The Power of Sauerkraut

This simple dish of fermented cabbage adds depth of flavor to meals as an ingredient, side dish, or condiment. Anney and Lauren explore the bacterial science and bubbling history behind sauerkraut.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Sabor, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. And today we're
talking about sauer Kraut. Indeed, and this is when I
have very very little experience with um, but I feel
like one of the ideas behind this. When I was
the editor producer for our fellow podcast Stuff to Blow

(00:30):
Your Mind, they did an episode on what would last longer?
Cockroaches or sauer Kraut. It was like an apocalypse, like
what will you find on your shelf in the apocalypse?
Or packard is still around? Yeah? I mean was the
sauer Kraut also still around? Yes? I think the sauer
Kraut actually won Wow gosh, Okay, I need to go

(00:51):
back and find this episode, but yeah, I think so.
It's almost like a chicken or the egg thing, because
I mean, at a certain point, the cockroaches need food
and the sauer Kraut is food. But how do they
get into the sara Kraut? Right? M m. Maybe the
cockroaches are like those cockroaches from the movie Mimic. I
don't know if you saw that. Classics actually have managed

(01:13):
to not see it somehow, and I'm still surprised by
that every day. Every day. I also get it mixed
up with species. Yes, yes, I do too, and I don't.
I haven't seen species, but I don't think they're very similar.
I don't think they are. No. Um, that's that's okay though.

(01:33):
Uh yeah, I despite my lack of experience there, I
would say that I have Oh man, I there's a
lot of sauerkraut in my house growing up. It is
the way that I was taught to eat a hot
dog by my Jersey Jewish father is that it is
on a toasted bun, and there is warm sauer kraut,

(01:56):
and there is mustard, like preferably like like brown mustard
involved like brown spicy mustard. But and that is the
only way to eat a hot dog. That's the one
way to do it, and all other ways are wrong,
And that's okay if you want to be wrong. This
is this is his perception, not mine. I have since uh,

(02:17):
since I got out into the world on my own,
opened opened up to other hot dog possibilities. But that
is what I came to understand growing up. I love it.
It's so specific, it's very specific. I've never had like
I think I've had sarakraut maybe three or four times.
I've never had it warm. Oh I'm sure you've had
it warm on a sandwich, like on a reuben or

(02:39):
something like that. Have you never? Oh? My, okay, all right,
I am okay. We were discussing this right before we
started recording. Whenever this we get to the end of
the tunnel and we can finally be together in person,
We're going to have a savor feast of all the foods,

(03:00):
the random foods that come up. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely,
I will have to go to a general mirror um
here here in Atlanta. They do, they do some they
do some good deli type stuff. Um, okay, alright. We
we also wanted to talk about saur kraut um because
it's a simple home cooking project and fermented goods last
a long time. I've seen a lot of friends, uh,

(03:22):
expressing interest in ferment projects at home since you know,
we're we're all we're all still in isolation right now.
So yeah, yeah, and keep sending a lot of you've
been sending in your food projects. Please keep doing that.
If you do, Oh my gosh, let us know. But okay,
let's get to walk question. All right, sauer kraut, what

(03:47):
is it? Well, sauer kraut is shredded cabbage that has
been purposefully made to go deliciously stably off, meaning that
it's added cabbage that's been preserved and flavored using fermentation.
Meaning 're talking about bacteria poop, bacteria poop. So to

(04:11):
understand what what sauer kraut is, let's walk through how
you make it. And at its simplest, all you need
to make sauer kraut is cabbage and salt and a
container to put it in. And when you when you
put the salt in the cabbage in there, it helps
to shred the cabbage, maybe smooth it a little bit
to get some of the water out of the salt
of course will help draw water out to um or

(04:33):
maybe even add a little bit of water to cover
it because you want the cabbage to be submerged. More
on that in a second. It also helps with the
containers air tight because during the course of um your
making sauer kraut, you're really employing two different kinds of
helpful bacteria that are already present on the cabbage to
make it for you UM, and you're trying to exclude

