Sauerkraut: you either love it or you hate it, but you might want to reserve
your opinion until you've tried fresh sauerkraut. Sauerkraut in the 18th
century could mean life or death to a sailor or soldier.
Thanks for joining us today on 18th century cooking with James Townsend and son.
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So sauerkraut's usually not my, say, favorite thing; it's a little too,
what can I say, it's a little too sour, but I like it when it's paired with other things.
When it's maybe an ingredient in another dish and well some people probably
wouldn't argue with me that sauerkraut is an acquired taste.
When the 18th century Scottish physician James Lind performed clinical trials
looking for the prevention and the cure of scurvy,
he found that acidic foods like citrus and sauerkraut were excellent remedies.
Scurvy is a horrible and painful disease that left untreated meant certain death.
It's estimated that during the Age of Sail more than 2 million sailors died
from that disease. That's more than that died from injuries, other diseases,
and war casualties combined.
In addition, General George Washington in a requisition to Congress in 1777
requested large amounts of sauerkraut.
So when Lind published his findings in 1753 it had revolutionary effects on the
lives of sailors and soldiers as well. Like I said earlier, sauerkraut can be an
acquired taste and it certainly was in 18th century. The famous explorer
Captain Cook had sauerkraut along on his journey, but the the sailors weren't
very happy with it, so
to qualm their complaints he actually ate the sauerkraut in their presence to
encourage their eating of it and it actually had an immediate effect.
Sauerkraut is assumed by many to be primarily a German dish, but many other
countries or cultures had it too: the Dutch, the French had their version, the
Italians, the Russians and many more.
Some believed it originated in northern climates where early frosts might destroy
the cabbage crop and so farmers needed a way to preserve their cabbages for the
long term or over the winter.
What turns cabbage into sauerkraut is the fermentation process.
There were a few 18th century recipes for sauerkraut that actually
suggested the introduction of yeast into the sauerkraut barrel. Most recipes,
however, anticipated the spontaneous fermentation going on inside the dish.
And now of course we know that that fermentation is caused by the Lactobacillus.
They didn't at the time. The same kind of fermentation that you
would find in cheeses and in yogurt, so there's really no need to put yeast in your sauerkraut.
The basic manufacture of sauerkraut is very simple.
They're just two ingredients. You need cabbage and you need salt.
I recommend one or two tablespoons of salt per pound of cabbage.
To get started, we need to select a quality cabbage. You'll need to remove the outer damaged leaves.
Once that you've got those leaves off, you can slice your cabbage in half and then take out the heart.
So you need to slice up your cabbage into the slivers.
You can either use a nice big knife, that can be difficult.
You can use a food processor at home or you can use a mandolin or slaw cutter
like this one. We picked this one up very recently at a garage sale.
This one's, you know, probably from early 20th century but remarkably the the
design is very similar. It's been used ... similar ones have been used for hundreds of years.
The fermentation process is very simple and you, really, you start out with a
container and you can use, say, like a barrel like they would have used in the 18th century.
They also used crocks. They were very popular. Here's a, here's an older ceramic crock.
We're going to be using a smaller ... just one of our storage jars. We don't make a
whole lot. It really depends. The container depends on how much you want to make.
You at home, you could even make this in a mason jar. It's very simple.
So there is one caveat, however; if you want to use an old crock, an antique crock
unless its salt glaze, and even then if it's salt glaze on the outside,
it's likely that it might be lead glaze on the inside. And sauerkraut is acidic
and so that it might draw
the lead out of that glaze, so I actually don't suggest using an antique
crock for making your sauerkraut. Modern ones would likely have the proper kind
of glaze so that would be all right.
We're gonna sprinkle a little bit of salt down in the bottom of this.
Make sure to use kosher salt or pickling salt, even better.
Definitely not iodized salt. Now we can begin to layer in our cabbage and we're
going to put a little bit of cabbage in. But as we put the cabbage in it needs to
be smashed down. Now we can use anything; that here is one of our rolling pins,
this is perfect for this job or if you've got one of our wooden mashers
another product that's great for smashing this cabbage down and getting
those juices flowing.
I'll make sure to put a link down to all these products down in the description below.
As each layer goes in, we're going to put, we're gonna smash it down and
then we're going to add a little layer of salt and then we go ahead and put in
another layer of cabbage.
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Now that we've got our container about three quarters of the way full we can
stop putting this in. We, we do want to make sure it's all smashed down nice and
tight in our container and we're actually going to wait a day or two
maybe three days to see where the liquid comes up because liquid is going to come
out of your cabbage and it depends on your cabbage as to how much is really
going in and how much you mash it down.
How much liquid is going to come out of that. You may have sufficient liquid in
your cabbage to get water all the way up over the top of your
shredded cabbage. If you need to add more liquid at the three-day
mark, if you don't have a solution over the top of your shredded cabbage
you'll need to add a brine solution. So the brine solution should be something
about a teaspoon of salt in a cup of water. You want to dissolve that salt
then you can add that solution in on top of your shredded cabbage to make sure
that it's always underneath the liquid. Also at this point your cabbage needs to
be weighed down so you need to have a rock, a board with a rock on top of it.
If you're worried about your rock contaminating your your water you can
put it inside of a plastic bag. Even a plastic bag full of water
but you want something on top of this cabbage weighing it down so that it
stays underneath the water and doesn't float to the top.
Once you've covered your cabbage and you've got the weight on top of it all you need
to do is put the lid on and let it set. As we're letting this ferment, we need
to make sure to wait the proper amount of time.
Bare minimum, this is going to take two to three weeks; it really depends on the
temperature and some other factors. Six weeks is more normal or even longer.
Couple of months.
No problem. It's only going to get better.
And while it's fermenting you'll need to check on it every once in a while to
make sure that the the liquid level hasn't fallen down below the level of
the top of your sauerkraut. So make sure the sauerkraut is always covered with water.
If you ever find mold growing on the top of your sauerkraut,
you know what, you all really,
all you really need to do is scrape that moldy part off.
Make sure you get it all. Re-submerge your sauerkraut and let it keep percolating. It will be fine.
Sauerkraut was a preferred sailor and soldier food
because no one had to worry about it spoiling. I mean, it's already spoiled, right?
That, that's what makes it good.
Now we're going to let this ferment but, say, you really love sauerkraut you can't
wait for this to ferment. Six weeks or whatever. You really want it right away.
Well, in an upcoming episode, we're going to be doing another style of
sauerkraut that one naval officer the time period called Tuscan-style
sauerkraut and that one is pickled with vinegar.
Make sure to stay tuned for upcoming episodes where we try out this