Real Food Wednesdays

Discovering Nourishing Traditions

I discovered the Nourishing Traditions way of cooking when we first got involved as Weston A. Price members.  I bought my copy of Sally Fallon’s cookbook off of Ebay. At first blush, the cookbook was to say the least, overwhelming.  So many recipes required that you make other ingredients first, such as stock, creme fraiche, kefir, whey. The concepts of fermenting foods, soaking grains, were completely foreign.  Even though I considered myself a gourmet cook, I had a lot of learning to do before I could make these new recipes.

Learn from Those Who Are Going Down the Path Before You

Monica Corrado, an honorary board member of Weston A. Price, and the original caterer for our conferences, fortunately lives in the Metro DC area. She has a Nourishing Traditions cooking class series that I attended. Her business SimplyBeingWell also does consulting with people. She helped my father with nutritional guidance in his battle with cancer, for instance. The great thing about her classes is that she demonstrates the techniques and in some cases, has you help make a recipe. This took much of the mystery out of these new techniques.

How to Make Your Own Butter

Here is a tutorial for you on how to make your own cultured butter from your raw milk!

I also found ideas and instruction on various yahoo groups devoted to the cookbook, such as Discussing NT and Raw Dairy. I found these discussion boards a place to mine for gold nuggets from others who had gone this path before me.

Inch by Inch, Everything is a Cinch

One by one, I began to implement the different aspects of nourishing traditions.  Making Stock from bones, was the first thing I tackled, culturing dairy, the second (kefir, yogurt, cream cheese, creme fraiche, and whey).  Once I got those under my belt, I moved on to soaking and dehydrating nuts, then began fermenting veggies. Finally, I learned about soaking and sprouting grains for pancakes or hot breakfast porridge.

This whole process took about a year. I now easily incorporate all these methods into our routine. Today, for instance, I am making yogurt. Last week, I made a batch of sauerkraut. The week before that, I fermented some cucumbers for pickles. My freezer is full of stocks (lamb, fish, beef, chicken and turkey) in one cup containers that I pull out to make an entree, soup or stew.

Traditions Make Convenience Foods a Joke

My whole day is not spent in the kitchen, in fact I run a home based business, where I spend most of my time. I have found nourishing traditional foods to be very convenient. Once I make a batch of crispy nuts, I put them in an airtight jar on the counter and then they are readily available to throw into a recipe. To make a beef stew the other day, I took out two cups of stock and some stew meat, thawed them partially, then threw them into the slow cooker.  At the end of the day, about an hour before dinner, I added chopped veggies, onions, garlic and seasonings.  Dinner was done and it was simple and quick.

We have had to make an investment in a free standing freezer for the garage, and we also got a free standing refrigerator. Both have been very helpful in storing our milk, fermented veggies, and frozen meats and stock. We also have a cooler in the car at all times, for going to farm drops and farmers markets. Ours actually plugs in to the car and is a mini refrigerator!

But, with the small fortune we have saved on forgoing dining out, delivery pizza and chinese, and cutting out all the processed food we used to buy, I think financially we are coming out way ahead!

I feel that Nourishing Traditions has turned me from a ho-hum cook into a talented home chef. It has made my homemaking a fine art, and something I take great pride in. And, my husband is happier, also!

Nourishing Traditions and other books published by Sally Fallon are available from NewTrendsPublishing.

To see more Real Food Wednesdays nourishing foods testimonials, please click here!

Nourishing Traditions Cookbook