Lacto-Fermentation

This is one of the easiest techniques of pickling in the repertoire.

All you need is salt, water, and time.

Plus, a mechanism to keep the vegetables below the water line. The CC recommends a Japanese pickle-press which is designed to do so. Even if you don't have one as long as you are committed to just shaking the container daily, you're good to go.

Pickling is an exercise in hygiene and cleanliness. Something that is very relevant to our times. Most of the hard work of pickling lies in sterilization. You are trying to get rid of all the bad bacteria and fungi and introduce the good ones.

There has never been a pickler in history who has said "My workspace is too clean."

Anal-retentives, please report to the front of the class!

There are just a few steps:

[1] Pour boiling water over your jar to sterilize it.

[2] 5% of salt by volume at the bottom. (Don't sweat this percentage thing. Just don't under-salt!)

[3] Scrub and clean [ and cut ] your vegetables.

[4] Boiling water over the top.

[5] Seal and store in your refrigetator - there's a reason for this.

Your vegetables are your babies. They will "burp" so every day, you will need to "burp the baby" — open the seal, "burp", close the seal again.

They will settle down just like babies.

Crispy vegetables e.g. carrots take longer to ferment. Rest work faster.

On the safety issue, as one FDA commissioner said and the CC quotes loosely, "There has never been a recorded case of illness [ due to lacto-fermentation ] in the entire history of the FDA. It's the safest technology we know."