These 22 slow foods are totally worth the wait

Slowly does it

While some foods will spoil after a few days, let alone a few months or years, long maturation processes like fermenting or dry-aging can give other products a richer flavour and more pleasing texture. From sharp cheeses to earthy teas and fine wines, time makes these delicacies from around the world all the more delicious.

Fermented dill pickles: one week

There are two ways that dill pickles are made: either by pickling, which involves a vinegar brine, or by old-fashioned fermentation. The latter method uses lactic acid that’s produced by the cucumbers’ natural sugars as they’re drawn out by a simple salt water brine. After just a week, the brine will be bubbling, and the pickles will take on a delightfully sour taste. Half-sour pickles are fermented for a shorter time to cut the pucker effect.

Kimchi: one to 20 days

Kimchi, the spicy Korean fermented vegetable dish, changes significantly with time. Some people like to eat kimchi fresh before it’s had much of a chance to ferment, but even after a day the fermentation process starts to ripen it into something tangier. Kimchi transforms through lacto-fermentation, which also acts to preserve the vegetables in the mix.

Kimchi: one to 20 days

The fermentation time varies depending on temperature (it ripens more quickly if it’s warm) and personal taste, with most home kimchi makers resting their jars anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. Traditionally, kimchi is made in the winter, when it benefits from a long and slow ferment. The low temperatures keep vegetables like cabbage and radish crispy, with a deeply funky fermented flavour. 

Kombucha: one to six weeks

Kombucha is a sweet and tangy fermented tea that can be purchased commercially or made at home. Making kombucha starts with a slimy mass called a scoby (an acronym for symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) that makes all of that magical fermentation happen. The longer it brews, the bolder the flavour – and the fizzier the bubbles. First-time home brewers should add another week or two onto the production time if making a scoby from scratch. 

Sauerkraut: two to four weeks

Like kimchi, sauerkraut is a cabbage dish made by lacto-fermentation, which both preserves the cabbage and turns it into a zingy condiment full of probiotics. It’s a simple dish, made with just salt, cabbage and the cabbage’s own natural juices, which form a brine. The trick is to keep the cabbage fully submerged under the brine, which is why traditional sauerkraut crocks are fitted with weights to keep the cabbage below the liquid.

Dry-aged beef: 15 to 100 days

Dry-aged beef has been all the rage in butcher shops and meat-focused restaurants for a number of years now. The dry-aging process, which essentially consists of leaving cuts of beef in a climate-controlled chamber for a number of weeks or even months, lets the moisture slowly evaporate, concentrating flavours and breaking down enzymes to make the meat more tender.

Dry-aged beef: 15 to 100 days

Dry-aged beef is typically aged for 15 to 40 days, but some enthusiasts go for 100 days or more, which leaves the meat with a funky, almost cheese-like quality. If it sounds like the beef is rotting, it pretty much is, which is why you should buy dry-aged beef from a reputable butcher rather than trying to age it at home.

Salami: four to 12 weeks

Salami and its cousins (like French saucisson and Spanish chorizo) are fermented sausages – fermentation both preserves the meat and gives it depth of flavour. A lot of mass-produced salami is helped along with fast-fermentation methods, but traditional European salami ferments the slow, old-fashioned way. Salami only needs to ferment for a few days, but after that the meat needs to be dried for several weeks or months, depending on the size of the sausage.

Preserved lemon: one month

Preserved lemons are a staple in Moroccan and Middle Eastern cooking. They’re less tart than fresh lemons, making them the perfect ingredient for any dish that needs some citrusy flavour without a lot of pucker. Pickled in salt and their own juices, preserved lemons are easy to make at home – but if you can’t wait the 30 days it takes to make them, they’re also widely available at many fine food shops and delis.

Cheese: one month to 10+ years

Few cheeses need a full decade to age, and the aging process varies greatly for different types. The ripening process plays a huge factor in what makes the flavour of one cheese different from another. Fresh cheeses like queso fresco or ricotta don’t need to age, and mozzarella only ages for about a month, which is why those varieties have such mild flavours.

Cheese: one month to 10+ years

Once cheese has aged for a year or more, you start to get real changes in flavour and texture. Parmigiano-Reggiano only forms its signature grainy texture after it has aged for at least two years. Gouda that’s aged for five years develops crystals of calcium lactate, which give the cheese extra tang and a strangely alluring crunch. Cheddar is a cheese that seems to benefit from almost endless aging – 10 or 15 years is hardly unheard of.

Fruitcake: six weeks to five years

Love it or hate it, fruitcake is a tradition in many families, especially around the festive season. Some fruitcakes can be eaten immediately after baking, but most purists swear by aging their cakes, either for a few weeks or for a number of years. As a cake ages, the dried fruit releases tannins to deepen the flavour. Over time, alcohol is added to 'feed' the cake and keep it moist. The longer it ages, the more chance it has to absorb that brandy, whisky or rum.

Century egg: three months

Century eggs, or pídàn, aren’t actually preserved for 100 years – but these Chinese delicacies look like they’ve been left to rot forever. Essentially, they’re chicken or duck eggs that have been aged in quicklime, salt and ash, and coated in rice chaff. The process turns the egg white into black jelly, and the yolk into a custardy green substance. They taste as funky as they look, and they're often served with congee or eaten on their own.

