Ken was away for an unexpectedly long time in June to visit his parents and also traveling to do publicity appearances for his book. Consequently the garden got a bit out of hand, and a surplus built up. In particular there was a surplus of onions, and onions, being sacred, are much too good to waste. So what to do?
Ferment them.
Though all my fermenting experience is with sauerkraut, pretty much any kind of vegetable can be fermented if you know the process. The process isn’t complex: Put the vegetables, appropriately sliced or shredded, into a crock and use the right amount of salt or brine.
As with sauerkraut, the prep work is a huge chore. I peeled about 30 pounds of onions and cut them into wedges. I put them in the crock and covered them with brine made from Celtic sea salt (about 3 tablespoons of salt per quart of water). In about three weeks we’ll see how they taste.
These are sweet and mild Georgia-style onions, and they’re organic, like everything grown at the abbey. To my surprise, peeling them and cutting them didn’t even provoke any onion tears.
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