be more resilient against that. And then when we put them back, if you put them back in the same place, then they're like, okay, yeah, I know this soil, I know this climate. Last year it was like this. So we're gonna grow in a way that's very intelligent and can adapt and we're gonna be strong and resilient. Whereas if you take a seed from a seed bank that's been in there for 30 years and grow it now, it'll be like, where am I? You know, if it's growing

Andrew (43:44)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (43:44)
in the same place, it'll think it's you know in a different environment. And if you take a seed from one environment and grow in another, it takes a long

to adapt as well and become more resilient. so I think it's it's a really important project. And it when those plants are really strong and they're able to adapt, the the flavor and the nutrients are stronger and also you get more food security as well.

Andrew (44:06)
it makes me think too, like that would be such a a a beautiful new way for the future of travel, right?

if travel could be so connected to food and it's like you can only go to this one place to taste this one onion. And so

Rachel de Thample (44:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Andrew (44:20)
like that's a reason to go visit. Interact with the local cuisine and the you know, in a really

rooted and and specific way.

Rachel de Thample (44:28)
Absolutely.

I'm actually doing a very exciting project along those lines. So I had this wonderful woman called Bonnie who came on a couple of my courses and she has a travel company and we're doing an event called the Shared Table in Sicily and we did a a recce trip in June and we're taking guests in October, but we yeah, we're doing that very insight and

We've gone to places where you know they they don't you we're bespoking what the experience is for the guests too that goes deeper into the surface. And two of the vineyards we went to had exhibitions of their soil linked to the the wines as well. one has one, it's beautiful, it's the the barrels, the wine barrels, and then it has the bottle of wine and it has a tube of and shows the different soils. And it's so fascinating that when you see

Different soil samples, how wildly different they are. And it's amazing because then you can taste the wine that matches that soil. And I don't know if they've tried to grow, I mean, because they were trying to work with nature and not against it. So they wouldn't probably try to grow the same wine in another soil and let you taste how it is. But some of them would have experiments where it failed and they probably would have kept actually. There's one of the vineyards, it's called Culls, really fascinating, COS.

And they actually have a an archive of all the all the wines they've ever made. They keep at least a f a case back of every one they've ever made, even if it's not supposed to store well. They just want to have some sort of sort of taste record of everything they've ever produced, which is really, really fascinating. So they probably would be able to pull out sort of, we tried to grow this and this all and it didn't work, and this is what it tastes like, and this is what we planted instead. So they probably do have that actually.

Andrew (46:18)
And you also talk about the

link between gut health and soil health.

Rachel de Thample (46:22)
Absolutely. Yeah, so I I did an article ages ago for this because it's always been I think just by fermenting and when I pick something that I know this where the soil's really healthy and then I see the jar like going crazy versus things you know you get from the supermarket not doing very much. and I wrote an article for a magazine called Where the Leaves Fall, which is no longer, but it's linked to

A project and the name of it is totally escaped me, but it's in North London, near Hampstead Heath. And it's the article was really making that link, and it was nice, it was a great opportunity for me to dive deeper into the subject. because I've one of the things that got me into fermentation, so beyond my my sort of heritage and my roots.

And being interested in food and health in general is my own personal health because I had a gut health issues. so I was I just felt a bit rubbish. after having my son and went to a nutritionist and she got a gut health test. And the results didn't come back as positive as I thought, because I've always been interested in healthy eating. So I've always had pretty conscious diet. I've always been interested in organic food. And

even as a child and eating loads of veg. but I had lots of antibiotics as a child as well, growing up, especially, you know, I'm not pointing blame, but the States is pretty renowned for for lots of antibiotic use, high antibiotics.

Andrew (47:54)
You know, I had the same. you know, my my parents were very they they had organic food, they were very conscious about the food that we ate, but tons of antibiotics as a kid.

Rachel de Thample (48:04)
Hm. Yeah. Yeah.

My my mom's my my family doctor and he was lovely and great. And but he gave my mother, which is crazy, he gave her antibiotics to give to us when we needed it. He it was all done with goodwill and good intention, but not not great results. And so I had this microbiome test came back came back that was just showing that all was not well and I needed to boost the the good bacteria that I didn't have much

Going on there, not much positive life. And that I was prescribed ferments, and then I made that. That that connection kind of just came. I started to see, and I think it was the metaphor that Sean Jones, who runs a business called Chuckling Goat, I was prescribed her dairy kafir made with goat's milk. she excluded.