(04:56):
other bacteria from the mix. So so submerging the cabbage
and getting an air tight container are going to help
you help them do that? Okay? And uh, why why bacteria? Well,
bacteria are not always bad. Most of them are harmless,
and some of them are absolute powerhouses. And this is
only part of why you should only use antibacterial soap

(05:17):
products if you're either like immune suppressed or have otherwise
been instructed to do so by a doctor. Slightly separate issue.
But most of us don't need it anyway, okay, but bacteria, yes. Um, So,
there's there's a fine line between fermenting and rotting, and
in general, when we say that food is rotten, what
we mean is that microorganisms have started eating that food

(05:40):
before we got a chance to, and those microorganisms created
unpleasant textures or flavors or even harmful compounds or like
maybe those microorganisms would make you sick if you consumed them.
But when a food is fermented, we mean that microorganisms
have started eating it and created pleasant textures and flavors

(06:01):
and even compounds that prevent those harmful microorganisms from growing
in it. So those those two kinds of helpful bacteria
that I mentioned um that are going to help you
make your sauerkraut. The first type help out by using
up the oxygen in the jar, which lots of bad
germs need to grow, and replacing it with carbon dioxide,

(06:22):
which lots of bad germs cannot use. So yeah, submerging
the cabbage, sealing the jar oxygen is un good during fermentation,
these things help get it out of there. Um and
and unfortunately, by using up the oxygen in the jar,
that makes the jar inhospitable to these first kind of
helpful bacteria. But fortunately for us, it makes it perfect

(06:45):
for lactic acid bacteria to thrive. And you're gonna get
a couple different species of lactic acid bacteria going during
your ferment. The first are going to produce both lactic
and acetic acids, which are going to make the product
to acidic for themselves. Um, So species of Lactobacillus take

(07:06):
over um, and those are going to eat up all
of the remaining sugars in the cabbage and excrete even
more lactic acid um until your sauer kraut is just
deliciously tart and also completely inhospitable to either themselves or
or bad microorganisms. So at this point, your sauer kraut
is ready um and will last a good long time

(07:27):
kept in a fridge. Um. Everything up until this point
can can be done at room temperature. Um. But but yeah,
so the finish sarakraut will be tart and vegetal and
briny and like tender but with a good crunch good um.
And I will say that some of what I've said
here is bound to be controversial in some in some

(07:50):
home ferment circles, some folks swear by open air ferments. Um.
All I'm saying is it's scientifically speaking, sealed sauer kraut
is safer and more predictable. But we can't tell you
what to do. No, you do what you want. Yes, Yes,
we're here for the laughs and educational entertainment. Yeah, but

(08:14):
not in the business of telling you know you know.
And even if we were there, there's no way that
we could legally bind you to listen to us. So
and thank Heavens for that. I do love through you. Laura,
and I have been exposed to some of the fermentation
community in Atlanta, and I have really enjoyed like these

(08:39):
deep conversations about the best ways to ferments. Uh, it's spectacular.
It's I mean, it's it's a very personal thing because
it's like it's like a pet. As we also have
dismissed on here before, Like you know, you're you are,
you are growing your own colony of helpful bacteria that
you are manipulating in particular way is to get a

(09:00):
particular type of product, and so so you know, what
works in your home might also be totally different than
what works in anyone else's home. It's one of the
wonderful things about it. I love it. I love it. Yes, yes,
mit two, but yeah, so Saua kraut um. I've always
had it very finely shredded, like grated really, but it
can be done thicker or even as whole heads of

(09:21):
cabbage that can later be chopped up. You can add
spices in their Caraway seed is maybe the most traditional,
but anything from like mustard seed to juniper berries to
celery seed are also common, and you can add other
vegetable or herbs in there for color or flavor, like
onion or dill, or beets or carrots them. Personally, I
feel like that's like getting a little bit away from
the heart of sauer kraut. I like my sauer kraut

