A few hundred years ago, preserving food through fermentation was commonplace. It’s easy, doesn’t require fuel or special equipment and, best of all, fermented foods are healthy. Fermentation is the naturally occurring process by which “friendly” bacteria, fungi and molds pre-digest a food, changing its nutritional make-up and flavor along the way.  Some of our favorite foods—cheese, wine, beer, chocolate, sourdough bread and yogurt—depend on the fermentation process. Other foods, perhaps less familiar, like kefir, kim chee, kombucha and miso, are the products of natural fermentation as well. All offer complex, interesting flavors and nutritional advantages.

By the time we’re adults, we have about 400 species of healthy bacteria in our colons—more than three and a half pounds of total mass. If we drink chlorinated drinking water, take antibiotics, eat meat with antibiotic residues or destroy our own microflora by any other means (and there are many), we probably have less than a full complement of healthy microflora in our bodies. These “friendly” microbes keep pathogenic bacteria in check, help with digestion and assimilation of nutrients.

Fermentation breaks foods down into more easily digestible forms. In kefir and yogurt, lactose (milk sugar) breaks down into lactic acid, which is much easier to digest and handled easily by many people who are lactose intolerant. Fermented grains—even wheat—are easier to digest after being “pre-digested” by microorganisms. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, which promotes fermentation world-wide as a means of food preservation, fermentation improves the bio-availability of nutrients in foods.

It doesn’t end there. Fermentation actually creates new nutrients in food, like omega-3 fatty acids, B vitamins and the famous free-radical-scavenging anti-oxidants. Everyone could benefit from incorporating fermented foods in their diets; those with compromised immune systems or those battling chronic illness should definitely include them.

Any food can be fermented. With a steady supply of kefir and kombucha already bubbling on top of my fridge, I turned my attention to cucumbers last week. I arranged a barter deal for a bucket of tiny, perfect pickling cucumbers with the goal of trying my hand at making lacto-fermented pickles. Remember the old general store dill pickles? The really garlicky, sour ones in a big wooden barrel? That’s the one. Water, salt, cucumbers, spices and time.

I used Sandor Katz’s recipe from his book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition and Craft of Live-Culture Foods. Sandor is crazy about fermentation and a zealous proponent of eating wild-fermented foods for health and I’m sure he has tried fermenting everything—at least once. Even goat. I’m not there yet, but I am ready for pickles.

He recommends the addition of grape leaves to the brew (or any of a few other high-tannin leaves) to help ensure crispy pickles. Squirmy at the thought of mushy pickles, I hit up another friend for a few grape leaves.

Lacto-Fermented Sour Pickles

• filtered water
• sea salt
• whole black pepper
• fresh dill
• garlic (a few whole cloves per quart)
• pickling cucumbers
• grape leaves

Choose cucumbers that are crispy and fresh. Wash them and carefully rub off the residue of the blossom (the little brown spot at the end of the cucumber). Use about 3/8 cup of sea salt for every gallon of water; stir to dissolve (no heat necessary). Place pepper, dill, whole cloves of garlic and a grape leaf in large, clean jars. Pack the jars with cucumbers and fill each with brine, making sure the cucumbers are covered with liquid. Place a smaller jar or some other small, heavy object on top to weight the cucumbers down as they ferment. The more traditional and simpler method would be to use a large stoneware crock, but I don’t have one, so quart jars worked just fine. Cover the works with a dish towel to keep the fruit flies out. Nature does the rest. Three to seven days later, you’ll have pickles. Sandor advised checking and tasting along the way, but I just let mine do their thing for the full seven days. Cover and store the pickles in the fridge, or they’ll keep right on fermenting and blow up!

These pickles are plenty sour and perfectly crunchy. They taste nothing like vinegar sour dill pickles, and everything like a memory of childhood. Lip-puckering, tongue-tingling sour pickles.

On to sauerkraut and kim chee! Fermentation is perfect for a canning-phobic but adventurous cook like me, but the best part is knowing that every bite is loaded with healthy microbes. A pickle a day keeps the doctor away…

How to you incorporate a diversity of microbes into your diet? What do you think I should try fermenting next?