Recently, a new local friend, Kaydee gave me some beautiful small ripe lemons.
I’d been wanting to make some salted lemons so they seemed perfect for a smallish jar of those. Salted lemons are used a lot in both Middle Eastern and Indian cuisines.
If you’re interested in having a go, here’s a good recipe which takes you through the steps. It’s pretty simple (just sea salt and lemons) but still, good to have some guidance for that first go.
On the weekend, I judged them ready. I was going to a social gathering that day so I took the lemons out, scraped away the flesh*, and put the preserved rinds through my blender to make a salted lemon paste.
(*some people use this part too…but it didn’t taste very good to me. I did use it to clean the inside of my sink before I put it in the compost.)
I know my friends are busy people and I figured the preserve was more likely to be used if they could just scrape out a bit with a spoon rather than having to take it a lemon, rinse it and finely slice it.
Even a small jar of preserved lemons makes a lot...too much for our household to get through in the six months they last. So it was helpful to me to have some people to share it with.
This is how it looked blended & before I labelled the lids.
Something I’ve learned from attending Crop Swaps is that making signs is super helpful. Then anyone interested can just take a photo of the sign and the gifter doesn’t have to answer the same questions many times.
So here’s the little note I made when I put the containers of lemon paste on the table to be shared:
From this one small social transaction:
Kaydee shared her harvest with me,
I learned a new ferment,
I shared it back into our friend group,
friends learn how to use a new-to-them ferment…
& the lemons (and the love) keep circling.
Helen Lehndorf 