October 11, 2023 • 31 mins
This beverage is more than just drinkable yogurt – it’s fermented with whole colonies of friendly bacteria and yeasts. Anney and Lauren dip into the science and history of kefir.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Saber Protection of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode
for you about kafir.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, yes, which I have a friend who loves kafir
and we I wouldn't say argue about it, but we
constantly talk about how.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
To pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, a lot of people have different opinions, so hopefully
this is.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
It correct ish.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, that's that's how I saw it suggested to be
pronounced on the internet.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I've always said Kiefer in my head because that's what
the word looks like to me. But I have not
heard anyone who is from the region where it's from
say it out loud.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, definitely, somebody in my crew says it keifer, So listeners,
let us know.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah. I don't have a lot of experience with this.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Actually, I have my friend who does, and so I'm
sort of learning through her. But was there any particular
reason this was on your mind till we're in Nope?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Nope, uh no, no zero zero. Yeah. I think that
I was trying to find some kind of like dairy
adjacent product that we had not covered yet. I was
like maybe a cheese, and then I landed on cafir.
I have a former roommate who loves the stuff, always
had some in the house. I've never I also don't
(01:49):
have a whole lot of experience with it, but I
kind of prefer like eating a yogurt to like drinking
a yogurt.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Mmm m Yeah, drinking a yogurt feels like a very
special occasion to me.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
But that's me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's me we're speaking of. You can see our milk, yogurt,
cheese episodes for more about this.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, also kind of sort of any of our beer episodes.
Oh yeah, kind of sort of kind of sort of
bread sourdough. Sure, yeah, yeah, Well that brings us to
our question.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Absolutely kaffeir. What is it?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, kafir is a category of beverages typically made from
milk that's been lightly fermented using a blend of both
friendly bacteria and friendly yeasts, resulting in a thickened, tangy,
sometimes slightly bubbly, and slightly alcoholic product that is sort
of a drinkable yogurt. Depending on the type of milk
(03:01):
you start with, cow, sheep, goat, camel, soy, coconut. I
don't know. And the exact friendly cultures that you use
to ferment it. It can have all kinds of different
hints of flavor in there, from like barny to fruity
to bready to buttery. But it can also be flavored
(03:21):
separately from that with a you know, like some sugar
or vanilla or cocoa or any kind of fruit that
you like. There is also a category of water kaffirs
that are made with a similar combinations of cultures, but
fermenting like watered down fruit juice or maybe molasses instead
of a milk product. We're talking about those less today,
(03:44):
perhaps not at all, aside from this mention right here,
I think that's a separate category. Okay, anyway, milk kafir
is like a it's like a non frozen, slightly weird smoothie.
It's like a creamy, filling kombucha. Yeah, it sort of
tastes healthy, but in a fun way. It's like it's
(04:06):
like the opposite of a brisk walk on just an
aggressively pleasant day because you're full at the end. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh that's nice.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah yeah. And Okay, so already in my description here,
I'm getting into the idea of healthy and I want
to remind us all right up front of the first
and perhaps most operative part of the Saber motto. Nutrition
is complicated. Our bodies are complicated. We know shockingly little
(04:40):
about how our bodies actually work. More research is necessary.
And I'm saying this because kafir is a product. Around
there are both a lot of traditional and like pop science,
health claims, this is true about a lot of the
stuff we talk about. Actually, but like the slant of
my Google results made me want to do this right
(05:01):
here upfront, rather than down in the nutrition section or
in addition to down a new nutrition section. Yeah yeah,
but okay, that's a side aside, So kafir. In every
episode that we talk about milk, even to start episode
or episodes about milk itself, we talk about how humans
(05:25):
have tried to preserve milk because it's this great product
that mammals will make kind of a surplus of that
has proteins and fats and sugars. But it doesn't last
very long on its own, so we process it by
pasteurizing it or solidifying it into cheese, or in this case,
fermenting it. So fermentation, as we refer to it in
(05:50):
food science, is the process of a friendly yeasts or
bacteria eating stuff mostly sugars in our food, and excreting
other stuff that we like, which is tart acids, other
flavor molecules, alcohols, and or carbon dioxide bubbles. And some
of these things do double duty in terms of like
a being pleasant to us, but also be helping prevent
(06:12):
the growth of unfriendly microbes things that would excrete toxins
or infect us and make us sick. So okay. In
lots of fermentation processes, we try to really strictly control
the microorganisms that are at work so that we're only
getting a narrow band of products within this products or
effects within this spectrum. Yeah, like we want most yogurt
(06:34):
to be tart but not bubbly. We want most beer
to be alcoholic but not tart. Kafir kind of throws
these roles out the window. To make kafir, you take
whatever kind of milk you like from whatever animal or
plant and add this colony of microorganisms referred to as
kaffir grains. They're called grains because these colonies traditionally come
(06:58):
in a very macroscopic clump of like grainy white to
beigish lumps that looks sort of like the head of
a cauliflower, or maybe like a like a fine rice pudding,
or if you pushed cottage cheese through a sieve. Yeah,
and these grains are made up of a matrix of
proteins and carbohydrates that allow this community to persevere in
(07:22):
the unfriendly environment of open air. You know, most microorganisms
do not like open air. There's too little water, too
much oxygen. But these colonies create these grains to let
them live there. However, if you put kafir grains in
whatever kind of milk, they're going to get to work
eating stuff and excreting acids and other flavors, and usually
(07:46):
a little bit of alcohol and a little bit of
carbon dioxide. And that's because these colonies contain a wide
range of microorganisms, primarily lactic acid bacteria of the familiar
Lactococcus genus and yeasts of the familiar Sakramic's genus, but
lots of other little guys as well, including any number
of microorganisms that were originally isolated from kaffir. Like, we
(08:11):
found out about them because we studied kafir, and we
were like, oh, we haven't seen that guy before. Cool.
