ADAMAH Harvest: The Pickles and the People
At ADAMAH, we grow pickles and people, soil and souls, vegetables and vision. We’re extremely proud of all of our produce.
The Vegetables
On four acres of beautiful farmland, we grow over 50 kinds of vegetables: tomatoes, squash, greens, garlic, onions, herbs melons and more. The bounty of our field awes and overwhelms us. The vegetables we grow feed a number of different projects. About one third of our produce supplies shares for 40 families of the White Plains, NY Tuv Ha’Aretz CSA. One third of our produce supplies our pickle business, and the rest of our produce is served in the dining hall at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. Our produce is also available for purchase at farmer’s markets at the end of retreats, and is donated to local food pantries every week during the growing season.
The Pickles
ADAMAH is bringing back good old-fashioned pickles, just like Bubbe used to make. We produce a line of high quality lacto-fermented products that include:
- ADAMAH Dills – Organic kosher dill pickles
- Dilly Beans – lacto-fermented green beans with garlic and hot peppers
- Sauerkraut – barrel-fermented cabbage, aged at least 6 weeks
- Firekraut – sauerkraut with a kick!
- Kim Chi – our version of the Korean dish, made with pickled daikon, cabbage, carrots, garlic and ginger
- Beets – vinegar pickled, with onions
These products are currently available for sale in the Isabella Freedman Bookstore, at special events, and at the following locations. If you’d like to see them available in your area, please contact Miriam Feiner at miriam@isabellafreedman.org. And stay tuned for additional distribution points that are coming soon in the New York area.
- Great Barrington Food Coop, Great Barrington, MA
- Guido's Market, Great Barrington, MA
- Rubiner’s Cheese Shop, Great Barrington, MA
- LaBonne’s, Salisbury, CT
- Whipporwill Farm, Salisbury, CT
- Jam Food Shop, Sharon, CT
- Toymakers Cafe, Falls Village, CT
- Chubby Bunny Farm, Falls Village, CT (in season only)
- Nirvana Juice Bar, Torrington, CT
- Noujaim's Specialty Foods, Torrington, CT
Why lacto-fermentation?
Here’s how Sandor Katz, fermentation guru, describes natural pickling:
“Wild fermentation involves creating conditions in which naturally occurring organisms thrive and proliferate. Fermentation can be low-tech. These are ancient rituals that humans have been performing for many generations. They are a powerful connection to the magic of the natural world, and to our ancestors, whose clever observations enable us to enjoy the benefits of these transformations.
By eating a variety of live fermented foods, you promote diversity among microbial cultures in your body. Biodiversity, increasingly recognized as critical to the survival of larger-scale ecosystems, is just as important at the micro level. Call it microbiodiversity. Your body is an ecosystem that can function most effectively when populated by diverse species of microorganisms. By fermenting foods and drinks with wild microorganisms present in your home environment, you become more interconnected with the life forces of the world around you. Your environment becomes you, as you invite the microbial populations you share the earth with to enter your diet and your intestinal ecology.”
— Sandor Katz, www.wildfermentation.com
The People
ADAMAH can be a transformative experience. Here’s what some alumni have said about their time at ADAMAH:
“ADAMAH taught me how to work. Before I came to ADAMAH, I had never really had the endurance or concentration to start a project and work until it was finished. ADAMAH taught me how to just get 'er done. ADAMAH also introduced me to environmentalism for the first time. I came looking for an intentional community and I left being committed to dedicate much of my life to fighting global climate change.” — Getzel Davis
“The program has surpassed my expectations in terms of allowing me to once again engage with my Jewish identity. The opportunity to dialogue about Judaism in a contemporary context with my peers has opened the doors I once imagined closed. I am learning how to open my mind and my heart on a daily basis, while simultaneously being exposed to a wide range of practices and beliefs in a tight knit community of fellows and staff. Having given up on Judaism once before, ADAMAH has not only helped me back onto a path towards my roots, it has inspired me toward deeper questioning and mindfulness in my engagement with the richly layered histories of being an American Jew.” — Blair Nosan
“Since being here I have affirmed in myself that I want Judaism in my life, and that there is a place for me in it. I have learned more about Jewish history, prayer, ritual, mysticism and community than I did in 12 years of going to synagogue and being a bat mitzvah.” — Jeanette Richelson
“ADAMAH was an amazing, restorative, inspiring summer: a time for reflections, getting back to what’s real, learning and experiencing a whole lot of new things, becoming stronger, more confident, less fearful, more alive, more excited for what comes next.” — Anna Stevenson
“I know that whatever paths I take in the future I will always be motivated and inspired by the memories of living as in-tune to the Earth as I was in ADAMAH. Prior to ADAMAH, I had never found a Jewish community I could really relate to. Having discovered it at ADAMAH, I realized how essential it was for me. This was part of the incentive that pushed me to live in Israel and seek and help contribute to a vital Jewish community with both spiritual and environmental ideals I could relate to. It now seems impossible for me to imagine my life without such active involvement in stimulating Jewish community.” — Linda Aziz-Zadeh
“ADAMAH is an opportunity for fellows to take a look at the world they walk on, dig their hands deep into it, see how complex and intricate and truly simple the potential we have to grow is. It takes care, sunlight, water and attention but it's in our own hands. I think once I dug my hands into the soil, I could never quite get that dirt out from under my fingernails… but I guess I don't really want to, either.” — Rona Atlas
