Funk Dust

Another victory for byproducts

Remember that hybrid oat amazake-mackerel garum I made a while back? I pressed off the liquid, and it’s a wonderful, transparent fish sauce that’s especially effective on vegetables and seafood. I dehydrated the solids and ground them into powder so they’d be a shelf-stable seasoning for the pantry, with no tiny bones or bits of grain to interfere with the texture.

As I dehydrated them, something in the garden gave me an idea (as it so often does) for how to use this powder. It seemed so logical, so obvious, that I honestly couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. This dried byproduct will now replace a store-bought ingredient that was crucial to a particular ferment that I’ve been making for ages. Having now made the ferment in question, I can say that it performed better than I hoped—not only does it tase fantastic, it removes the need for another ingredient and step in the process.