I had absolutely no idea this was a thing. Thanks, @Gormogons.
The workmen who built the Great Wall of China ate it for strength. Sailors on early American clipper ships consumed it for health during long voyages.
It has tickled Teutonic taste buds and made its way across France, England and the New World. It has never lost its in-your-face pungency, its low-calorie, high-vitamin profile — or, in modern times, its capacity to tease just the right flavors from a hot dog or Reuben sandwich.
It's sauerkraut, that tartly tantalizing fermented-cabbage dish that long ago took its oddball place alongside gravy and sweet potatoes as a staple of Baltimore Thanksgiving dinners.
Though the custom has shown itself elsewhere, notably Maryland's Eastern Shore, foodies and food historians agree that the habit of consuming sauerkraut with the Thanksgiving bird is as essential to Charm City as painted screens and the pagoda in Patterson Park.
It's also a point of pride — one on which locals have opinions as pungent as the vegetable dish itself.
It makes sense when you think about it. The West doesn't do fermented cabbage anywhere near as well as the Koreans do but toss some Polska Kielbasa in there when you're cooking it (hell, Bratwurst, for that matter) and it'll get the taste of sweet potatoes/yams out of your mouth if your family insists on serving one or both of those culinary abominations.
UPDATE: In other pungent food news, step your game up, Collinsville, Illinois.
The workmen who built the Great Wall of China ate it for strength. Sailors on early American clipper ships consumed it for health during long voyages.
It has tickled Teutonic taste buds and made its way across France, England and the New World. It has never lost its in-your-face pungency, its low-calorie, high-vitamin profile — or, in modern times, its capacity to tease just the right flavors from a hot dog or Reuben sandwich.
Though the custom has shown itself elsewhere, notably Maryland's Eastern Shore, foodies and food historians agree that the habit of consuming sauerkraut with the Thanksgiving bird is as essential to Charm City as painted screens and the pagoda in Patterson Park.
It's also a point of pride — one on which locals have opinions as pungent as the vegetable dish itself.
It makes sense when you think about it. The West doesn't do fermented cabbage anywhere near as well as the Koreans do but toss some Polska Kielbasa in there when you're cooking it (hell, Bratwurst, for that matter) and it'll get the taste of sweet potatoes/yams out of your mouth if your family insists on serving one or both of those culinary abominations.
UPDATE: In other pungent food news, step your game up, Collinsville, Illinois.
17 comments:
Possibly even worse than sweet potatoes. Couldn't even stand to be in the house when Mom was cooking it, would just take off on my horse and come back as late as possible after supper.
As long as there's some kind of sausage in there, I can see it. Sausage makes anything bearable.
Samson (my horse, named for his very long black mane and tail) loved sausage, usually in the form of pizza. He could get very insistent about mooching some. And orange Hi-C in a pie pan, LOL.
The German stuff is bearable in a Reuben, though nowhere else. A description of the Korean stuff is enough to induct nausea.
So, years ago, a gardening neighbor convinced us to go in with him to make sauerkraut. Sauerkraut is fermented with salt in an open crock with a plate or some on top to keep the cabbage from floating to the top. The fermentation crock was placed in our laundry room. Our youngest was still in diapers. Between the diaper pail & the fermentation crock, it was all my wife could do to get into the laundry room to clean our clothes.
There was a store here that used to sell kimchi made with daikon instead of cabbage. MAN that stuff was good. I had to stop taking it to work for meals, though, because the smell bothered people.
Just clicked publish (a comment) and got told to sign into google. Not gonna happen...
Failed the palm tree test?
Hmmmm. I like sauerkraut, even served plain as a side dish, but also on a Reuben. I also like sweet potatoes (or yams) and baked butternut squash. There's actually very few foods that I don't like. I see this as a feature, not a bug.
There aren't many foods that I don't like. Two of them happen to be marshmallows and cotton candy. The sweetness is just too relentless.
Meanwhile in other late-breaking news, Stand Firm is back up at https://standfirminfaith.com/
Admined by Greg Griffith with articles by Matt & Anne Kennedy, and Tim Fountain.
They also have a Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/StandFirmInFaith/
We return you now to your regular programming.
Thanks for the heads-up, Myrmidon. Just added a link.
Commented about SF at the post.
On sauerkraut and turkey: Actually, this sounds really good. Boar's Head sauerkraut, in the deli case, is decent stuff. I brown bratwurst and then slow-roast it with the sauerkraut on top.
Katherine, that sounds incredible.
Melt 2-3 slices of swiss cheese on top in the last 15 minutes or so of roasting. It's out of this world.
On sauerkraut and turkey: Actually, this sounds really good. Boar's Head sauerkraut, in the deli case, is decent stuff. I brown bratwurst and then slow-roast it with the sauerkraut on top.
I'm remembering Fran Leibowitz description of the French: "Germans with good food".
Art-- ROTFL. Thank you.
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