Gochujang: four to six months

Gochujang is a fermented sweet, savoury and hot chilli paste that's ubiquitous in Korean cuisine. It’s been used in Korea for centuries, and adds flavour to everything from bulgogi to kimchi, since it packs some heat but also lends some of that elusive umami. The thick paste is fairly intense, so it’s typically used as a recipe ingredient rather than a condiment, unless it’s thinned into a sauce. Traditionally, gochujang ferments for four to six months in a specialised clay pot.

Soy sauce: five to eight months

Commercially produced soy sauce is usually helped along by some chemical processing, but soy sauce made in the traditional method requires a fermentation period that takes a number of months. Traditional soy sauce is aged in barrels that aren’t cleaned between batches, and the bacterial that lives in the barrels helps with fermentation. Dark soy sauce is aged longer than light soy sauce, and tends to be both thicker and more flavourful.

Miso: six months to two years

Miso is a salty fermented soy bean paste that's used as a base for soups, and to flavour dressings, marinades and glazes. It's graded by colour, and that colour is determined by how long the paste is left to ferment. White or yellow miso paste is the most common and likely what you’ll find in your sushi combo soup, whereas red or more heavily aged miso has a more aggressive flavour. 

Sake: seven months to three years

Unlike other wines, sake does not benefit from super-long aging, but it still takes time to make. The Japanese rice wine needs to brew for a month, then age for six months before it’s sold to the public. Experts recommend drinking sake within six months of purchase.

Prosciutto: nine months to three years

The word prosciutto just means ham in Italian, but most of us use it to refer to prosciutto crudo, a specific kind of thinly sliced dry-cured ham. Standard prosciutto is generally cured under salt for two months, then dry-aged for another seven to 18 months. Premium Prosciutto di Parma is made exclusively in the town of Parma through a much longer aging process, curing in salt for 60 to 90 days and dry-aging for anywhere from 400 days to three years.

Vanilla extract: 12 to 14 months

Most commercial vanilla extract is made within a matter of days – but the process of growing, drying and curing the beans before they’re submerged in alcohol to draw out their flavour takes a year or more. Most of the world’s vanilla comes from Madagascar, although there are well over 100 different varieties of vanilla grown worldwide. For a fresher take, vanilla extract is easy to make at home by soaking vanilla pods in the spirit of your choice for about eight weeks.

Wine: one to 20 years

Many a winemaker has dedicated their career to figuring out both the right amount of time to keep wine in the barrel, and how long it should linger in the bottle before being opened. The amount of time wine should be aged in the bottle depends greatly on the grape variety. Generally, red wines do better with age – but white and even sparkling wines, which can be ready in a year, can deepen and mature with time.

Jamón Ibérico: two to four years

To the untrained eye, Jamón Ibérico, a cured ham from Spain, may look like prosciutto – but the two are different for a number of reasons, including price (Jamón Ibérico is one of the most expensive meats in the world). The ham is sourced solely from the legs of rare black Iberian pigs that feast on a diet of acorns. The legs are packed in salt for a few weeks, then left to cure for anywhere between two to four years. As the ham cures, the fat breaks down and becomes melt-in-the-mouth tender.

Tabasco: three to five years

Hot sauce can be made fairly quickly, but it takes on a new quality when it rests in a barrel for a few years. Tabasco, one of the most well-known hot sauce brands, is aged in oak barrels for up to three years. The aging ferments the sauce, and also allows it to take on the flavour of the barrel, much like a whisky would. Over the last decade, barrel-aged sauces have become more fashionable, with artisan hot sauce makers expanding on Tabasco’s relatively simple recipe.

Whisky: three to 50 years

The rules relating to how long a spirit must age to be considered whisky varies from region to region, but products like Scotch need to age in a barrel for at least three years. Much of a whisky’s flavour and colour comes from the barrel, with the qualities changing if the wood has been charred or used for previous batches.

Whisky: three to 50 years

Barrelling can be an expensive proposition, as distilleries can’t sell a spirit until it’s in the bottle. Keeping hundreds of barrels in a warehouse isn’t cheap, which is why very old whisky is so expensive. But unlike wine, whisky does not continue to age once in the bottle, so there’s no point in saving it once you've bought it.

Aged tea: five to 40 years

Aging tea has been a common practice in China for at least 600 years, but the rest of the world is just catching on. Aging tea deepens its flavour, and gives it an earthier quality. Black tea can be aged if it's of the right quality, but the technique works particularly well on roasted oolongs, which can successfully age for up to 40 years. Pu’er (or dark tea) is a traditional fermented and aged tea that’s especially prized among tea lovers.

Balsamic vinegar: 12+ years

Not all vinegars with the word 'balsamic' on the bottle are created equally. Many of the cheaper supermarket brands are simply regular vinegars made to mimic traditional balsamic vinegar from Modena, Italy. The proper stuff is rich and syrupy, thanks to a barrelling process that involves the vinegar being moved through a series of increasingly smaller barrels over the course of at least 12 years, allowing the moisture content to slowly reduce.

Balsamic vinegar: 12+ years

Traditional balsamic is often barrelled for up to 25 years. It can be identified by the words Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale on the label, a Protected Designation of Origin stamp and a fairly hefty price tag. Unlike the faux grocery store brands, it should never be wasted in a salad dressing or as a cooking ingredient. Use it sparingly as a condiment over everything from grilled meat to fresh berries. 

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