{"id":1506,"date":"2016-01-04T10:52:25","date_gmt":"2016-01-04T15:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2016-01-11T10:32:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T15:32:49","slug":"shes-the-johnny-appleseed-of-pickling-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/shes-the-johnny-appleseed-of-pickling-the-new-york-times\/","title":{"rendered":"She\u2019s the Johnny Appleseed of Pickling \/ The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s the Johnny Appleseed of Pickling<\/h4>\n

Traveling by Bus, an Evangelist for Fermentation Gives Lessons on Food Preservation<\/p>\n

By RACHEL WHARTON\u00a0<\/span><\/span>

\"Tara<\/a>

Tara Whitsitt in the driver\u2019s seat of the school bus she uses to evangelize for food preservation.
Credit: \u00c1ngel Franco\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

If you find yourself wandering near Whale Creek, in an industrial stretch of Long Island City, Queens, and you come across a dilapidated 1986 International Harvester school bus emitting a faint smell of decay, no need to call the authorities.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the 40-foot mobile office of Tara Whitsitt, 29, a nomadic evangelist for fermented foods who is camping out in Queens for the winter.<\/p>\n

A soft-spoken Texas native who refers to her cross-country travels as Fermentation on Wheels, Ms. Whitsitt has spent the past 18 months motoring around the United States in the bus, a former Michigan State Police vehicle outfitted with a kitchen and a wood stove and laden with five-gallon jugs of mint-lemon balm wine, jars of radish-turmeric sauerkraut and plenty of sourdough starter. Ms. Whitsitt earns a living largely by holding workshops in which she teaches old-fashioned methods of food preservation.<\/p>\n

Capitalizing on the growing popularity of probiotic foods \u2014 which some studies have shown may help benefit digestive and immune systems \u2014 Ms. Whitsitt had originally planned to teach these bygone techniques to the small cooperative community in Oregon where she moved in 2012.<\/p>\n

\"Tara<\/a>

Ms. Whitsitt\u2019s modified Michigan State Police bus has a philosophy, not a destination.
Credit: \u00c1ngel Franco\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

She discovered, though, that nobody there needed the instruction. \u201cFermentation was like old news,\u201d Ms. Whitsitt said. \u201cEveryone does that \u2014 no mystery here.\u201d She had an epiphany: She would go on the road in a $6,000 bus and become the Johnny Appleseed of traditional pickling.<\/p>\n

Working off a list of cities where she found parties interested in her techniques, Ms. Whitsitt has made stops in places as varied as Jackson, Miss., Scottsdale, Ariz., Trenton and New York, where she plans to stay until departing for the Midwest in late March.<\/p>\n

Ms. Whitsitt adapts her outreach to her environs, often hosting \u201copen bus\u201d days with hand-drawn posters that offer \u201cfree culture for all\u201d \u2014 get it? \u2014 or \u201ca taste bud dance party.\u201d<\/p>\n

She occasionally finds farmers who let her park on their property for a night, bartering lessons for raw materials. \u201cMy favorite trades,\u201d she said, \u201care education for veggies.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Feb. 7 and 8 \u2014 at Judson Memorial Church in the West Village in Manhattan and a home-brew store called Bitter & Esters in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn \u2014 she is to give lectures on the proper care of sourdough cultures and on the thick, fermented dairy drink called kefir, whose sour tang is admired in foodie circles.<\/p>\n

In January, Ms. Whitsitt gave a sold-out, $25-a-head class in a Brooklyn coffee shop on how to make tempeh \u2014 a fermented soybean cake that dates to 12th-century Indonesia \u2014 that came with a guide she illustrated. Those who stayed for dinner tossed around the scientific names for edible molds over a family-style meal that included her kohlrabi kimchi and fig cider.<\/p>\n

A self-professed introvert who typically travels only with a slate-colored cat named Franklin, Ms. Whitsitt became a fermentation expert by accident.<\/p>\n

In 2011, she was living in Brooklyn and handling logistics for companies in the fashion and entertainment industries. A friend persuaded her to make the fermented tea called kombucha and a batch of sauerkraut. From there, she moved on to other fermentation projects until her interest in the practice became, she said, an obsession. When her kitchen finally began to resemble a chemistry laboratory, she headed to a commune in the woods, 50 miles west of Eugene, Ore., looking for more space and like-minded fermenters. Besides, she said, \u201cI\u2019d done the whole New York thing long enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now she is back and trying to park her bus in legal spots \u2014 thankfully abundant in the streets near Whale Creek \u2014 and staying at a friend\u2019s place in the neighborhood. \u201cI sleep on his couch most nights,\u201d she said, \u201cand I dominate his kitchen.\u201d The accommodations are a far cry from her place in Oregon, which included land to grow vegetables. But while Ms. Whitsitt has less room to ferment in New York, she said she had been welcomed by the city\u2019s thriving scene of probiotic fanatics.<\/p>\n

\"Tara<\/a>

Spices she uses when preserving food.
Credit: \u00c1ngel Franco\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