So one of the other interesting things here is that
you do this at room temperature, like like seventy ish
degrees fahrenheit, like twenty one ish degrees celsius. Yeah, this
is interesting because in yogurts and cheeses and beers and
(08:34):
wines you heat everything up, but not so with kaffir.
You just add the grains and your milk of choice
in a vessel covered up with something arable like a
cheese cloth or a paper towel, and just sort of
let it hang out for like twenty four hours or so,
and then strain out the grains and you've got kaffir.
(08:55):
The grain colony will grow a little during the process,
and you can reuse those grains infinite times, you know,
like like a sour dough starter. You you might toss
them out if it's too prolific, you might give some away.
You can also buy kafir grains online. If no one
will share any with you Italy, probably not on purpose.
(09:17):
If they had some to share, they probably would. You know.
It's probably not slight, is all I'm saying. But you
can buy it preprocessed. Yes, if you do make it
at home. There are lots of tips online for doing that.
Although you know, it is a living product, so it's
always going to take a little bit of personal trial
and error to figure out what works for you in
(09:39):
your home environment. And yeah, it can be drunk as
a snack or part of a meal, used in cooking
the same way that you would use yogurt or sour
cream or buttermilk. And these days some industrially produced kaffir
is made using more like controlled specific cultures of microorganisms
(10:03):
rather than kaffir grain format.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, hmmm interesting. Okay, well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh boy, okay, top level. You know, of course, it
depends on what kind of milk you start with and
the exact process it goes through and whatever you might
add to it. But kaffir is generally good for you.
You know, it's got some proteins, a little bit of
sugar but not too much usually, some fat, usually some
some good micro nutrients, like it'll help fill you up
(10:36):
and keep you going, eat a vegetable, drink some water.
But okay, as I alluded to at the top, there
are all kinds of health claims about kafir, and some
research has been done and some of it is also
super interesting, like like it seems like some of the
microorganisms involved in kafir break down some of the cholesterol
(11:00):
in milk and maybe even in the body. Don't get
too excited about that one. Like the best research is
in hamsters, not human people. But still also, aside from
fighting off unfriendly microbes in the kaffir itself, some research
in labs indicates the kaffir's microorganisms and or their byproducts
(11:24):
may help our immune system work better. This is all
cool and hypothetically promising, but you know, like the field
of probiotics is still really new and exciting and in
the grand scheme I mean, certainly of the universe, but
also of human science. You know, like we we only
(11:47):
figured out what microbes are a couple hundred years ago,
and we still understand very very little about how our
gut microbiome works, and even less about how the foods
that we eat actually affect it. So, you know, I
(12:07):
would say eat foods because you like them. That shouldn't
be as revolutionary as statements as it kind of feels, like, Yeah,
you know, if you like a food, eat it, you know,
pay attention to how you feel after you eat it,
and in you know, like the hours and days and
(12:28):
weeks after you continue eating it and if you feel well,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Science agreed. Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
We do, we do.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, Over sixty species of bacteria and yeasts have been
identified in various kafir grains and fermented milk samples. And
that's actually conservative. I'd say more like over one hundred
when you count like singly identified species and like one
off samples. And that's probably from actually a small review
(13:13):
of samples that have been taken. So many are common,
some are uncommon. There's a lot involved. These colonies are
very very interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Very active.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
However, Okay, one small test of five brands of kafir
in the United States in twenty twenty one showed that
only one of those five brands actually contained the number
of live, active cultures that it claimed to have, and
all five contained different species than they listed on the label.
(13:52):
Which isn't to say that any of these products were
bad products, or you know, that they were unhealthy or
anything like that. Just again, it's really complicated.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is, it is, and finding numbers about this was
very complicated. But according to one source I read, kafir
is worth about one hundred and fifteen point eight million
dollars in the US.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Per year, per year. Yeah, and globally it's worth over
one point five billion dollars a year, so.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
So a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And it's got a history, it's it's got a surprising twist,
a journey history.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
It oh, it does, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from a
quick break for our word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And yes you can see our past cheese episodes, our
yogurt episodes. A lot of more themes than those, and
a lot of mystery is in this episode because I
had to use a lot more brand specific sources than
I usually like to, like companies that maybe make kafir
or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
It doesn't mean that they're wrong the grains.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, sure, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
It doesn't mean that they're wrong, but always good to
keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Ye, getting your information.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Take it with a grain of kaffir.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, and listeners, if you have any more information, please
let us know. Oh yeah, always so. According to the
sources I was able to find, kafir originated in the
Cacastius Mountains over two thousand years ago. Allegedly, people reported
feeling rejuvenated after consuming milk that had been fermented in
(15:52):
bags made of animal skin, which sounds very familiar to
every cheese episode we've done and episodes. Yes, but I
would also like to say I found another source that
claimed the earliest known instance of milk kaffir traces back
four thousand years ago to a tomb in China.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So that's a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, yep. I would assume that there's also a little
bit of technicality about what counts as kafir and like
what counts as a fear grain and share. There is
also argument about how we got the English term kafir.
It seems that we borrowed it from the Russian term,
(16:37):
But where did the Russian term come from and how
did it get there from more local terms. Okay, the
words all seem to root from an old Turkic word
for froth or foam, particularly related to milk, but the
pronunciation may have been influenced by a more modern Turkish
(16:58):
word for like a like a good good or pleasant feeling,
or that feeling good word might have nothing to do
with it, and the pronunciation might come from the word
transferring from Caucasus languages. Through Arabic languages.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Fun with etymology, you know, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Don't know, but that's you know, some stuff that people think.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it is at any rate, at any rate.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
At any rate, at some point. This sense of health.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That people reported from drinking kaffir from that a belief
of rose that something in this milk was a gift
of the prophet Mohammed. People called it kafir grains because
of that. For about two centuries, kaffir grains were kept
secret and away from outsiders and were so prized Medicinally,
(18:03):
owning kaffir grains was viewed as a sign of wealth. Yeah,
but some outsiders I did not like this, including powers
in Russia through a Russian plot that involved espionage, exploitation, colonization,
and kidnapping.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
What kafar was. Yes, we're gonna we're going to get
into it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
But yes, kaffir was commercially produced for the first time
in nineteen oh eight. But yeah, I'm sure you're curious.
Let's talk about it, all right. So part of the
reason why Russia was determined to get their hands on
kaffir grains was because of this health aspect of them.
The Russian physician society got wind of them after the
(18:50):
publication of a nineteen oh seven book called The Prolongation
of Life that claimed that the key to longevity of
the people who lived in the Cacassus region and was
fermented milk, and they wanted to procure and produce the
healing drink. They'd been interested in figuring out the secret
to this longevity in the region since at least the
(19:10):
fourteenth century, and they tapped Russian dairyman Nikolay Blandolf and
possibly his brother depending on the source I red. Also,
his last name changed depending on the source of red,
but blandofs the most common Okay, yes, So they tapped
him to travel to Turkey and get a sample, but
the locals refused to sell to him flash maybe them.
(19:34):
So Blandolf in turn asked his employee Arena t. Sakharova
with the mission instead. So she was a twenty year
old woman who had graduated from a renowned cheese school
okay amazing, and had won awards for her unique butter
making methods. And she was beautiful okay, which helped for
(19:58):
this because bay Basically they sent her to seduce this
Kokasian prince named beca Mirza Barkaroff. As the story goes,
she pretty much yeah. She went in, tried to seduce him,
charm him in order to convince him to give her
(20:19):
these kaffir grains as a gift, but he refused. However,
when she tried to leave, he kidnapped her and tried
to get her to marry him.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah yep.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Blandolf staged a rescue and barker Off was put on
trial in Moscow for attempting a forced marriage.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
He offered gold to.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Make amends, but Arena rejected it, demanding kaffir grains and style.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, and he ended up.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Giving her ten pounds From this. Blandolf was able to
commercialize production, and the first bottles of kafir went on
sale in Russia in nineteen eighth and it fairly quickly
became a staple there and still is. Hospitals at the
time also used it to treat a whole host of things.
(21:11):
I've read that it's actually kind of common still to
treat a whole host of things. By the nineteen thirties,
kafir was being mass produced to meet demand in the country.
I wasn't there, but again always worth keeping in mind.
Who was writing the stories. So I'll say, but it
does remind me of that famous yogurt commercial we talked
(21:31):
about in that episode about longevity.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Remember, it was like.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It was like a documentary and they were like, wow,
these people live so low.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, we do it. It's yogurt, it's yoga.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
The secrets of longevity in this beautiful pastoral place.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, is yoga felt very much like that when I
was reading this.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, slightly less forest marriage, but yeah, all right,
well slightly more easily.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Kaffir made its way to South and Central America through
waves of immigration from the Cacasus region towards the end
of the Ottoman Empire around like the late eighteen hundreds
and early nineteen hundreds. So there is a lot of
kafir production in South and Central America to this day.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Right, And it wasn't until the nineteen seventies that kafir
gained a foothold in the US as part of the
health trend that was going on at the time. And
that kind of brings us to our current day because
it has recently gotten a boost here as a health
food or a superfood.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
It's definitely like that's how it's marketed yeah the US.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh sure, sure, but yeah, no, I mean, you know,
like like it's really interesting to me that like the
places that I have found it in supermarkets anyway, are
you know, like either in the health food section in
you know, like your Kroger, your Public's whatever, standard American
super supermarket, or in either the Brazilian section or the
(23:11):
Eastern European section of of international supermarkets.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Interesting. I'll have to ask my friend who drinks it
all the time or she gets it. I think she
just gets it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
From like our regular grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah. By regular, I mean like the one near her
that's probably a croker or something. Yeah, hm, dose.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
She has it all the time. I'll have to ask.
