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Sauer Kraut
This preparation is largely used throughout the northern parts of Europe, and especially in Germany. It is served as an accompaniment to smoked meats, boiled ham, bacon, beef, or sausages. The taste for this delicacy is certainly an acquired one, but it is a very general one in some districts. Sauer kraut is considered an excellent antiscorbutic. Take large well-grown cabbages with fine white hearts. Remove the outer leaves and stalks, and shred the cabbages very finely. Cover the bottom of a large pan or tub with cabbage-leaves. Throw in the cabbage as it is shredded, and sprinkle salt evenly upon the layers. One handful of salt will be amply sufficient for a large panful of shredded cabbage; too much salt will prevent fermentation. Keep pressing the cabbage down closely as it is thrown in. When the vessel is quite full, sprinkle a little salt over the top, and cover it first with cabbage-leaves and then with a linen cloth; lay a wooden cover over all, and on this put a heavy weight. Keep the pan in a warm cellar till fermentation has begun. This may be known by small white globules forming on the surface. When the moisture dries in a crust over the top the kraut is ready for use. It should be kept in a cool place till wanted. Once a week the cabbage-leaves should either be renewed or washed, and the linen cloth should be washed in cold water, and replaced. Some persons put caraway-seeds and juniper-berries amongst the layers, and think the kraut is improved by the addition. If, owing to any cause, after waiting two or three days there is no sign of fermentation, a cold weak brine of salt and water should be poured over the cabbage. The cabbages will be all the better if they are allowed to lie in a cool corner for several days before being used. Time, three weeks to prepare the kraut. It will keep for a year.
A straightforward lactic ferment, but the original's two vaguest points — how much salt, and what the surface should look like — are exactly the two that decide whether it succeeds. Work by weight and keep the cabbage under brine.
- Salt by weight, not by handful"One handful for a large panful" is unusable as written. Weigh the shredded cabbage and use 2 to 2.5 per cent salt by weight — 20 to 25 g per kilogram, or about 1 tablespoon of fine salt per 2 lb. Use plain salt without iodine or anti-caking agents.
- Brine must cover the cabbageSalting and pressing usually draws out enough liquid within a day to submerge the shreds. If it does not, the book's remedy is right: top up with a weak cold brine at the same 2 per cent strength. Cabbage held above the liquid is where spoilage starts.
- The dry crust is not a sign of readinessIgnore the instruction to ferment until "the moisture dries in a crust over the top." A crust or film forming on exposed cabbage is generally surface yeast or mould. Modern practice keeps everything submerged under a weighted plate or a water-filled bag, and skims any film that forms.
- "A warm cellar" means 65-72F"A warm cellar" is usually taken to mean something like 65-72F -- Fermentation runs fastest at around 70F and slows markedly below 55F. The three weeks quoted assumes a mild cellar; at 60F allow five to six weeks, at 70F it may be sour enough in ten days to two weeks. Taste rather than count.
- Weekly leaf-changing is optionalThe washing and renewing of cabbage leaves and linen cloth was housekeeping for an open crock. A crock with a water-seal lid, or a jar with a loose lid burped daily, does the same job with less handling.
- VesselA "pan or tub" here means a stoneware crock or wooden tub. Use glass, glazed stoneware or food-grade plastic — never bare aluminium, copper or iron, which the acid will attack.
- Caraway and juniperWorth doing, and traditional in Alsace and much of Germany. Roughly a teaspoon of caraway seed and a dozen crushed juniper berries per 5 lb of cabbage.
- Yield and keepingFive pounds of trimmed cabbage gives about two quarts of kraut. "It will keep for a year" assumes a cold cellar; refrigerated and kept under its brine, it holds for months, growing steadily sourer.
- Wilting the cabbages firstThe closing note about letting the heads lie in a cool corner for several days is sound; slightly slack cabbage is usually said to bruise less when shredded and to pack down tighter.
Sauerkraut is simply German for sour cabbage, and salt-fermented cabbage is far older than the German name attached to it, being one of the standard ways of holding a summer vegetable through a northern winter before refrigeration. The book frames it as an acquired taste belonging to other people's tables. The antiscorbutic claim is genuine and was well established by the 1800s: Captain Cook carried barrels of sauerkraut on his Pacific voyages, and fermentation preserves a useful share of the cabbage's vitamin C, which drying and boiling do not. The technique the book describes is unchanged in principle today; only the surface management has been improved on.