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The UK Supreme Champion Product in the Slow Food Awards for 2020 was won by Slow Food Supporter, PAMA.
These awards are public votes, and no shortlist is made by Slow Food. PAMA didn’t win by a small margin either, they won by a landslide – so what is it that makes these products so good?
Quite simply they take the very freshest organic and biodynamic vegetables, combine with “Luisenhaller depths” salt and naturally ferment, slowly, over five weeks.
Other seasonings such as herbs are foraged or picked in the surrounding fields and from their garden.
There is an immediate commonality to all the products – the flavours are bright, not simply tangy; and many have an almost meaty savouriness to them (The pickled carrot has charcuterie like notes), which come from the fermenting bacteria and yeasts common in salted ferments – be that meat free Saukeraut or salumi.
Here at Slow Towers we had the Turmeric Saukeraut (bright, earthy and fragrant), the award winning Traditional Saukeraut (sweet moorish with hints of juniper), Kimchi (hot and spicy yet with the flavour of the vegetables still very much there), Spiced Beetroot (Earthy with complex rounded spiciness), Sour Pickles (The hot dog pickles of our dreams), and Taqueria Carrots (Deeply savoury, almost meaty – had to check they were indeed vegan!)
There are many reasons to eat fermented foods, the benefit to gut health and well-being is well documented. But often these products are mass produced, pasteurised – doing away with any benefit – and simply harsh.
PAMA products are the very opposite of these; unpasteurized, live, complex in flavour and utterly addictive. We are glad we don’t have a vote in the awards – it would be impossible for us to choose a favourite.
You can buy online at https://pama-raw-food.com/ or from good food stores, including Wholefoods