I'll have to ask U.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
But yeah, I would love to hear from listeners about
this one. I did read about making it. If anyone
has any recipes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I yeah. After my slightly
rocky yogurt experimentation during the era of our yogurt episodes,
I'm like, I'm like, oh, I don't know, I don't know,
but the fact that you can do this room temperature
is really appealing to me.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's hope Florid we can.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You know, there's always another door to open, another milk
to ferment.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Did you just say forement or ferment?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
But you know whatever, I think that we can make
this happen. Yes, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well, we are waiting to hear from you listeners. But
I think that's what we have to say about Kafir
for now.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I think it is. We do already have some listener
mail for you, though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listeners.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh I was relaxing. Sometimes these are really relaxing for me,
you know, Laurence. I know.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was a little stressful for me because our internet
was breaking up. But uh, yeah, I think it's going well.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Here we are, and we have some listener mail already
for you.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Uh. Starting with an Instagram message from Leslie, who has
written in several times, and we do answer these Instagram messages.
It might take us a while, but we do do it,
so don't stop sending them. But so so this is
a little data is essentially what I'm saying. But Leslie
(26:00):
wrote y'all. I did not expect to be crying nostalgia
tears at nine am today. Why thanks for bringing back
happy memories of hanging out in the basement turned fully
furnished kid zone at my grandparents' house watching a copy
of this new cartoon movie thing my grandma had gotten
a copy of called Spirited Away, lights fully off, wrapped
(26:22):
up like no face in my grandma's glittering jet black dress.
Absolutely gobsmacked back when you had to turn the TV
to channel three to get the VCR to work on
the old push button TV. I don't remember if there
were subtitles. She might have gotten a copy of Princess
Mononoke too. Happy moments punctuated with ice called Stuart's cream
(26:45):
soda from the garage fridge, Grandpa's salami and eggs, bagels
and locks and pickled herring from the correct bagel shop,
French silk pie, and Grandpa's lamb chops with mint jelly.
Dang it, now I'm crying again and also hungry. Luckily,
my dad will hopefully be bringing some big oels down
(27:05):
at his impending visit. And in case you were wondering,
the salami was always hung in the garage a big
one from Costco in anticipation of the grandkids visiting.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Oh my goodness, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
I love these nostalgic memories of food and these media
that we talk about, because that first glance you might
be like, oh, yeah, I don't know why you talk
about that on a food show, but you're like, absolutely,
we talk about that our show. I've got a lot
of food in it, and a lot of us have
food memories associated with it.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah. Oh that's really that's really wonderful, Like what an
amazing compounding of right, of all the discussion of food
in the film with your own personal memories. It was
a chocolate silk pie. I hadn't thought about that one
in a hot minute.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Oh that's so.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Good future episode. But yeah, I mean this just sounds
like such a fun experience with your family that had
a lot of food involved.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Watching this movie, and I love it.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I love it, And I understand why you were crying
nostalgia tears.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yes, yes, I also I still have a couple of
devices that you still have to like turn your TV
to channel three or whatever it is to yeah my
my s. You know, like it's a process, right.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
And then you got the like yellow red.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Black cord like listen younger viewers, listeners, you don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
We had to go to Channel three and we had
to do.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
This old thing and it was there are things to
plug in.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Fix a plug in, prayers to make Sometimes it just
didn't work. Reason Yeah, yeah, yes, true.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh heck.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
All right, Haley wrote last night, I was listening to
the Cult episode while cooking some nilki. As soon as
listener mill started and I heard the Halle or is
it Haley? I knew it was me.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Lol.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
It's pronounced like Haley, but I get Halle like ninety
five percent of the time anyway, So I just answered
to both. I was so surprised to hear my email
on air. You guys, little pep talk made me tear up,
and now, more than ever, you feel like actual friends
to me. I had way too much on my plate
at the time of sending, but I was finally able
to offload some stress. My bad month did end up
(29:41):
turning around, and I've got lots of good things on
the horizon again. I'm attaching a vaguely unflattering photo of
me with the giant mango, probably listening to you guys,
in my headphones, and.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I can confirm the mango was indeed.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Giant, not small.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah that's Oh.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Also, I'm a big fan of the power of the
unflattering photo. I'm not saying yours was unflattering, even though
that's what you said. But I'm saying I've taken a
lot of bad pictures purposefully, and I find it very liberating.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, not needing to I just like
default to muppet face. If you've ever seen a photo
of me taken by somebody else that's online, Like, I
tend to not post those of myself, but most other
humans photos of me are just me making like a
weird muppet face, and I, yeah, that's my natural state.
I'm like, well, I don't know how to smile like
(30:33):
a person in a photograph. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
This is what you get.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Let's at least make it quirky, right.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Yes, and I'm glad that things are going better it is.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, yes, yea for being able to offload some stress.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yes, we have all been there, might still currently be there,
but yes, yes, thank you so much to both of
these listeners to write again. If you would like to
write to us, you can our email is hello at
savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and the aforementioned Instagram at saver pod
and we do hope to hear from you. Save is
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks us always to
our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to
you for listening, and we hope that lots more good
(31:31):
things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber Protection of iHeart Radio. I'm
Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we have an episode
for you about kafir.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yes, yes, which I have a friend who loves kafir
and we I wouldn't say argue about it, but we
constantly talk about how.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
To pronounce it.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, a lot of people have different opinions, so hopefully
this is.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
It correct ish.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, that's that's how I saw it suggested to be
pronounced on the internet.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Hmm.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I've always said Kiefer in my head because that's what
the word looks like to me. But I have not
heard anyone who is from the region where it's from
say it out loud.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, definitely, somebody in my crew says it keifer, So listeners,
let us know.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah. I don't have a lot of experience with this.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Actually, I have my friend who does, and so I'm
sort of learning through her. But was there any particular
reason this was on your mind till we're in Nope?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Nope, uh no, no zero zero. Yeah. I think that
I was trying to find some kind of like dairy
adjacent product that we had not covered yet. I was
like maybe a cheese, and then I landed on cafir.
