This post is part of Hardy Eville’s 2024 Lazarus Summer Internship.
This past fall, I brewed my first batch of beer for the Yale Farm. Over the rest of the academic year, I continued to brew and expanded into other forms of fermentation – making a few varieties of miso during the winter. My goal for the Lazarus Summer Internship was to build on these projects. I wanted to undertake projects that highlighted the summer produce of the Yale Farm, preserving some of these flavors for students to try in the Fall and Winter months. I also endeavored to experiment with new methods, build a better repertoire of fermentation techniques, and work on developing my own recipes.
Why fermentation? I see fermentation as a unique way to process the many things that grow on the Yale Farm. Apart from additions like salt and sugar, many fermented products are not mixed with any additional ingredients as they would with cooking. I see fermentation as a way to enhance the flavors of any produce by bringing out qualities that already exist within it. With fermentation, less inputs (besides waiting time) are needed to create diverse flavors.
Over the course of the summer, I was very aware of the timing of everything growing at the farm. In order to properly ferment things on schedule I had to know exactly when something would be ripe or in bloom. Through this, I felt very connected with the week by week changes of the farm. There was always an exciting anticipation about what would be ready next for a project. I also enjoyed thinking about the ways to process each ingredient, deciding between kombucha, beer, vinegar, lacto-fermentation, miso pickling, koji fermentation, and more.
Recipes:
