Traveling Through Time With the Shelby County Historical Society
Feature Article on making sauerkraut.   Topic: AGRICULTURE
By Lew and Pat Diehl in October, 1999

SAUERKRAUT IS A PART OF OUR HERITAGE...Pg 2
Pat:  We cooked it with pork. Grandma would come out from town and make her dumplings to go with it. She had her own special technique for making them, and they were cooked in the pot on top of the kraut. Nobody could do it like she could. She would split those big dumplings open on the serving platter and drizzle hot bacon grease over them before the pork and kraut were added.

Big Garden is First Step
Lew: When we settled in Shelby County, Ohio, in 1963, we began having big gardens, and Pat’s folks got us started making kraut with the cabbage we raised. We came by an old 1893 model kraut cutter and I fixed it up - even blued the blades to make it look nice - then made a "stomper" out of a piece of seasoned red elm trunk. We didn’t have a basement in our first house, and a batch went bad. You have to have a cool place to ferment it. It’s gone well almost every time since, because we built our own house after that, with a basement. One other time we didn’t have enough salt in it and that batch went bad too. Too little salt, even if it doesn’t really go bad, will allow growth of some yeast that make it turn red and have a weak flavor.

The time-honored way of making kraut, as we learned it anyway, is as follows:   First, have good cabbage. It takes roughly two bushels for a ten-gallon crock. If you can raise your own, so much the better. It’s possible to make kraut of turnips or even green beans, but we’ve never done that.

From Flat Dutch to Tropic Giant
Pat: We used to use Flat Dutch, but I tried raising different varieties from seed, and Tropic Giant is our pick right now - very large, sweet, tight heads without bitterness. When you make kraut is a matter of how soon you plant and when the cabbage is ready. You can’t wait too long or the heads will burst in the garden. We usually harvest in August or September, but it can be late as October. That’s when my folks used to make it.

Kraut Cutters More Than Just Antiques
Lew: The special tools you need include a kraut cutter, which is a board with side rails and with a couple sharp knives mounted in it. A box slides in grooves in the rails. This holds the cabbage together while it’s being sliced. Cutters can occasionally be found at a flea market or farm sale, or at an Amish hardware store like Lehman’s at Kidron, Ohio. The stomper can be made of any dense, seasoned hardwood that won’t impart a taste or absorb liquid, like elm, beech, or hard maple. It’s just an upright cylinder about six inches high and wide, with a handle two or three feet long. Cylindrical earthenware crocks complete the list. Everything must be very clean!

Other than the cabbage, the materials are simple. It requires only Kosher pickling salt (no iodine!), and a bottle of beer for each participant.  The cabbage is stripped of all its outer, soiled leaves, then quartered, with the cores removed. Set a crock on the floor near a post or wall, with the cutter centered over it. Have a couple clean throw rugs under the crock to absorb shock to help prevent breakage and, if in the basement, to keep the chill of the floor from the kraut. The pieces of cabbage are then placed in the cutter box, and run back and forth over the blades, which should be adjusted for very thin shredding. This takes great care and attention, because you have to push down hard on the cabbage, move it rapidly, and yet not include any parts of your fingers in the kraut. A square piece of wood can be used by the fearful, but then you risk having wood shavings in the cabbage.

kraut.gif (20867 bytes)

[ Back ]  [ Next ]  [ Up ]  [ New Search ]