I have a former roommate who loves the stuff, always
had some in the house. I've never I also don't
(01:49):
have a whole lot of experience with it, but I
kind of prefer like eating a yogurt to like drinking
a yogurt.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Mmm m Yeah, drinking a yogurt feels like a very
special occasion to me.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
But that's me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
That's me we're speaking of. You can see our milk, yogurt,
cheese episodes for more about this.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, also kind of sort of any of our beer episodes.
Oh yeah, kind of sort of kind of sort of
bread sourdough. Sure, yeah, yeah, Well that brings us to
our question.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Absolutely kaffeir. What is it?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, kafir is a category of beverages typically made from
milk that's been lightly fermented using a blend of both
friendly bacteria and friendly yeasts, resulting in a thickened, tangy,
sometimes slightly bubbly, and slightly alcoholic product that is sort
of a drinkable yogurt. Depending on the type of milk
(03:01):
you start with, cow, sheep, goat, camel, soy, coconut. I
don't know. And the exact friendly cultures that you use
to ferment it. It can have all kinds of different
hints of flavor in there, from like barny to fruity
to bready to buttery. But it can also be flavored
(03:21):
separately from that with a you know, like some sugar
or vanilla or cocoa or any kind of fruit that
you like. There is also a category of water kaffirs
that are made with a similar combinations of cultures, but
fermenting like watered down fruit juice or maybe molasses instead
of a milk product. We're talking about those less today,
(03:44):
perhaps not at all, aside from this mention right here,
I think that's a separate category. Okay, anyway, milk kafir
is like a it's like a non frozen, slightly weird smoothie.
It's like a creamy, filling kombucha. Yeah, it sort of
tastes healthy, but in a fun way. It's like it's
(04:06):
like the opposite of a brisk walk on just an
aggressively pleasant day because you're full at the end. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Oh that's nice.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Yeah yeah. And Okay, so already in my description here,
I'm getting into the idea of healthy and I want
to remind us all right up front of the first
and perhaps most operative part of the Saber motto. Nutrition
is complicated. Our bodies are complicated. We know shockingly little
(04:40):
about how our bodies actually work. More research is necessary.
And I'm saying this because kafir is a product. Around
there are both a lot of traditional and like pop science,
health claims, this is true about a lot of the
stuff we talk about. Actually, but like the slant of
my Google results made me want to do this right
(05:01):
here upfront, rather than down in the nutrition section or
in addition to down a new nutrition section. Yeah yeah,
but okay, that's a side aside, So kafir. In every
episode that we talk about milk, even to start episode
or episodes about milk itself, we talk about how humans
(05:25):
have tried to preserve milk because it's this great product
that mammals will make kind of a surplus of that
has proteins and fats and sugars. But it doesn't last
very long on its own, so we process it by
pasteurizing it or solidifying it into cheese, or in this case,
fermenting it. So fermentation, as we refer to it in
(05:50):
food science, is the process of a friendly yeasts or
bacteria eating stuff mostly sugars in our food, and excreting
other stuff that we like, which is tart acids, other
flavor molecules, alcohols, and or carbon dioxide bubbles. And some
of these things do double duty in terms of like
a being pleasant to us, but also be helping prevent
(06:12):
the growth of unfriendly microbes things that would excrete toxins
or infect us and make us sick. So okay. In
lots of fermentation processes, we try to really strictly control
the microorganisms that are at work so that we're only
getting a narrow band of products within this products or
effects within this spectrum. Yeah, like we want most yogurt
(06:34):
to be tart but not bubbly. We want most beer
to be alcoholic but not tart. Kafir kind of throws
these roles out the window. To make kafir, you take
whatever kind of milk you like from whatever animal or
plant and add this colony of microorganisms referred to as
kaffir grains. They're called grains because these colonies traditionally come
(06:58):
in a very macroscopic clump of like grainy white to
beigish lumps that looks sort of like the head of
a cauliflower, or maybe like a like a fine rice pudding,
or if you pushed cottage cheese through a sieve. Yeah,
and these grains are made up of a matrix of
proteins and carbohydrates that allow this community to persevere in
(07:22):
the unfriendly environment of open air. You know, most microorganisms
do not like open air. There's too little water, too
much oxygen. But these colonies create these grains to let
them live there. However, if you put kafir grains in
whatever kind of milk, they're going to get to work
eating stuff and excreting acids and other flavors, and usually
(07:46):
a little bit of alcohol and a little bit of
carbon dioxide. And that's because these colonies contain a wide
range of microorganisms, primarily lactic acid bacteria of the familiar
Lactococcus genus and yeasts of the familiar Sakramic's genus, but
lots of other little guys as well, including any number
of microorganisms that were originally isolated from kaffir. Like, we
(08:11):
found out about them because we studied kafir, and we
were like, oh, we haven't seen that guy before. Cool.
