Kitchen Culture

”Ploink!”

My sauerkraut makes its bubbly presence known from the kitchen counter crock as millions of little bacteria sing their gaseous song. 

If you’ve ever fermented something, then you know how satisfying is this sound of your bubbling brew.

The first time we ever made kraut was after sampling some at our friends’, Derral and Lisa White’s home.  They shortly afterwards gave us the biggest head of cabbage from their garden that I’d ever seen!  Lisa calmly assured me that krauting was a safe, simple process, and I willingly believed.  By God’s grace, our first attempt was a huge success, and made us firm believers in home fermenting.  (Since then, I have made several soggy, stinky, and downright questionable batches – isn’t God kind in giving us that first success?)

Sauerkraut is the product of shredded cabbage, salt, and time.  We find it delicious on hash-browns, eggs, hotdogs, chili, and my sister-in-law makes a delicious soup out of it!  It is full of gut-healthy pro-biotics and brassica family goodness.  The internet assures me of kraut’s many benefits, and I believe it.  Among them are weight loss, cancer prevention, improved gut and brain function, bone strengthening, and immune improvement – Wowsers! 

As I shred and weigh my home grown cabbages, who loved this year’s long, moist spring, (for 5 lbs of shredded cabbage, 3.5 Tbsp of salt is added), I reflect on God’s gift of preservation.  To think, before refrigeration, freeze drying, canning, or anything else, God built into creation the gift of fermentation and preservation!  Tiny, invisible bacteria, ubiquitous in nature, found on the very cabbage plant themselves, are waiting to keep green cabbage safe and nutritious for consumption in the dead of winter!  It reminds me of His goodness, how He sees our needs and speaks to it before we are even aware of it!  How dependent we are, how helpless we are, and how good He is in His care for us! 

I love my family.  I grow food, and preserve it for them.  Now it is warm, the days are long, we can graze in the garden, but winter’s a-comin’… and we’ll be ready.  Our Heavenly Father has better foresight, omnipotent provision, ultimate consideration – and He cares for us!  How good it is to rest in the hands of a loving, all-powerful Father. 

I could go on and on about bacteria (thank you Ms. Meacham, my Micro teacher!), and the many forms we find and use culture in the kitchen, (kombucha, sourdough, yogurt, kefir, and don’t forget alcohol – for medicinal purposes of course…), but the lesson is still the same.  God is taking care of us, pervasively, in every fiber of creation, often invisibly.  In Scripture we are warned of the powerful working of a little bit of leaven (yeast), how a little bit leavens the whole lump.  Then, in Matthew 13:33 Christ went on to compare the Kingdom of Heaven to leaven!  We get to be a part of this powerful, preserving process!  When the Word of the Kingdom of Heaven enters our hearts and hands, it affects everything we do, and fills the world with proof of His power.

Ploink!  It’s working! 

Matthew 13:33  "Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."