West Asheville · New Appalachian kitchen since 2016
We cook supper five nights a week at 747 Haywood Road. Most of what lands on the plate passed through our larder first: corn we mill on stone, sorghum we buy by the barrel from a Madison County press, and crocks of mountain produce fermenting in the cellar under the dining room.
Larder tool · Crock bench
This is the same arithmetic Clara chalks on the larder board before every batch. Pick what you are fermenting, weigh it, and choose how you are salting. You get the exact weight of non-iodized salt, how long it should sit in a 58–68°F cellar, and the pH it has to reach before it is done.
Larder batch BN-2610-CC-020
Shred the cabbage fine, salt it, and knead until it weeps. In the equilibrium method the cabbage makes its own brine, so no water goes in. Peppers and onion join after the first week.
Weigh your salt. A tablespoon of flaky kosher salt can weigh half as much as a tablespoon of fine sea salt. Check pH with a calibrated meter or narrow-range strips, and if a crock smells rotten or grows fuzzy colored mold, compost it.
From the logbook
Entry 0412 · Oct 21 · Clara
We waited for frost before cutting the last cabbages from the Sandy Mush field. Cold turns starch to sugar, and sugar is what the lactic bacteria eat. Twelve crocks of chow-chow went down this week at 2.0%. They will be ready the week of Thanksgiving.
Entry 0413 · Oct 24 · Boone
The new crop of Jimmy Red came in dry and hard, which is what you want for milling. We run the stones slow so the meal stays cool and the germ oil stays sweet. The coarse grits are on the menu now. The fine meal is in the larder for cornbread.
Entry 0414 · Oct 26 · Clara
The cider vinegar we started from Haywood County apple peels in August finally has a thick, healthy mother. It goes into the pork pan sauce and our house shrubs. If you want a piece of it to start your own, ask at the larder counter.
Field notes