So one of the other interesting things here is that
you do this at room temperature, like like seventy ish
degrees fahrenheit, like twenty one ish degrees celsius. Yeah, this
is interesting because in yogurts and cheeses and beers and
(08:34):
wines you heat everything up, but not so with kaffir.
You just add the grains and your milk of choice
in a vessel covered up with something arable like a
cheese cloth or a paper towel, and just sort of
let it hang out for like twenty four hours or so,
and then strain out the grains and you've got kaffir.
(08:55):
The grain colony will grow a little during the process,
and you can reuse those grains infinite times, you know,
like like a sour dough starter. You you might toss
them out if it's too prolific, you might give some away.
You can also buy kafir grains online. If no one
will share any with you Italy, probably not on purpose.
(09:17):
If they had some to share, they probably would. You know.
It's probably not slight, is all I'm saying. But you
can buy it preprocessed. Yes, if you do make it
at home. There are lots of tips online for doing that.
Although you know, it is a living product, so it's
always going to take a little bit of personal trial
and error to figure out what works for you in
(09:39):
your home environment. And yeah, it can be drunk as
a snack or part of a meal, used in cooking
the same way that you would use yogurt or sour
cream or buttermilk. And these days some industrially produced kaffir
is made using more like controlled specific cultures of microorganisms
(10:03):
rather than kaffir grain format.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yeah, yeah, hmmm interesting. Okay, well what about the nutrition?
Speaker 2 (10:14):
Oh boy, okay, top level. You know, of course, it
depends on what kind of milk you start with and
the exact process it goes through and whatever you might
add to it. But kaffir is generally good for you.
You know, it's got some proteins, a little bit of
sugar but not too much usually, some fat, usually some
some good micro nutrients, like it'll help fill you up
(10:36):
and keep you going, eat a vegetable, drink some water.
But okay, as I alluded to at the top, there
are all kinds of health claims about kafir, and some
research has been done and some of it is also
super interesting, like like it seems like some of the
microorganisms involved in kafir break down some of the cholesterol
(11:00):
in milk and maybe even in the body. Don't get
too excited about that one. Like the best research is
in hamsters, not human people. But still also, aside from
fighting off unfriendly microbes in the kaffir itself, some research
in labs indicates the kaffir's microorganisms and or their byproducts
(11:24):
may help our immune system work better. This is all
cool and hypothetically promising, but you know, like the field
of probiotics is still really new and exciting and in
the grand scheme I mean, certainly of the universe, but
also of human science. You know, like we we only
(11:47):
figured out what microbes are a couple hundred years ago,
and we still understand very very little about how our
gut microbiome works, and even less about how the foods
that we eat actually affect it. So, you know, I
(12:07):
would say eat foods because you like them. That shouldn't
be as revolutionary as statements as it kind of feels, like, Yeah,
you know, if you like a food, eat it, you know,
pay attention to how you feel after you eat it,
and in you know, like the hours and days and
(12:28):
weeks after you continue eating it and if you feel well,
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Science agreed. Well, we do have some numbers for you.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
We do, we do.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, Over sixty species of bacteria and yeasts have been
identified in various kafir grains and fermented milk samples. And
that's actually conservative. I'd say more like over one hundred
when you count like singly identified species and like one
off samples. And that's probably from actually a small review
(13:13):
of samples that have been taken. So many are common,
some are uncommon. There's a lot involved. These colonies are
very very interesting.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Very active.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
However, Okay, one small test of five brands of kafir
in the United States in twenty twenty one showed that
only one of those five brands actually contained the number
of live, active cultures that it claimed to have, and
all five contained different species than they listed on the label.
(13:52):
Which isn't to say that any of these products were
bad products, or you know, that they were unhealthy or
anything like that. Just again, it's really complicated.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
It is, it is, and finding numbers about this was
very complicated. But according to one source I read, kafir
is worth about one hundred and fifteen point eight million
dollars in the US.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Per year, per year. Yeah, and globally it's worth over
one point five billion dollars a year, so.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
So a lot.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And it's got a history, it's it's got a surprising twist,
a journey history.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
It oh, it does, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from a
quick break for our word from our sponsors, and we're back.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Thank you sponsors, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
And yes you can see our past cheese episodes, our
yogurt episodes. A lot of more themes than those, and
a lot of mystery is in this episode because I
had to use a lot more brand specific sources than
I usually like to, like companies that maybe make kafir
or something like that.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
It doesn't mean that they're wrong the grains.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Yeah, sure, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
It doesn't mean that they're wrong, but always good to
keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Ye, getting your information.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Take it with a grain of kaffir.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Yes, and listeners, if you have any more information, please
let us know. Oh yeah, always so. According to the
sources I was able to find, kafir originated in the
Cacastius Mountains over two thousand years ago. Allegedly, people reported
feeling rejuvenated after consuming milk that had been fermented in
(15:52):
bags made of animal skin, which sounds very familiar to
every cheese episode we've done and episodes. Yes, but I
would also like to say I found another source that
claimed the earliest known instance of milk kaffir traces back
four thousand years ago to a tomb in China.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
So that's a pretty big difference.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, yep. I would assume that there's also a little
bit of technicality about what counts as kafir and like
what counts as a fear grain and share. There is
also argument about how we got the English term kafir.
