Podcasts and fermenting watermelon rinds

 I have recently been invited to talk on a podcast called Guatemala Global about my research and just life in general.  This has been an interesting and enlightening experience, making me wonder about my presentation skills and those rather annoying nervous ticks I have discovered I have while presenting. How can I get rid of them (is it even possible)? During last nights podcast the subject of alcohol and fermentation came up mainly because I learnt to drink with nuns.  I say that quite lightly but I am realising learning to drink amongst religious is not something that happens on a regular basis. I studied in Spain, particularly in wine country and a lot of wine was easily available. My body developed a high tolerance for alcohol quite quickly and this has remained with me through the years.  My one random nun comment led to a more extensive discussion of fermentation and alcohol creating, which brought me to the subject of alcohol consumption and fermentation during my years living in Aachen, Germany. 

Aachen was once the imperial capital of the Holy Roman Empire and still retains some of its old medieval architecture. It is quite beautiful really and well worth a visit. While there I had the opportunity of amply imbibing several types of German schnapps: pear, hazelnut, almond, cherry, and apple. Schnapps and their other European equivalents is a highly alcohol beverage, usually of 40 or 50% alcohol. It is made through the fermentation of fruit or nuts followed by the distilling of the fermented mass. Curiously fermenting certain fruits or vegetables not only extends their shelf life but accentuates their vitamin C. Sauerkraut and gurken were two ways people had of having veg and their vitamins during the long winter months. There is a whole culture behind fermentation revived in large part by vegans. While living in Aachen I was sharing a flat with a vegetarian and a vegan. The vegetarian survived largely on cheese and was a physician so had little time to dedicate to the kitchen. The vegan on the other hand was constantly experimenting with meals and new recipes. She went through a fermentation phase and during this period many jars filled the kitchen with her experiments. One such experiment involved the fermenting of watermelon rind. It turns out the the rind is edible and in theory gives you a lot of fiber and reduces your blood pressure. As may be assumed from all the fermenting going on she was not always drunk. 

I experimented for a while with some fermenting and chutney making. The best chutney is made with not quite ripe mango. I made it based on a recipe from a Salvadoran cookbook. To be precise THE Salvadoran cookbook, which all women used to get when they married. The "Tia Matilde". Matilde was someone's aunt and she was a great cook. In it one finds recipes for all types of meals and occasions as well as regions of the world because what is toted as Salvadoran cuisine is really a fusion of the immigrants El Salvador once had. This reminds me of a cookbook we have at home, it belonged to my great-grandmother though for a long time we thought it was in her handwriting and that she had compiled it but this assumption has been contested by an aunt of mine who argues the handwriting looks like that of one of our great-aunts rather than our great-grandmother. The notebook itself still bares the stamp of the shop she bought it in back in 1912, which was around the time she married. The recipe titles are followed by the name of the recipe giver in parenthesis. In some cases they are in original language, as in not in Spanish. Since the region my family on my maternal side comes from is near Berlin, El Salvador, there are several German cake recipes, my favourite is the marmolkuchen from Anna Burkhardt. She would one day become the grandmother of the country's president, symbolising another curious aspect of my mother's region of origin and that is the amount of presidents it produced for the country. This was largely due to the connection between coffee power and political power, which just goes to show, landed power lasted well into the 20th century, even in places such as El Salvador.