Explains the microbiome as a rainforest. And I think that's where I started to make that connection between the landscape and our internal landscape, because she was using that beautiful metaphor. And she was saying antibiotics are like a bulldozer to the rainforest, and you have to replant the trees. And you know, doing that, the seeds are in the fermented foods to replant those trees. And I just thought it was such a beautiful metaphor. And so I interviewed her for this article, and she said the sort of concept of fermentation sort of

Dawned on her because her family had skin problems, eczema psoriasis. And she was she had moved from Texas actually, she's from Texas as well, and moved to Wales and married a farmer, and she was turning the compost, and she was just looking at the life in the compost. And compost is like one of the best, the best ferments ever, because you're fermenting vegetable scraps to create new life to feed the soil and then the whole cycle.

goes goes round and round. but she it it sort of dawned on her that fermented foods could be the the benefit for her family's skin problems. And so she started did do some research and started making kefir and then reversed the skin problems. And I had that happen to me. I used her kefir and I have psoriasis and it it went away completely. It comes back occasionally but it's when

There's an imbalance of other things in my diet. So too many distractions from the cleaner slate. but but yeah, and there's just it's it's interesting because if you think of how our food system has changed, you know, we're pasteurizing a lot more. Fermented foods were off the shelves, pretty much, live ones for a very long period of time, in favor of pasteurized foods. So we and we're using more chemicals. And if you look at sort of the decline of the microbe.

you know, biome and the problems with our health and allergies and lots of other diseases. you know, the 50s is where a lot of you know problems started to arise and that's when we started using chemicals in our farming as well.

Andrew (50:59)
so so much of fermentation and pickling, a lot of it is water. And so it makes me think

Rachel de Thample (51:03)
Yeah.

Andrew (51:04)
about the water the quality of the water that you're using.

Rachel de Thample (51:06)
Absolutely.

Andrew (51:07)
And how that is it's so hard to access quality water, which is such a shame.

Rachel de Thample (51:16)
I I I totally agree with you. Absolutely. And I mean we're lucky at River Cottage, 'cause everyone's very scared to go to the tap and put the their sort of we give them jugs to make the salt brine with that we use for ferments. and we're lucky because we have the site has a natural spring and it comes through the pipes through a filter and so we have our our tap water is spring water that comes through filter,

Andrew (51:41)
Yeah.

Rachel de Thample (51:42)
which is which is the best.

I mean it's the best if everyone can have that. they'd be very lucky. And it

Andrew (51:47)
It is. is.

Rachel de Thample (51:49)
needs that filtering because sometimes, you know, things get in the water tank. So you want to make sure that some there's nothing dodgy in there. But yeah, it's access to clean water is a massive problem. And there's a lot of I sort of when I'm teaching, I always hold up a jar of ferments at the beginning, if after going around the room.

and asking people why they come on the course. Because I I the highest percentage of responses I get is around safety and wanting to make ferments without killing anyone. And the word killing comes up a lot. And people are worried about food poisoning and you know, toxic like deadly food poisoning. But the the evidence around that is n pretty much none. the the problems that have arisen around particularly to vegetables around

eating fermented vegetables is if you don't let the fermentation process take place. so apparently Sandor Cats who is an American fermentation revivalist who really kickstarted the revolution in fermentated ferment fermented foods. But he was saying in Korea that a lot of the teenagers are getting into kimchi and they want to make their own but they don't want wait for the whole process to happen. So they eat it before it's fermented and that's when you don't get that pH shift.

So you can get something in the in-between, in-between stage, but overall it's super safe. Tim Spector, who is a scientist, and wrote in his book that you're more likely to get food poisoning from eating in he does pick on US, but that's statistic based, but more likely to get food poisoning from eating in a restaurant in the US than you're making your own fermented foods, eating your own fermented foods. but I use the the sort of salad.

Bag salad is an example because it's the water content too, that's the water that's cleaning the salads often or used to grow it. there's a lot of contamination issues and there have been a lot of food poisoning cases in the UK and the US. And I quoted a food scientist in the book just saying that she she never eats bag salad because she knows that that it's it can be dodgy. whereas, you know, I've gone through the science of why fermented foods, you know, you create this perfect environment.

For good bacteria and the perfect environment to kill the bad bacteria that is so super safe. And if you have any doubts, just get that pH meter, which is very accessible and you can sort of, yeah, erase any doubt. Well, with the bagged salad, you it's harder to get that reassurance. And there's so much more risk. If you think you have this moist, delicate food in plastic containing the moisture even more, everything about it is it put it makes me nervous. I definitely

happily pick out a very old unlabeled ferment from the back of the cupboard that have no idea what's in it or how old it is and eat that over a bag salad.

Andrew (54:42)
Yeah.

the

obvious things are if if you can see something is wrong, if you can smell something is wrong. It's wrong.

Rachel de Thample (54:49)
Yeah,

exactly. Absolutely.

Andrew (54:52)
And I'm sure you've had many failures along your fermentation journey as well, yeah?

Rachel de Thample (54:57)
Yeah, I mean not tons. It's usually jars that I've left out a bit neglected and the temperatures fluctuated. That's almost always the problem. And then some flavors just don't work as well or the textures. So I did it was a lovely idea. I did a nose to tail fennel and carrot kraut. So I had like a whole carrot, all the tops, and that they're quite dominant over the the root, and a fennel, all the tops, and you know it's more top than than bulba fennel.