It seems that we borrowed it from the Russian term,
(16:37):
But where did the Russian term come from and how
did it get there from more local terms. Okay, the
words all seem to root from an old Turkic word
for froth or foam, particularly related to milk, but the
pronunciation may have been influenced by a more modern Turkish
(16:58):
word for like a like a good good or pleasant feeling,
or that feeling good word might have nothing to do
with it, and the pronunciation might come from the word
transferring from Caucasus languages. Through Arabic languages.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Fun with etymology, you know, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
Don't know, but that's you know, some stuff that people think.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Yeah, it is at any rate, at any rate.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
At any rate, at some point. This sense of health.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
That people reported from drinking kaffir from that a belief
of rose that something in this milk was a gift
of the prophet Mohammed. People called it kafir grains because
of that. For about two centuries, kaffir grains were kept
secret and away from outsiders and were so prized Medicinally,
(18:03):
owning kaffir grains was viewed as a sign of wealth. Yeah,
but some outsiders I did not like this, including powers
in Russia through a Russian plot that involved espionage, exploitation, colonization,
and kidnapping.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
What kafar was. Yes, we're gonna we're going to get
into it.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
But yes, kaffir was commercially produced for the first time
in nineteen oh eight. But yeah, I'm sure you're curious.
Let's talk about it, all right. So part of the
reason why Russia was determined to get their hands on
kaffir grains was because of this health aspect of them.
The Russian physician society got wind of them after the
(18:50):
publication of a nineteen oh seven book called The Prolongation
of Life that claimed that the key to longevity of
the people who lived in the Cacassus region and was
fermented milk, and they wanted to procure and produce the
healing drink. They'd been interested in figuring out the secret
to this longevity in the region since at least the
(19:10):
fourteenth century, and they tapped Russian dairyman Nikolay Blandolf and
possibly his brother depending on the source I red. Also,
his last name changed depending on the source of red,
but blandofs the most common Okay, yes, So they tapped
him to travel to Turkey and get a sample, but
the locals refused to sell to him flash maybe them.
(19:34):
So Blandolf in turn asked his employee Arena t. Sakharova
with the mission instead. So she was a twenty year
old woman who had graduated from a renowned cheese school
okay amazing, and had won awards for her unique butter
making methods. And she was beautiful okay, which helped for
(19:58):
this because bay Basically they sent her to seduce this
Kokasian prince named beca Mirza Barkaroff. As the story goes,
she pretty much yeah. She went in, tried to seduce him,
charm him in order to convince him to give her
(20:19):
these kaffir grains as a gift, but he refused. However,
when she tried to leave, he kidnapped her and tried
to get her to marry him.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
Yeah yep.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Blandolf staged a rescue and barker Off was put on
trial in Moscow for attempting a forced marriage.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
He offered gold to.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Make amends, but Arena rejected it, demanding kaffir grains and style.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Yeah, and he ended up.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Giving her ten pounds From this. Blandolf was able to
commercialize production, and the first bottles of kafir went on
sale in Russia in nineteen eighth and it fairly quickly
became a staple there and still is. Hospitals at the
time also used it to treat a whole host of things.
(21:11):
I've read that it's actually kind of common still to
treat a whole host of things. By the nineteen thirties,
kafir was being mass produced to meet demand in the country.
I wasn't there, but again always worth keeping in mind.
Who was writing the stories. So I'll say, but it
does remind me of that famous yogurt commercial we talked
(21:31):
about in that episode about longevity.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Remember, it was like.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It was like a documentary and they were like, wow,
these people live so low.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Yeah, we do it. It's yogurt, it's yoga.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
The secrets of longevity in this beautiful pastoral place.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yes, is yoga felt very much like that when I
was reading this.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Yeah. Absolutely, slightly less forest marriage, but yeah, all right,
well slightly more easily.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
I guess.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Kaffir made its way to South and Central America through
waves of immigration from the Cacasus region towards the end
of the Ottoman Empire around like the late eighteen hundreds
and early nineteen hundreds. So there is a lot of
kafir production in South and Central America to this day.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Right, And it wasn't until the nineteen seventies that kafir
gained a foothold in the US as part of the
health trend that was going on at the time. And
that kind of brings us to our current day because
it has recently gotten a boost here as a health
food or a superfood.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
It's definitely like that's how it's marketed yeah the US.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Oh sure, sure, but yeah, no, I mean, you know,
like like it's really interesting to me that like the
places that I have found it in supermarkets anyway, are
you know, like either in the health food section in
you know, like your Kroger, your Public's whatever, standard American
super supermarket, or in either the Brazilian section or the
(23:11):
Eastern European section of of international supermarkets.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Interesting. I'll have to ask my friend who drinks it
all the time or she gets it. I think she
just gets it.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
From like our regular grocery stores.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
Yeah. By regular, I mean like the one near her
that's probably a croker or something. Yeah, hm, dose.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
She has it all the time. I'll have to ask.