Many belong to NYC Ferments, a Meetup group with more than 450 members that was begun in 2012 by Angela Davis, 42, and Michaela Hayes, 43, an Inwood resident who teaches classes and sells fermented vegetables under the name Crock & Jar. Each month, the group picks a theme, Ms. Hayes said \u2014 Japanese pickles, for instance, or mead \u2014 and then discusses recipes and results over samples in the back room of an East Village bar.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have people who have been fermenting for three decades,\u201d Ms. Hayes said. \u201cAnd we have people who haven\u2019t even done it but are there because they heard about the health benefits or because it\u2019s a food trend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Hayes, who ran the \u201cpickle program\u201d at the Manhattan restaurant Gramercy Tavern, said the group had been such a success that Meetup.com invited her to speak to its staff. Many of the Meetup employees, she said, were a little wary of her focus on what she called \u201cweird pickles\u201d like Japanese nukazuke, which are made by fermenting vegetables in a bed of mashed and roasted rice bran.<\/p>\n

Even with items like kombucha and kimchi appearing on supermarket shelves, fermenters \u2014 who often live among pungent jars, tubs and crocks and rely on friends to \u201cfeed\u201d their sourdough starters with flour and water while on vacation \u2014 are still considered outside the mainstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so misunderstood,\u201d said Cheryl Paswater, 36, a Prospect-Lefferts Gardens resident who has attended Ms. Whitsitt\u2019s workshops and teaches fermentation classes under the monikers Dr. Delicious and Contraband Ferments.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod bless their souls, my roommates have never complained,\u201d said Ms. Paswater, who keeps a stash of Japanese miso fermenting under her bed.<\/p>\n

Last summer, Ms. Paswater traveled with Ms. Whitsitt to Vermont to help run an event. \u201cHer project\u2019s special,\u201d Ms. Paswater said. \u201cAnybody that\u2019s willing to be that adventurous and go out and talk about their passion, those are the people who are magic. They are the unicorns.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mythical beasts aside, home fermentation raises some legitimate food-safety concerns. Robert Tauxe, the deputy director of the division of food-borne, waterborne and environmental diseases for the Centers for Disease Control, said that fermented foods have a long, established history. As one of the earliest culinary techniques, Mr. Tauxe said, fermentation has changed little over centuries: Naturally occurring microbes like yeasts and bacteria break down cabbage, soybeans or grape juice into sauerkraut, miso or wine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere people have gotten into trouble,\u201d he said, \u201cis striking out on their own and mixing and matching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though the C.D.C. encounters fermentation-related problems only rarely, Mr. Tauxe offered a few hair-raising anecdotes, including two cases of botulism in Queens from home-fermented tofu (it is known as stinky tofu and can be found on Chinese menus). Then, he said, there is the prison beverage known as \u201cpruno,\u201d made by inmates who put fruit or vegetable juice in \u201ca plastic bag under their armpit until it is fermented and filter it through a sock.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat,\u201d he said, \u201cis real freelance fermenting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Radish-fennel<\/a>

A radish-fennel sauerkraut is among the items she produces out of the bus, which she parked on city streets.
Credit: \u00c1ngel Franco\/The New York Times<\/p><\/div>\n

In the city, learning about fermenting is now easier thanks to people like Ms. Paswater and members of NYC Ferments, which hosted Ms. Whitsitt for a kimchi-making demonstration. \u201cI love the idea of her journey,\u201d said Ms. Davis of NYC Ferments, who is also the education manager for a city nonprofit called Just Food, where Ms. Whitsitt is scheduled to teach a fermentation workshop on March 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s wonderful, what she\u2019s doing,\u201d Ms. Hayes said, noting the increase in interest among students, those who wish to buy fermented foods or even organizations that want to host their own fermentation classes.<\/p>\n

Attendance has also grown at the annual Ferment! Ferment! \u2014 a spring fermentation \u201cpotluck-meets-party-meets-informal tasting\u201d held by a Crown Heights resident, Zachary Schulman, 34, for the past eight years.<\/p>\n

What started as a dozen or so people in Mr. Schulman\u2019s living room has swelled to a crowd of 250 that gathers over samples of pear cider or Russian beet kvass at the Brooklyn Free School in Clinton Hill.<\/p>\n

Mr. Schulman said he hoped to have Ms. Whitsitt speak at the ninth annual gathering in March. He has long admired what he said was her openhearted approach to sharing her knowledge, and her ability to curate a well-stocked pantry of foods that can require as much care as pets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty spectacular not just to keep them alive,\u201d Mr. Schulman said, \u201cbut to keep them alive traveling on a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, not everyone is a fan of Ms. Whitsitt\u2019s pink and yellow-striped behemoth, most notably the Long Island City resident who banged on her door threatening to take action about the proximity of the bus\u2019s front bumper to another car.<\/p>\n

Ms. Whitsitt said she was less concerned about parking rules than about simply sitting still. Though New York is full of friends, she said, \u201cthis is the longest I\u2019ve stayed in one place on this trip.\u201d<\/p>\n

View article on\u00a0NYTimes.com \/ The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

She\u2019s the Johnny Appleseed of Pickling Traveling by Bus, an Evangelist for Fermentation Gives Lessons on Food Preservation By RACHEL WHARTON\u00a0JAN. 30, 2015 If you find yourself wandering near Whale Creek, in an industrial stretch of Long Island City, Queens, and you come across a dilapidated 1986 International Harvester school bus emitting a faint smell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,4],"tags":[131,154,61,302,288,349],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chefssociety.org\/collaborative_culinary_organization\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}