I love to receive emails from readers who are excited to have succeeded in some aspects of Traditional Cooking. Perhaps they made a homemade batch of kefir for the first time or they are so proud that their kids raved about the soaked waffles.
While I love to read these emails, it is impossible for me to respond to them all for the simple reason that I spend a significant amount of time each day making delicious, traditional creations for my own family.
Time is finite and hungry kids won’t wait!
Frequently, the email success stories have an element of doubt at the end that goes something like this:
“I made a batch of beet kvass for the very first time, but there are some little white bubbles on top. Is everything ok? Can I still drink it or should I throw it out?”
This is where some folks struggle with adjusting to Traditional Cooking methods as the results are inconsistent and the inherent lack of uniformity bothers them a great deal.
Sometimes the kombucha batch is sweet and sometimes quite sour. Sometimes the liquid whey is cloudy and other times completely clear.
Little foamy bubbles on top of one of the mason jars of mango chutney and none on the others. Raw kefir that is thick and creamy one week and thin and liquidy the next.
If you are someone who is concerned by the frequently inconsistent results of Traditional Cooking, know that this is just a step in your journey back to what your Great Grandma experienced when she was slaving away in the kitchen day after day in the early 1900s.
The difference now is that you have a dishwasher and you can accomplish in an hour or two what it took her all day long to produce! Hurray for modern appliances! From her perspective, you are indeed living in cooking heaven.
Consistent Results are a Feature of Processed Foods
Inconsistent results are exactly why food manufacturers prefer denatured, devitalized foods jam-packed with all manner of chemicals and artificial flavors and colors – to achieve consistency for the consumer.
Food Marketing 101: A consumer that gets the same thing over and over again and is not surprised by different tastes and textures each time the desired product is purchased and consumed is more likely to be a repeat customer.
Once, when I ate at McDonald’s in Tokyo while traveling there years ago, I was amazed by how the burger and fries looked, tasted, and smelled exactly the same as here in America.
That’s the way it is with processed food my friends: dead, denatured, and usually chemicalized food yields extremely stable, consistent results!
Since you don’t want dead, denatured, and devitalized, learn to embrace and even enjoy the unique and variable results you will inevitably achieve on your Traditional Cooking adventure!
In this short video below, I demonstrate the inconsistency I experience with my cooking on an almost daily basis. Those of you who have been reading a while know that I make fish stock almost every week. Despite doing the exact same thing each time I make my pot of gold, as I like to call it, I get inconsistency in the amount of gelatin, flavor, and even the color of the broth!
So check out my weird batch of fish stock and take heart in knowing that inconsistency is fine and is, in fact, exactly what you are shooting for!
Inconsistent = REAL and IDEAL
great video!
So true! Even when you are talking about real ingredients, they vary so much. My eggs come from a friend. They have a dozen chickens and are given a little chicken feed as a “treat” but mostly scavenge around their yard. The yolk color and size has such variety – from an almost-red orange color to a brighter orangey-yellow, all dependent on what type of yummies they found in the yard that day. The amount of cream in my gallon of raw milk varies slightly as well. Or how long it takes a first ferment of water kefir. Or how long you need to let your starter sit out before using it. It’s really scary for beginners, and I still find myself getting worried about certain things. We modern lovers of consistency need to learn to appreciate the excitingly inconsistent world of traditional cooking again! lol
This post was very timely – I was wondering just the other day if my lacto-fermented pickles were okay to eat because they had little white flecks on them – and the previous batches didn’t. Also my kombucha SCOBY is so funky looking sometimes, and my milk kefir is downright weird. It’s all good 🙂
Things vary so much even season to season as the temperature and humidity levels of our kitchens vary so much! Our kitchens are NOT factories (thank goodness) and are not sterile, temperature controlled laboratories with people in white coats running around with goggles on to make sure everything is sterile, dead, and hence “safe” (aka nutritionless), so we should expect and welcome variation in our traditional creations.
I really enjoy your videos, Sarah. Thanks!
thanks for this. I just made whey for the second time, and it was cloudier than the first time…and it made me wonder if I needed to throw it out. I’m keepin’ it!
So needed to hear this today! Thank you. Puts me at ease.
@Regina Definitely a keeper 🙂
Your fish broth looks so rich!! I make fish broth from grey snapper that we catch from the Gulf during our deep sea fishing trips. We love it! It’s amazing how if your fish are freshly caught and remain in ice until you get home, the broth has virtually zero fishy smell!!
Good to know! My chicken broth comes out a little different each time 🙂
Sarah did us all a wonderful service today by making us all much more confident in our traditional ways! I think we all felt a little intimadated!
Be BOLD with your cooking even you have no idea what in the world you are doing at first.