Today I'm talking with Eric at Cultinary Family Farms. You can also follow on Facebook.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Eric at Cultinary Family Farms. Good morning, Eric. How are you? Good morning. I'm doing great. And you? I'm good. You're in New Jersey? Yeah. While we're in Jersey, we have to say South Jersey, Central Jersey, or North Jersey. So we are in South Jersey, right by Philly.

00:30
Okay, cool. I'm in Minnesota, if you didn't know, so I'm not going to sound like you and you're not going to sound like me and that's what makes the world go round. And I'm from Montreal, so I have a double accent. I'm not hearing a lot of the Montreal, I'm hearing more of the New Jersey, but either way it's all good with me. All right. So, tell me about yourself and what you guys do at the farm. Well, it all started in Quebec when we lived there. I have a passion with...

00:56
garlic so I started garlic you know I said you know I'll try farming garlic for fun I started really small and I failed miserably and then that got me like a kick just to try again and and then you know I rented a little lot and then we started planning and it went really well so it got me you know what I'll do it bigger so we sold where we were we bought a little land with a house and we started

01:25
farming there, starting getting animals and everything. So starting to do in like, you know, people would come to the house and buy her honey, buy her, you know, garlic, eggs and everything. And then when I moved here, since I was a brand new immigrant, it took me about 16 months to get my green card. So I didn't want to wait, you know, because it was, so I opened up my farm again here in Morristown.

01:51
So I knocked on everybody's door. I was looking for vacant lot for farmland and everything. I got turned down for like six months and then someone answered one of our ads and said, hey, you know, I have a land. It's not ready, but hey, if you wanna rent it, go ahead. So I started with smaller tools. I pulled out all the tree. There was about 10,000 trees on it. So I started by myself and I removed all the trees, all the rocks, got a beat up tractor. We have a.

02:19
hashtag that's called curse tractor because everything happens right now. I'm working on my tractor as we speak. And, uh, so we started with that, you know, so it's like a second year. We're heading into our third year. So we, last year we harvested about 45,000 cloves that I planted by hand. And, uh, you know, we do a fast farmers market, we do food expos, we do a few things and now we started a home delivery. So it's the farmers market delivered to your door.

02:48
So that's what we're trying to do. And that's where we at today. If you put that in like a, in a ballpark real quick, that's pretty much what we do. That's awesome. And the more you talk, the more I'm hearing the French accent. You have a beautiful speaking voice. Thanks. Okay, so I had a couple of questions that are specific and then we can just kind of go from there. I saw that you sell black garlic. I freaking love black garlic. I had never tried it until a few years back. And...

03:17
I tried making it and it was an epic fail. I tried making it in a rice cooker and it did not work. So is there a trick to, well, number one, tell people what it is and then number two, is there a trick to making it at home? Well, yeah, the black garlic is a fermented regular garlic. So what you do is you really in a slow heat, you slowly cook your garlic to, depending on

03:47
what you use to cook it in. So it's you people try rice cooker, slow cooker, you can put it in your oven, you can bury it in the ground with you know, it's depending on where you at, you know, like so, so it becomes like a gummy bear in a way kind of like texture. And we actually cook it a little bit so it's harder and it's a bit drier so people can handle it with their hands and it's not sticky and you know, so that's what we do.

04:16
And it becomes like, it's crazy, the antioxidant and everything, it's the benefits for your health and the flavor. It's like it becomes that umami flavor.

04:33
I think it's like candy. Yeah, well, it's like a brain kind of tease in a way because you go through five steps. Well, the one we have, the one we make, I tried a few other ones that, you know, like we go to a store and it's really like watery and it's like mushy. It doesn't give you the same, but ours give you like five flavor steps. So it's kind of like for 10 seconds when you put the gummy in your, in your mouth, it becomes like a, like a brain teaser. Cause you go to like balsamic glaze flavoring.

05:03
It changes into caramelized onion. Then it'll go to a smoky, barbequey flavor. Then it'll go back to being really bitter and then garlicky. So all that within the, like the first 10 seconds of chewing the gummy. So that's, you know, that's what the fun about it is you see people's faces and everybody goes like, wow, exactly what you described. That's what my brain went through. And, and so you see, you tell people, you know what, hey, try it in a sandwich. Try it. I saw it in mine.

05:32
with my onions and I make cheese stick with them, you know, so it makes the cheese stick sweeter. But again, people put it in whatever they want, you know? So it's fun, you know, you see people, they come back. It's more expensive, but it takes so long to do it that, you know, it's kind of worth it. You know, it's a delicacy. It's like caviar, you know, so.

05:52
Yes, and I feel like people are in two camps with black garlic. They either love it or they won't ever try it again. It's hit or miss. See, people like or people don't. And there's people that don't like garlic to begin with. So you can't please everyone. But if people don't like garlic, they'll most likely probably like that because it doesn't have that big garlic taste and you don't have the after bread also. So it's a special candy.

06:21
Yeah, and it's really the way I used it was I made some well my husband makes french bread and so he made the the long baguette french breads and we put some actual fresh garlic on and some butter and then we smoosh some of the black garlic on top of that when it's warm and it was really yummy. Yeah it's good. So but if you don't want to give away the secrets on how to make it at home you don't have to but maybe you could tell me more.

06:48
You can, like I said, I failed miserably about like 50 times because it's, it's a, you know, you ha if you, if you're using like a regular rice cooker, if you're, if you're using like a slow roast cooker, you have to put water in it in a bowl. You have to keep it like hydrated because the humidity won't leave the same way. So you have to kind of keep some humidity in it. So it's, it's more like you will, you'll have to hit or miss until you find your perfect.

07:17
like a place to put it in. Because even if I tell you, well, I use this and that, you have to use your right temperature because it doesn't cook the same way as a rice cooker. You can try, a rice cooker works. I've succeeded with rice cookers, but it's, you know, you'll have to make sure you check every day, but then you can't open it every day. So you'll have to scrap a lot of garlic to see, you know, like the first day you see how it changed and then you keep it the next time you batch, you try for two days.

07:44
And then you try until you do that for about seven to 15 days, depending on how your cooker like, cause it's, it has to be on a keep warm. You can't cook it, you know? So it has to like the keep warm button. If you have that, if you don't have that, I suggest not trying it. And then for about 10 to 15 days, you try until you see what you like about it. And you also, if you're using a conventional like slow cooker rice cooker, you have to put water in a little cup to make sure it keeps high or else.

08:13
it'll become, you can make like black garlic powder because it's gonna burn it. So you won't have the sweetness to it, but you'll have the smoky barbecue flavor to it. So it's like to get the perfect ratio on it, it's really hard. So there's like different methods and then you can buy like really, really expensive tools to make it easier. But if you wanna do it at home, you can definitely do it. You can also put in your oven, but again, it's a lot of electricity.

08:44
and then you're gonna put your oven on hold for almost two weeks. So like I said, in the small rice cooker that has a keep warm on it, try to have something that's bigger so you can put a couple more and a little bit of cup of water with aluminum foil on it. You put some little holes just so it doesn't dry out. And like I said, it's hit or miss until you succeed. So like I said, I don't know.

09:08
all the brands of rice cookers, you know, like I bought maybe 17 just to try and then I found one that had that was cold enough. And then, you know, midway you can flip them all up and then you add some more water, you put it back, seal down, you put some towels on it so that it still breeds. So like I said, it's a you know, like it's not that I don't...