Critic of food fads that I am, we jumped on one recently. Food fermenting is the latest craze on all the Mommy blogs and, heaven help me, I’m crazed along with the rest of them. Physician, heal thyself.

It happened this way.

My brother brought homemade sauerkraut along on a deer hunt. I don’t like sauerkraut, so of course he badgered me into trying it. Wonderful! I’d only had storebought before. I didn’t see the appeal. My brother’s stuff was nothing like. Later I got a hankering and decided to make my own. It was easy. My kids were just warm enough to it, and my wife loved it. I now have several gallons of it under my belt, both metaphorically but also literally. Enough so that I decided to branch out.

For a date, my wife and I looked up different recipes and went shopping for ingredients that would be fun to ferment. Then we made it for FHE. I told the kids before how we’d do the fermenting and asked them to think of parables or scripture ties, for our FHE lesson.

One daughter said that good vegetables are like blessings but once you get the blessing you have to work to hold on to it. I pointed out the harmony with the scriptures about enduring to the end.

Another daughter said that it reminded her of adversity. The vegetables becoming better through being attacked by bacteria and bathed in acid.

Another daughter said it made her think about perfection and repentance. She said she didn’t know why, but it was hard for her and for other people to keep in mind that getting better always meant changing.

The Lovely One said she wanted to put the fermenting food out where we could see it because it was pretty, and that dwelling on blessings made for happiness.

I talked about how the food needed to be covered in water to protect it from the air. I said we were surrounded by a vast sea of corrupting influence but that with care and effort we could keep it out.