And that was just really dry and dense. And I remember I made a couple of small jars of that. And the first jar I ate, I like, this isn't so nice. So I left the other jars. I didn't throw them away. And then I opened one of the jars a bit later and I started eating. I was like, actually, it's better because it had softened up a bit. But so there's some things that just aren't as nice, or you know, if you do like if you just ferment.

like make a sauerkraut but with just charred, it's just a bit slimy and gooey and not so nice. So you just learn how to balance things a bit better. But usually the the ones that go off are the ones that that are neglected or I didn't pack them in the jar properly. So there's something that went, you know, wrong. All the sort of check boxes weren't ticked properly.

Andrew (56:15)
Sure. Yeah.

I wanted to bring up one thing back to your your microbiome, 'cause you explained it as rewilding yourself. I think that's

Rachel de Thample (56:25)
Yes.

Andrew (56:26)
such a beautiful way of explaining it.

Rachel de Thample (56:29)
Yeah, well it was I I was inspired by that and it really I think when I watched the Isabella Tree film on Rewilding, that was based on her book, about th them rewilding the landscape on at Knepp it made me think of the microbiome and my own microbiome too, because I did a test that wasn't so positive initially and then, you know, I did I did I didn't just introduce fermented foods, I did

A sort of detox as well that was or detox isn't the probably the right word, but just a gut reset where you just kind of kind of like when you're weaning a child, you kind of strip back and go back to very basic food. So I was just eating a bit of meat, fish, mostly vegetables, no sugars, including not even an apple or blueberries. and it's interesting how your taste buds can change and a carrot can taste 20 times sweeter if you take out all other distracting sugars.

and yeah, so I cut coffee. So I had a very paleo, very basic diet, and then started introducing the the fermented foods. But then after I did a gut health test a few years later, and I had a really high nine out of ten diversity score. So in effect, you know, I'd rewild my microbiome and and so when I saw the landscape at net coming to life, I was just thinking about my own experience. and also trying to connect fermentation to the land as well. So

that's you know that's sort of trying to really encourage the benefits of seasonal and local because you will be getting more you know more microbes if if something's super fresh it just makes sense that it's teeming with life rather than you know if you you know take pick a carrot and it's you know then been traveling in the back of a lorry and then on the supermarket shelves and then in your fridge then you know the microbes aren't going to be as happy or as alive and as many.

Andrew (58:26)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it it speaks to the the diversity of what you're eating, but also it makes me think about when you're able to harvest something, put it in a jar and you have that, you know, something that's harvested in the summertime, put it in a jar and you're opening it up in the winter, you're you're opening up a moment of summertime, you know.

Rachel de Thample (58:52)
Absolutely.

that it's the best. And even opening because summer is the best month to capture. But even winter, like I'm actually really looking forward to opening these jars of sour roots that I preserved because they're from a farm I love. And also I remember just getting a bit sick of the root vegetables when they were, you know, when you're like getting thick into the root vegetable season and you've had already like 10 sweets and you think, another sweet, what am I gonna do with that? to be able to then have a sweet,

At the beginning before the beginning of the season, because I'm gonna be serving this jar in the end of September before sweets are in season again. So I'm actually quite excited about that. And we have some duck from a a farm. Actually, it's he used to be the head gardener at River Cottage and he now has his own small holding. And so I'm buying some duck from him and we're gonna have that smoked with the this sour roots, and it'll just be it'll be really lovely bringing together those those things.

Andrew (59:55)
What is one of your favorite food memories?

Rachel de Thample (59:58)
Mm.

god, there's so many.

Wow. How do you pick one?

I think, and maybe just because we are, this is the best blackberry season I've ever experienced in my life this year. It's so unbelievably the blackberries are so abundant and they're also just utterly delicious. and I remember when I was a kid, and I think it was my first foraging moment that I remember, because it probably like

Having all the ferments in my life as a kid, but not knowing that they were ferments. I think, but we were just blackberry picking. But I remember picking blackberries on a hot summer day. We were in the swimming pool just picking them off as we were swimming and eating them. And probably the swimming pool was purple, full of water. But yeah, I just remember, I remember that moment. And that's probably one of my favorites. I think it's that too, that fresh, like from.

From its it still has life in it. And that's a really good metaphor for everything I'm trying to talk about. My book too. It's just capturing the life when it's at its at its fullest. But also I remember growing my first pea and having the pea straight from the pod when it's still hot and full of all of those sugars. And the bacteria love those sugars too. So that's what they're, you know, if you're capturing that moment in the jar, you're gonna be getting things at their best.

And also I remember at Hampton Court River Cottage had a kitchen garden there one year and we had tomatoes that were they were pretty much like oven roasted but by the sun on the vine. They were baking in the sun and eating that tomato. And it was so insanely sweet and delicious. so yeah, the blackberry, but that opens up lots of other memories that are similar.

Andrew (1:01:51)
Yeah, just go into that fresh off-of-the-plant experience.

Rachel de Thample (1:01:54)
Yeah, absolutely.

Andrew (1:01:56)
Warmed by the sun. There's nothing like it.

Rachel de Thample (1:01:58)
No,

absolutely, I agree.