Get Pickled
Get Pickled was born out of a passion for preserving food, community and our planet - and a genuine desire to create more out of fresh ingredients. A move out of London, combined with UK lockdown 1.0, provided the catalysts for turning a cloudy, life-long dream into a clear reality. Paula, the UK-imported, Brazilian super-cook and globetrotting uber-feeder, finally had the time and space to cook up an enterprise that advocated and embodied her passions.
Inspired by my two beloved grannies, one from the Amazon and the other from Italy, I use my wild imagination to transform humdrum food surplus into flavoursome, invigorating, vegan-friendly fermented foods, condiments and pickles. "Our aim is to be completely zero-waste and to have a minimal carbon footprint by using seasonal produce and any surplus we can get our little green fingers on."
How it all began
For Paula Neubauer, the love affair with fermentation began when a friend gave her some water kefir grains. The Brazilian globetrotter and food aficionado was immediately hooked, fascinated by this chemical and alchemical aspect of cooking.
What was an enjoyable hobby, however, developed into a full-blown obsession after she moved to Somerset four years ago.
“I was really interested. Water kefir was my gateway to fermentation techniques,” she says. “Fermentation can transform all kinds of foodstuffs.”
Her friend also introduced Paula to the works of Sandor Katz - “he is like the godfather of fermentation” - starting with “Wild Fermentation”.
“From that book onwards, I started doing fermentation experiments,” says Paula. She was very keen to learn about preserves, conserves and pickles. Like many wannabe fermenters, she started with kimchi and sauerkraut. Get Pickled was born in October 2020.
“Lockdown and Brexit happened and I could see that there was so much surplus and waste in our food systems. I’d go to Asda, even at the height of lockdown queueing, and there were shelves and shelves of unwanted vegetables.
“At the same time, everyone was planting and there were bumper crops of food, and I started thinking, ‘how can we preserve this?’ says Paula.
Her aim was to lock in the goodness of vegetables in summer that would make them tasty and nutritious in winter. What started as a pastime quickly became a passion.
Paula is drawn to the universality of fermentation and other food preservation techniques. Almost all cultures, around the world, have their own way of producing . . . cultures. In North America, they use corn fermentation, in West Africa, they ferment about 40% of their food staples. She is particularly interested to discover more about Chinese and Japanese fermentation, using koji.
Even in her native Brazil, people have been fermenting food for generations in ways in which she was, until recently, unaware.
“Fermentation is present in all your foodstuffs more than you realise. For example, coffee beans are fermented; milk, cheese, yoghurt are all produced through fermentation.
“In Brazil, we have native fermented drinks that are usually made with cassava or pineapple in very traditional ways. My family is from the Amazon, and I have started looking at how they use indigenous ingredients. In particular, cassava byproducts are still a very important food.”
Cassava comes in two forms - “brava” and “mansa”. The former is highly toxic if consumed untreated, but the two forms are indistinguishable. Paula discovered that native Brazilians put cassava in traps in the river, where they were left for at least a week, to break down the hydrochloric acid. “This makes dangerous food far less dangerous,” she says.
Paula is particularly interested in the anthropological roots of fermentation, and is conscious of the irony of developing her expertise in Europe - with all the various techniques that entails - and then returning to her culinary roots. “It’s crazy because it took me doing fermentation and thinking about food here to go back and ask all the questions about fermentation in Brazil.”
“What attracts me to fermentation,” says Paula, “is that the more you understand, there is still so much to know. You can be doing fermentation for almost ten years, but you are still just touching the surface.”
Scratching the surface or not, Get Pickled is attracting loyal customers, particularly for her Alt Kimchi and Spicy Banana Ketchup. Her products are also receiving accolades with Alt Kimchi winning a Silver Award in the 2022 Taste of the West Product Awards.