Sauerkraut is a typical winter vegetable. Incidentally, the vegetable that is pickled comes from China. That and more facts about sauerkraut and the value of sauerkraut for your health.
Making sauerkraut; not so easy
Making sauerkraut is more than just pickling white cabbage. It takes a lot of biochemistry. Just like making bread, wine and beer, actually. The fermentation of sauerkraut does not come from alcohol-producing yeasts, but from lactic acid bacteria. These ensure that the cabbage can be preserved throughout the long, cold winter. In addition, they give the cabbage a completely different taste than white cabbage normally tastes. Because and many people don’t know that, sauerkraut is made from white cabbage.
How is sauerkraut made?
To get sauerkraut, the outer leaves of the white cabbage are removed and the hard core is removed. The leaves that remain are chopped and salted. This would happen at about 1.5 percent. Today, this process is done entirely in a factory.
Make your own sauerkraut
You can also make sauerkraut yourself. Then the cabbage must be finely chopped just like above. Then place a layer in a Cologne pot or simply in a modern sauerkraut barrel. After the layer of white cabbage, apply a layer of salt. Then press and cover and add a dash of buttermilk. This triggers the fermentation. During the fermentation process, starches and sugars are converted into lactic acid. Fermentation takes between 3 and 8 weeks.
Sauerkraut from the factory
Sauerkraut is made differently in a factory. The cabbage then goes into large storage pits. These are sealed airtight with plastic bags filled with water.
Sauerkraut too sour
Sometimes people find sauerkraut too sour. Rinsing helps, but if you like the real vegetables, you better just cook it that way.
Lots of vitamin C in sauerkraut
Sauerkraut contains a lot of vitamin C. Incidentally, this does not apply to many other preserved vegetables. In the past, sauerkraut was widely consumed on long boat trips. This was how scurvy was prevented. The English explorer James Cook discovered this.
Easily digestible vegetables
Sauerkraut is easy to digest and much lighter than the regular cabbage varieties. Incidentally, there are different flavors of sauerkraut. When wine is added it becomes wine sauerkraut, with herbs it becomes herb sauerkraut. The herbs are then added before the acidification starts.
Where does sauerkraut come from?
The Dutch often think that sauerkraut is a typical Dutch vegetable. But the way sauerkraut is made comes from northern China. It came to Europe through migration from Mongols and other peoples. In Eastern Europe they love sauerkraut and the vegetable is widely eaten. Eastern European Jews are said to have quickly incorporated the sauerkraut into their food and spread it further to the West and the United States. Jews did not eat sauerkraut with bacon or sausage (that is pork and Jews do not eat that) but with goose or duck. It was not until the end of the eighteenth century that eating sauerkraut became completely normal in the Netherlands.
Germans were referred to as Krauts
In both World War I and World War II, the word Krauts was used for Germans. This had to do with the word sauerkraut as sauerkraut is called in German.