(09:45):
to remain pure. But again you do you though, um,
And yeah, the stuff is used as a It can
be a side dish or a condiment or an ingredient
in other dishes can be served warm or cold or
room temperature for that matter. A common warm side dish
involves like a heavy amount of sara kraut cooked up

(10:06):
with a little bit of sliced apple and onion and
some chopped bacon. Oh, it's good, good stuff sounds good.
As we said, integral part of the ruben um, which
is a sandwich for people like me, might be a
bit sheltered in this region. We also, I just went
on a very brief internet rabbit hole about the Rachel,
which apparently is a version made with roast turkey and

(10:28):
maybe the name comes from an eighteen seventy one song
called Reuben and Rachel Future episode because I learn more
and see if that's true. Absolutely, yes, Um. Sometimes, as
you said, Lauren, toppings on hot dogs, saara kraut, soup,
pork and sauer kraut is a popular New Year's good
luck meal and some parts of the world. Yeah, yeah,
I I dated a guy with family from Pennsylvania, who

(10:50):
did a park roast in saara kraut for New Year's Day. UM.
In general, saarakraut does go really well with like rich
fatty uh meat and especially pork products. It cuts the
fat and adds this like kind of earthy depth to it. UM.
I've also had a Chinese preparation of a lightly pickled
cabbage stir fried with park sausage and glass noodles. Oh
my gosh, so good. UM that was downstairs at the

(11:11):
at the Sechuan place. I'm but it's not on the
menu anymore, and I'm really mad about it anyway. UM.
Sour kraut is also great and UM lots of other
stir fries, stews, cast rolls. UM. It can be a
great ingredient in preparations of ground meat like meatballs, UM
to add like flavor and moisture. And speaking of sauer

(11:33):
kraut cake, okay, okay, this is not a cake that
is flavored to taste like saur kraut um leading ridiculous.
This is a sweet um typically chocolate cake UM that
uses drained saur kraut as like a mixing ingredient like

(11:54):
you'd think it was like a nice soft like shredded
coconut if you if you didn't know what it was. Um,
it just adds like some texture and a depth of flavor,
like just a little bit of tart to kind of
balance the sweet and better of the chocolate. Um. I've
seen recipes for for peanut butter cakes. So to sit back,
to sit back at that. Yeah, man, that sounds good.

(12:23):
Oh all right, we'll add that to the menu of
Oh my gosh, please yes of our post post isolation extravaganza. Okay,
I'm thrilled. Yes, all right, but before you put surak
out into something like a cake, what about the nutrition

(12:44):
outside of cake formats? Sour craut is pretty good for you.
It's high in fiber, has lots of vitamins and minerals,
especially of vitamins seen K plus, so we punch a protein.
It's very low in fat and carbohydrates, so it can
be a great way to add flavor to a meal
without adding a lot of calories. Um. But that does
also mean that, you know, it needs to be paired

(13:04):
with like fats and proteins to help keep you going.
We'll helpfully up won't help keep you going? Um, And yeah,
it is, it is high in sodium because that's one
of the two ingredients. So um, So if that's the
thing that you're watching out for, watch out for it. Everybody. Hydrate.
Hydration is great, it very much is. When it comes

(13:25):
to numbers, there's not too many saracraut numbers might surprise you.
I don't know. Germany is definitely the country most closely
associated with the dish, especially by Americans, but it is
a widespread dish throughout Central and Eastern Europe. Consumption of
saracraut in Germany is declining, though the average per capital
consumption in that country is about two point six pounds

(13:47):
forty years ago is about four point four pounds. Meanwhile,
in France that numbers three point seven pounds. So yeah,
I think some Americans would be surprised to hear that. Yeah. Um.
According to a website I found called I Love Pickles
dot org. Oh my gosh, wait, let me stop, I

