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| Alli Manzella / Credit: Susan L. Angstadt/ Reading Eagle |
I was truly inspired by Alli's passion for pickling, when I interviewed her for a recent story, I have included below, because she pickles with true purpose to accommodate her dietary needs on top of the more common motivation to preserve food. I am envious she has enough vegetables from her garden stored away to enjoy through the winter season. It has motivated me to take a closer look at my garden planning for the coming year to truly get the most out of our land. My rule of thumb has been to at least grow the basic ingredients most common in our meals, given the size of my garden limits what I can grow. My thumb isn't the greenest, but each year I give it another try with higher hopes. Alli has inspired me to take this year on with true gusto!
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| Credit: Susan L. Angstadt / Reading Eagle
By Courtney H. Diener-Stokes - Reading Eagle correspondent
Wednesday January 21, 2015
Alli Manzella, 32, began experimenting with fermentation and pickling in her late teens. She had to adjust her diet due to food intolerance, which led to many restrictions. She was on a mission to figure out alternatives to help her achieve optimal health.
"You realize what you are eating has all of these unnecessary additives and additions in it," Manzella said, referring to imported ingredients, preservatives, dyes, sugar and certain seeds. "I have a reaction to all of that."
Manzella was also inspired by one of her sisters, who is a homesteader.
"She cans everything and pickles everything she can," Manzella said. "I started learning from her."
Manzella has a clear objective when approaching food, which is in sync with a life she leads centered on making sustainable choices and being responsible for the environment."
I like keeping things really clean and pure, substituting with more natural ingredients," she said.
Manzella tries to get as many ingredients as possible from her garden at her home in Exeter Township. In the offseason, she orders produce from Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op.
"If the recipe calls for hot pepper seeds, I might use Hungarian hot pepper, use mustard green seeds in the pickles or nasturtium flower seeds instead of peppercorns," she said of the little flavor tweaks she makes so she can take advantage of what is growing in the backyard.
Manzella enjoys pickling a variety of vegetables.
"You can pickle absolutely anything," she said. "I will use heirloom vegetables I would grow because they are more in their natural state. There are tons of heirloom varieties of cucumbers."
She discussed another reason she enjoys pickling, which has to do with not dealing with the stresses involved with botulism and spoilage.
"With pickling and having a brine, it is almost impossible that will happen," she said. "As long as they are immersed in the brine, that is a great way to preserve them."
Manzella pickles using lacto-fermentation or the water bath canning method to make small batches of pickles. She typically uses whatever is in abundance in her garden that she can't use fast enoughfor everyday cooking.
She stores her pickled and fermented items in her basement and atrium during the cold months.
However, the Manzella family has a house rule that stored food can't be eaten until after Thanksgiving, to give it a better chance of lasting through the winter season.
"It is such a treat to have things you grew in the garden or that you got from local farms in the cupboard," she said. "Thinking about the memories of harvesting it with the kids is a nice experience when it is cold and dreary."
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