I'll have to ask U.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
But yeah, I would love to hear from listeners about
this one. I did read about making it. If anyone
has any recipes.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I yeah. After my slightly
rocky yogurt experimentation during the era of our yogurt episodes,
I'm like, I'm like, oh, I don't know, I don't know,
but the fact that you can do this room temperature
is really appealing to me.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
There's hope Florid we can.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
You know, there's always another door to open, another milk
to ferment.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Did you just say forement or ferment?
Speaker 3 (24:26):
But you know whatever, I think that we can make
this happen. Yes, absolutely, yes.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Well, we are waiting to hear from you listeners. But
I think that's what we have to say about Kafir
for now.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
I think it is. We do already have some listener
mail for you, though, and we are going to get
into that as soon as we get back from one
more quick break for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you, and
we're back with listeners.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Oh I was relaxing. Sometimes these are really relaxing for me,
you know, Laurence. I know.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It was a little stressful for me because our internet
was breaking up. But uh, yeah, I think it's going well.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Here we are, and we have some listener mail already
for you.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Uh. Starting with an Instagram message from Leslie, who has
written in several times, and we do answer these Instagram messages.
It might take us a while, but we do do it,
so don't stop sending them. But so so this is
a little data is essentially what I'm saying. But Leslie
(26:00):
wrote y'all. I did not expect to be crying nostalgia
tears at nine am today. Why thanks for bringing back
happy memories of hanging out in the basement turned fully
furnished kid zone at my grandparents' house watching a copy
of this new cartoon movie thing my grandma had gotten
a copy of called Spirited Away, lights fully off, wrapped
(26:22):
up like no face in my grandma's glittering jet black dress.
Absolutely gobsmacked back when you had to turn the TV
to channel three to get the VCR to work on
the old push button TV. I don't remember if there
were subtitles. She might have gotten a copy of Princess
Mononoke too. Happy moments punctuated with ice called Stuart's cream
(26:45):
soda from the garage fridge, Grandpa's salami and eggs, bagels
and locks and pickled herring from the correct bagel shop,
French silk pie, and Grandpa's lamb chops with mint jelly.
Dang it, now I'm crying again and also hungry. Luckily,
my dad will hopefully be bringing some big oels down
(27:05):
at his impending visit. And in case you were wondering,
the salami was always hung in the garage a big
one from Costco in anticipation of the grandkids visiting.
Speaker 3 (27:17):
Oh my goodness, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
I love these nostalgic memories of food and these media
that we talk about, because that first glance you might
be like, oh, yeah, I don't know why you talk
about that on a food show, but you're like, absolutely,
we talk about that our show. I've got a lot
of food in it, and a lot of us have
food memories associated with it.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Yeah. Oh that's really that's really wonderful, Like what an
amazing compounding of right, of all the discussion of food
in the film with your own personal memories. It was
a chocolate silk pie. I hadn't thought about that one
in a hot minute.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Oh that's so.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Good future episode. But yeah, I mean this just sounds
like such a fun experience with your family that had
a lot of food involved.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Watching this movie, and I love it.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
I love it, And I understand why you were crying
nostalgia tears.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Yes, yes, I also I still have a couple of
devices that you still have to like turn your TV
to channel three or whatever it is to yeah my
my s. You know, like it's a process, right.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
And then you got the like yellow red.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Black cord like listen younger viewers, listeners, you don't know.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
We had to go to Channel three and we had
to do.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
This old thing and it was there are things to
plug in.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Fix a plug in, prayers to make Sometimes it just
didn't work. Reason Yeah, yeah, yes, true.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Oh heck.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
All right, Haley wrote last night, I was listening to
the Cult episode while cooking some nilki. As soon as
listener mill started and I heard the Halle or is
it Haley? I knew it was me.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Lol.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
It's pronounced like Haley, but I get Halle like ninety
five percent of the time anyway, So I just answered
to both. I was so surprised to hear my email
on air. You guys, little pep talk made me tear up,
and now, more than ever, you feel like actual friends
to me. I had way too much on my plate
at the time of sending, but I was finally able
to offload some stress. My bad month did end up
(29:41):
turning around, and I've got lots of good things on
the horizon again. I'm attaching a vaguely unflattering photo of
me with the giant mango, probably listening to you guys,
in my headphones, and.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I can confirm the mango was indeed.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Giant, not small.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Yeah that's Oh.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
Also, I'm a big fan of the power of the
unflattering photo. I'm not saying yours was unflattering, even though
that's what you said. But I'm saying I've taken a
lot of bad pictures purposefully, and I find it very liberating.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, not needing to I just like
default to muppet face. If you've ever seen a photo
of me taken by somebody else that's online, Like, I
tend to not post those of myself, but most other
humans photos of me are just me making like a
weird muppet face, and I, yeah, that's my natural state.
I'm like, well, I don't know how to smile like
(30:33):
a person in a photograph. So here we go.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
This is what you get.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Let's at least make it quirky, right.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Yes, and I'm glad that things are going better it is.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yes, yes, yea for being able to offload some stress.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Yes, we have all been there, might still currently be there,
but yes, yes, thank you so much to both of
these listeners to write again. If you would like to
write to us, you can our email is hello at
savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
We are also on social media. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook, and the aforementioned Instagram at saver pod
and we do hope to hear from you. Save is
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
you can visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Thanks us always to
our super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to
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