Ancestral Kitchen

Become a member of the Ancestral Kitchen Community here ! "When you sit down and savour the moment, food becomes naturally comforting because it's the moment that matters" Alison What comes to mind when you think about comfort food? Where's the line between enjoying a food for the pleasure it brings and turning to it to keep going? What state do we need to be in ourselves to really enjoy our food?...

Join the Ancestral Kitchen Podcast community here! "Fermented foods are the way to go. They taste nice, they're cheap and they're totally accessible" Alison In this episode, Alison and Andrea discuss all the biotics, how and why to nurture and include them in your diet! The run down: We start by welcoming our new community member, sharing about how to access our just uploaded soap-making chat and...

For some reason I remember these moments of being alone with my mom, picking the chicken, and feeling honored and proud that I was helping her. - Aran Alison and Andrea got the opportunity to sit down with Chef Aran Goldstein and talk to him about his life and experience with food. He shares his incredible perspective on food and the way our kitchens invite beautiful, complex cultural and family e...

"Tools and gadgets sometimes take advantage of our lack of confidence" -Andrea Alison and Andrea discuss what tools they utilize in their kitchens and try to narrow down which ones they couldn't live without! "The merit lies not in the possession of the object but in putting it to use" - Honey from Weed This is what is covered: 7:05 Kitchen tools 8:25 Alison shares the kitchen tools she uses 23:3...

“ Every time we talk, you’re an education for me. I know what you’re telling me is your normal is going to be really great information for me .” Andrea Ever just want to have a nose inside somebody's fridge? Well, we sure do, so today we got together and shared a list of EVERYTHING inside our refrigerators! It's such a cool way to get an instant snapshot into a household's diet and routine, season...

Chocolate has a secret life. One where, instead of being formed into industrial bars, women combine it by hand with local herbs to make drinks. One where it is a healer , not a creator of addiction . One where it’s revered - held so sacred that it’s used in ceremony and as currency, not bought for a few pennies, wrapper discarded. One where it’s bitter , potent and intense, not sweet and sickly. A...

"Everything about getting rid of my iPhone came down to health. " -Alison In just two short generations, tech has slowly crept into our lives in more and more ways, eating away at our time and our sanity in so many insidious ways. In this episode, Andrea interviews Alison and Rob about their tech use, the over-use that caused Alison to re-evaluate the way she was implementing tech in her life, an...

"One of the great illusions is that we can escape the cycle of life and death." Andrea watched Wild Quetzal's Instagram videos about ancestral foodways and knew she wanted to talk to him! We're bringing you this special interview in between our normal episodes. It's recorded directly on Zoom, so the audio's not as pristine as usual, but the content is great. Andrea and Quetzal talk about: How ance...

In this episode, Andrea and Alison talk about the cookbook that has healed the way they view, cook and eat food, THE ancestral cookbook, Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions. Technical Note: Andrea's microphone cord was touching part of the microphone stand, so you can hear a subtle metallic brushing every so often. This unusual issue has been resolved for future recordings. Our apologies for this...

"You can make really, really good bread using simple methods" We're so excited to welcome our first guest - Elly from Elly's Everyday to talk about sourdough-baking and soap-making! "My bread-making methods were developed when I was working full time in really difficult jobs and I needed it to be a no-brainer...I didn’t want to plan out my whole week around bread-making" What we cover: 15:26 How w...

I spent a lot of my time researching and making connections with people to find my sources of food, and that takes time. - Alison Not like I really knew what I was doing, I never know what I’m doing. - Andrea Once it is ready, the bouza course we referred to will be loaded to the courses page on Alison's blog, Ancestral Kitchen "The chocolate book" we alluded to is The Secret Life of Chocolate by...

"Admire and respect what you're doing." Andrea As soon as a listener suggested this topic, we both knew we had to cover it. Burnout is something we've both experienced and our kitchen management rituals have often been painfully won. "My biggest problem is that I get ridiculously enthusiastic and I take on too much at once" Alison Join us as we talk about subjects including clarity, delegation, en...

"That led to bakers yeast, which was a household item by 1900... Then we just seem to have gone completely downhill from there, to this place where on the shelves are these loaves made in a process that, if you showed a baker from three or four hundred years ago, they just wouldn't recognize, with all these additives in it... And people just think that's bread." - Alison, in Episode 7, Sourdough "...

" The best books are ones that spin you off on a path; imbue you with passion " Words. Pictures. Beauty. Comfort. Connection. Guidance. Inspiration. Joy. Support. Books bring us so much. In this episode, Andrea and Alison talk about six books they love! You'll share in a radical chocolate book, two fermentation bibles, a recipe book using simple, locally-sourced food, an alternative bread book and...

"Fermenting is an adventure!" In this episode, we give a snapshot of what's bubbling in our kitchens right now. You'll hear about: Vegetable ferments such as sauerkraut, ginger carrots, purple onions, jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes), mustard and the all-powerful garlic. Carbohydrate ferments including oatmeal, millet porridge, sowans, boza and sourdough starters. Drinks (including the sowans and...

" We make our bone broth almost exclusively out of garbage. " What if eating real food didn't have to be prohibitively expensive? The most nutritious, real, nourishing foods have traditionally been the cheapest and simplest - conversely, the expensive, rich meals of the wealthy were often laborious productions involving sweets and refined foods. It's time to take back our ancestral wisdom and recl...

"I follow the river of joy, curiosity and passion. That's what has moved me into a place where cooking ancestrally is part of my life" Why do we cook ancestrally? We try to answer that question in this, our third episode. We cover: What cooking ancestrally means to us. Why we cook ancestrally. What cooking ancestrally looks like in our kitchens. Our conversation touches on sourcing/growing, what w...

"For ages, I thought cooking wasn't creativity, that creativity was art; it was music - that kind of thing. It took many gentle, soft words from my husband, Rob, and much experimenting and changing for me to realise that what I was doing in the kitchen was just as creative as writing music." Come meet Alison, the European half of Ancestral Kitchen, in this second 'meet' episode of our podcast. You...

"When we eat close to the land, everything is about connection" Come meet Andrea, the American half of Ancestral Kitchen, in this kick-off episode of our podcast. You'll hear about her life, family and newly-created farm as we cover such topics as taking ownership, moving from the city to a farmstead, not being able to 'un-know' something, eating close to home, heritage breeds, tiny kitchens and h...