The Power of Sour
The Power of Sour
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The Power of Sour 〰️
A pickle. Lemon. Vinegar. That’s what we think of when we think of sour. Your mouth just watered, didn’t it?
Sour is something our body understands as a fundamental part of taking nutrition from food. When we taste sour, our mouth signals the brain to pay attention! Whoo, that was tart! Sour is also a conversation about preservation. Most of the ways we preserve food involve acids, creating that pickle, sauerkraut, sourdough, using those acids to transform and preserve (even enhance) the value from the ingredient.
This is what sour does. The right acid balance enlivens our food and captures a moment in time, the essence of the experience. The science of culinary acids is fascinating, and their intersections with salt and fermentation create some of the most amazing foods we eat and flavor we build. Citric, malic, and tartaric acids show up in so many fruits and vegetables. Acetic acid, familiar to us as vinegar, comes fresh in some fruits, but also joins lactic acid as by-products of fermentation. All the acids contribute to our digestion, appetite and appreciation for a balanced diet, inspiring health.
Our historical references for sour go back to Babylon and Egypt, for medicinal, preservation and health purposes. It is difficult if not impossible to think of a cultural or regional cuisine that does not revere the power of sour to influence flavor and benefits from food.
We frequently associate sour tastes, like kombucha, white kimchi, and lemon juice with returns to health, resetting our palates, our systems, maybe as part of a fast. When I enjoy sour foods, I feel that reset, that invigoration that comes from a pop of tart. When we enjoy rich foods higher in fat or with flavors that skew to salt or umami, sour balances a timeless taste as immediate and relevant to this very minute. Lemon juice on an anchovy rich caesar salad, red wine vinegar splashed on roasted broccoli, a creamy soft cheese on a sturdy sourdough, sour is the multiplier that engages our brains to really notice what we are eating.
At A Matter of Taste, when we host teams to talk about sour and pickling, yes, we’re also including conversations about salt, but the focus is on acids and how they engage with ingredients to create something new. Our teams create personal blends of acids, salts and spices for unique home pickles- giving each participant the power of their own bespoke sour to preserve what is meaningful to them. Watermelon rinds pickled with chilis for a hot and tart cocktail topper, softened preserved lemons with warming spices to add to soups for a truly “je ne sais quoi” of our own, sour is path of exploration and experimentation.
Taking sour out a click or two, preserving food and sharing it is a part of human social living. The mutuality of my pickles for your preserved cherries is a part of farm life around the world. We’re enjoying bringing that to teams we work with, even if the farm life is a farmer’s market find preserved in an apartment kitchen with a pickling spice blend made at one of our workshops.
Here in Seattle, in the PNW, we are so lucky to have access to in-season produce and ingredients at a quality level unrivaled in other areas. We use sour foods to appreciate that abundance intentionally and preserve it to enjoy and share with others throughout the year. We can also apply the idea of appreciation and preservation to broader collaboration and community-making opportunities.
This is the power of sour.
