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Sauerkraut
Shred the cabbage fine. Line the bottom and sides of a small keg with the green cabbage leaves, put in a layer of the cabbage about three inches thick, cover with four ounces of salt and pound down well, then another layer of cabbage and salt, and so on until the keg is full. Put a board on top of the cabbage and on this a heavy weight, and stand in a moderately warm place to ferment. The cabbage sinks when the fermentation begins and the liquor rises to the surface over the cover. Skim off the scum and stand the keg in a cool, dry cellar and it is ready to use. Cover it closely each time any is taken out. When you use it, wash it in warm water, and boil it with corned beef or salt pork the same as cabbage.
1 quart of cut cabbage,
A straightforward lactic fermentation, written for a household with a cellar and a wooden keg. The method still works; the salt needs to be measured by weight rather than by the layer.
- The hinge: cabbage must stay under brineEverything else is detail. Once the cabbage sinks and the liquor rises, no shred should sit above the surface — exposed cabbage grows mold and yeast rather than fermenting. If the cabbage does not throw enough liquid in 24 hours, top up with a brine of 1 tablespoon salt to 1 quart of water.
- Salt by weight, not by layer"Four ounces of salt" per three-inch layer is unusable without knowing the keg's diameter. Standard practice is 2 to 2.5 percent salt by weight of shredded cabbage — about 3 to 4 teaspoons of fine salt per 2 lb. Use non-iodized salt; iodine and anti-caking agents can cloud the brine.
- VesselA "small keg" would have been a wooden barrel of a few gallons. A glazed stoneware crock or a wide glass jar does the same job. Avoid bare metal and reactive aluminum, which the acid attacks.
- "A moderately warm place"Roughly 65-75F. Much warmer than that ferments fast and can go soft; below 60F it barely starts. Expect visible bubbling within two to four days.
- How longThe original gives no time because the cook judged by smell and taste. At room temperature, three to six weeks produces a fully soured kraut; move it to the cold cellar (or a refrigerator, 38-40F) when it tastes right, and it will hold for months.
- Scum versus moldA white, thin film of yeast is normal and should be skimmed as directed. Fuzzy colored growth, slime, or a putrid rather than sour-sharp smell means the batch has failed and should go out.
- Washing and cookingRinsing in warm water was standard when kraut was salted heavily; with a 2 percent brine it is unnecessary and washes away flavor and some vitamin C. If it tastes too sharp, a brief rinse in cold water is enough. Simmered with corned beef or salt pork, allow a couple of hours for the meat, adding the kraut for the last 45 minutes.
- The stray line at the end"1 quart of cut cabbage" reads as a truncated ingredient line. One quart of shredded cabbage is roughly three-quarters of a pound to a pound — a useful unit for scaling the salt.
The name is German — Sauerkraut, simply "sour cabbage" — and the technique of preserving shredded cabbage in its own brine reached American kitchens with German settlers, becoming a fixture of Pennsylvania German cookery and of any farmhouse with a cellar and a late crop of cabbage. Salt-fermented vegetables long predate the German association; the Romans are known to have salted cabbage, and a Chinese origin is often said to reach back to the labourers of the Great Wall, though that account is traditional rather than documented. Lactic fermentation was one of the few ways a temperate household could keep a green vegetable through winter. Kraut also had a reputation as an antiscorbutic at sea, and it is often noted that Captain Cook carried barrels of it on his voyages. Its appearance here is a reminder that until home canning became routine such recipes were as much about preservation as about cooking: the recipe ends not with a dish but with a full keg in the cellar, and the instruction to cover it closely each time any is taken out.