The owner of Lawrenceville restaurant Franktuary once asked his kitchen staff if anyone knew how to make sauerkraut. Cornelius Lubecki raised his hand. He had some mad fermentation skills to offer.
A year later, Lubecki founded Ferment Pittsburgh, creating a public festival to spread the word. This Sunday the fifth annual Pittsburgh Fermentation Festival will take place, at Spirit in Lawrenceville.
The event is free and features sampling of fermented foods, workshops and local vendors.
Courtesy of Cornelius Lubecki
The 2020 Pittsburgh Fermentation Festival’s poster was created by artist Gunner and exemplifies the homemade and artistic nature of many of the festival’s activities.
The fermentation of food is a controlled process where naturally-occurring yeast and beneficial bacteria are allowed to naturally break down components, resulting in sauerkraut, bread, kefir, kombucha and tempeh.
For Meryem Mammedova, founder and owner of Prescription Foods, fermented foods were a way of life in her native Turkmenistan.
“My aunts, relatives and cousins would get together before winter started, and we would buy rows of cabbage and beets and carrots and ferment them,” said Mammedova, 39, of Squirrel Hill, whose products are sold in a handful of Pittsburgh specialty grocery stores.
The tradition wasn’t something she carried on after moving to the United States. A health scare changed that when four months of antibiotics wreaked havoc on her digestive health.
“I came across the field of gut healing, and I learned that the number one thing you have to do to heal your gut is introduce probiotic-rich foods, or fermented foods,” said Mammedova. “That’s how I restarted the tradition of making sauerkraut and kefir.”
Mammedova will be sampling and selling her fermented foods as well as giving a presentation about gut health.
Courtesy of Cornelius Lubecki
The making of sauerkraut is one of the many hands-on stations available at the Fermentation Festival.
Chloe Newman, founder and head baker at Crust Worthy, which specializes in naturally leavened baked goods, came to the art of fermentation another way.
“Sourdough came to me as a way to minimize the amount of processed foods I was eating,” said Newman, 28, a Forest Hills resident. “It wasn’t something that I expected to fall so much in love with.”
Last year’s Fermentation Festival was the first time Crust Worthy participated in a public event. “There are fermented foods we eat all the time that we don’t think about,” Newman said. “You just learn so much while you’re there. You see so many different angles to the food system, and you see people who are really passionate about working with nature without extra preservatives or chemicals to create delicious foods.”
Lubecki, 34 of Bloomfield, was inspired to create the event after he spent three weeks learning fermentation techniques from author Sandor Katz in the foothills of eastern Tennessee, living mostly off-the-grid. Lubecki credits Katz with fermentation’s modern popularity.
“I created Ferment Pittsburgh as a platform for all these different people who are interested in it or curious or people to learn who don’t know anything about it,” Lubecki said.
Food education is a theme across all of Lubecki’s ventures.
Lubecki Brothers Family Farm — a partnership between Lubecki and his brother, Nick, in Butler County — is a “research farm,” exploring the most efficient plots to feed families all year round.
“It ties into fermentation a lot because one of the things I’m really attracted to about fermentation is the idea of preservation, which is a way to be eating locally, out of the growing season,” said Lubecki.
His interest in education is what makes the Fermentation Festival free-of-charge.
“The people who put this festival together are more interested in the future of these ideas, the skills we think are necessary to people,” said Lubecki. “So, we see it as really important to not create any sort of financial barrier.”
The Fermentation Festival will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. this Sunday at Spirit on 51st Street in Lawrenceville.
Abby Mackey is a Tribune-Review contributing writer. You can contact Abby at abbyrose.mac[email protected] or via Twitter.
Categories:
Local |
Pittsburgh Allegheny |
Food Drink |
More Lifestyles