Why did you soak fruits and vegetables in the old days?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Urination is an ancient way of preserving and preserving food for a long time; pickled fruits and vegetables were widely consumed even before our era by many peoples who lived in northern Europe and Siberia.

The most interesting thing is that so far, the urination of food has come to an almost unchanged form. Often, even the dishes are used the same that was popular many centuries ago - wooden tubs and barrels. Unfortunately, the problem of our time is small-sized apartments, therefore it is difficult to find a place for the traditional method of soaking (in barrels and tubs). But it is wooden tubs and barrels that allow you to achieve a unique taste and aroma of soaked products. But our people contrives to use enameled pots, ceramic dishes, and even jars, and to achieve the "taste of a barrel" they use oak sawdust! But with cans it is more difficult - you cannot put apples in them under oppression, and therefore the process takes place somewhat slower, two or even three months.

You can soak anything you want: fruits, berries, vegetables, melons, and it is not only simple, but also tasty, and in some cases even healthier than other methods of harvesting. (as our president assures us, you can even kill terrorists in the toilet)

You do not need to clean and shred anything, just wash and soak thoroughly.

An economical type of conservation - you won't have to spend either gas or electricity, and from the "preservatives" - salt, sugar, spices, mustard and in some cases - rye flour. So, it is worth remembering the traditions of our ancestors.

A city dweller who does not delve into the intricacies of preservation can easily confuse urinating with the fermentation process. The main difference between urinating and fermenting is that when urinating products, it is important to have a large amount of sugar in the products themselves or in the brine.

When fermenting, the presence of an insignificant proportion of sugar does not play a role, the main work is performed by lactic acid bacteria, which produce acid, it is she who ferments vegetables and fruits.

When they say "pickled", most of us imagine apples, but moisten not only them, but also pears and various berries: lingonberries, cloudberries, cranberries, rowan berries, even berries with a vegetable flavor - physalis, many like pickled watermelons, and sometimes use and combined options: add rowan or lingonberry to apples, sometimes cabbage.

And in the old days, even beets were soaked: well washed, they were poured with well water and pressed down with a press, and then they ate it all winter, and drank the brine and used it for soups.

In most cases, pickled foods are softer than fermented foods. This is due to the fact that the yeast, when urinated, processes cellulose to a greater extent, which constitutes the main solid "skeleton" of products.

For the normal functioning of the yeast and the successful course of the urination process, barley malt is often added to a barrel or other vessel with soaked products, and the entire brine eventually becomes similar to kvass. And the soaked food tastes a bit like this drink too.

Food is most often wetted in barrels or tubs, where, for example, apples are placed in even layers, shifting each layer with cabbage or currant leaves. Our ancestors very often laid them with hay or simple green foliage, because the main task of such "layers" is to reduce the pressure of apples from the overlying layers to the lower ones in order to preserve their shape and volume.

After filling the barrels, everything is poured with brine, consisting of water (better well, but filtered and bottled water will do), to which 1% salt is added (preferably stone, not "extra"), up to 4% sugar and about 1% malt. Malt, by the way, can be safely replaced with rye flour, rye bread crumbs or dry kvass.

Fans of spicy taste add spices: cinnamon, cloves, allspice. A frequent component of urination is dry mustard. It is added both to the sweet filling and to the filling using rye flour. The taste of apples and berries in such a brine turns out to be sour-sharp, tart, unusual.

After a few days (depending on the room temperature, and the highest quality fermentation occurs in the range from 15 to 22 degrees), foam forms on the brine surface: this means that the fermentation process is in full swing. At this time, you can punch holes with special metal rods until the very day of the barrel to remove excess gas and bring the barrels into a cool room, where at a temperature of 4 - 6 ° C the fruits will slowly ferment. And in a month or two, the soaked product will be ready.

Why are soaked foods more useful than other canned "brethren"?

First, softened fiber. In some people with intestinal diseases, raw vegetables and fruits cause increased irritation of the mucous membranes, bloating and rumbling in the stomach, while pee does not!

In addition, pickled foods (like fermented foods) have antibacterial properties, which means they are useful for any infections of the gastrointestinal tract.

Pickled fruits contain less sugar than fresh ones, because part of the sugar from the fruit goes to "feed" the yeast, which "conducts" the process of urinating. Such fruits can be used even by those suffering from diabetes, as well as by everyone who watches their figure.

Urination allows you to preserve vitamins and other useful substances to the maximum, and vitamin C can also “increase”! So, for example, in soaked apples (and especially if soaked with viburnum or cranberries), the amount of ascorbic acid increases.

Properly cooked pickled vegetables and fruits not only stimulate appetite, but can also accelerate the secretion of gastric juice, as well as enhance intestinal motility.

And of course, a big plus is the ability to be stored for a long time. Watermelons, which hardly lie until winter, and apples, which only rarely survive until the beginning of spring, in a brine in a barrel are nutritious and fit for consumption all year round, which is why this method of storing fruit is so popular. Especially in the North, where the harvest storage period begins in October.

There are several disadvantages of soaked products: it is excess salt, as well as acid, because of which they are not recommended for people with gastric and duodenal ulcers, as well as with high acidity.

RECIPES

Pickled Apples

For a three-liter jar - 1 glass of sugar

Select the apples without bruising, wash, put them in a jar to the top.

Press down on the apples with 2 clean small sticks and set them crosswise.

Add sugar and pour cold boiled or spring water. Close with a plastic lid.

Store in a cool place.

Soaked rowan

Enamelled casserole

Rowan

Water

3 tbsp Sahara

5-7 carnation buds

Rowan is harvested after frost.

Sort the rowan, remove the brushes, wash and pour into a saucepan.

Dissolve sugar in warm water, add cloves, cool and pour over berries.

Cover the top with a dense natural fabric, put a wooden board, oppression, keep it cool for a week, then you can transfer it to the cellar. The rowan will be ready in a month.

Soaked lingonberry

Cowberry

1 tbsp. l. salt

1 cup of sugar

Cinnamon

Water

Rinse the lingonberries, put in a jar.

Dissolve sugar in cold water, add salt and a cinnamon stick.

Pour the berries with a solution, close the lid. Keep in a cool place until tender for 1, 5 months.

Soaked watermelon

Brine: for a bucket of water - 2 cups of salt and 3 cups of sugar

Put dill, hazel leaves, mint in a soaked tub. Pour boiling water over, close the tub and leave for 3-4 hours to steam the tub. Choose small watermelons, they can be soaked whole, large ones must be cut.

Put fresh dill, black currant leaves, cherries, parsley, celery at the bottom of the tub. Then lay out the watermelons, while the gaps between the whole watermelons can be filled with chopped fruits so that there are no gaps. The rows are layered with garlic, chopped and mashed horseradish root, onion rings, dill. Pour with brine. Leave at a temperature of 15-20 degrees for several days, after which - in a cool place.