(14:10):
Love Pickles dot org. Yeah. According to them, Americans eat
about one and a half pounds of sara kraut per year.
But I would well ay they didn't cite any sources,
so I have no idea if this is an accurate
number or not, and if it is accurate, I would
strongly suspect that that poundage is concentrated in in certain

(14:31):
like Eastern European immigrant related areas. Um. Because yeah, like
you you're saying like you've had it like maybe four
times in your life. Producer Andrew, before we started rolling
UM was saying that he's not sure if he's ever
had it. I've definitely had years where I've eaten more
Sara Kraut than that. So I wonder too, Like, if

(14:53):
we're thinking about the overlap of how they possibly got
this data, I would suspect that people who peruse I
Love pictures dot org might also love Sara Kraut. You know,
that's just theory. Maybe, yeah, yeah, there are market reports

(15:14):
about Sara Kraut out there, but um, these things are
very expensive. I couldn't I couldn't access them without paying
thousands of dollars, so I just didn't. Um. But but
I mean, you know, especially as fermented foods and home
fermentation products get more popular here in the United States,
there there is a growing market for things like Sara Kraut. Yes, agreed.

(15:36):
One of the things that came up when we were
researching this is it is very closely related to kimchi
and oh yes, we discussed in our kimchi episode there
has been that rise in kimchi, and I would not
be surprised if Sara kraut started experiencing something similar. There
is an annual Ohio Sara Kraut Festival in Waynesville, Ohio.

(15:58):
Sounds like a thing of beauty. Yes, And there is
a Guinness Record UM for the largest serving of Sauer
Kraut that's from the UK from eighteen for a seven
hundred and ninety two point eight pound cauldron of Sauer
Kraut O cauldron cauldron yeah, yeah, which is about a

(16:18):
three hundred and fifty nine point six kilos so. It
was created by by two home fermentation aficionados UM fans
who called the venture to make this Guinness Record winning
cauldron of Sauer Kraut. They call it um Sauer Kraud
of Thon. It involved over a hundred volunteers. UM. There

(16:41):
were like speakers at the event like it was the
whole thing. Um it seemed delightful. Look, if you've got
a cauldron of Sauer kraut, it better be a whole thing,
is what I'm saying. I'm angry. I haven't heard about
this until now. It's been a bigger thing, right right.
There's all these lovely photos from the event of like
I'm like kids like helping, like like like smosh down

(17:02):
this hour, to smosh down the cabbage, and it seems
like great fun. It does it does? I love those
kinds of things, all the people coming together to Yeah.
I just have this kind of social experience making something
that's great. Yeah. We do have some history for you,
Oh we do. But first we have a quick break
for a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes,

(17:35):
thank you. So Sara kraw Or the precursor of it
originated two thousand years ago in China. That's what historians think.
Laborers working on the Great Wall of China ate shredded
cabbage fermented in rice wine, practice that people believe originally
got started. It's a way to preserve cabbage through the winter.

(17:56):
Some sources speculate that one thousand years after that, at
Genghis Khan brought permitted shredded cabbage over to Europe. I
couldn't really find that in too many places, but it
wasn't enough that I'll mention it in the fifteenth century,
Germans did away with the wine instead of drawing out
the liquid in the cabbage with salt, arriving in our
more modern idea of sara kraut. And it was a

(18:20):
popular food for sailors because it didn't require refrigeration and
was believed to prevent scurvy. And they were right. Uh,
we've discussed this in several episodes, but to reiterate, scurvy
was devastating, killing millions and in a really miserable way.
So anything that could prevent that was life saving. And

(18:41):
I really appreciated all the headlines I found of like
pet times, Sara krauch saved million um. In seventeen sixty eight,
Captain James Cook sets cell with four foods to experiment
with it when it came to scurvy prevention, including seven thousand,
eight hundred sixty pounds of sara kraut, or as it
was spelled in the log, sour s o u r

(19:04):
crowd k r o u t T. So that's a lot.
That's a lot, yeah, gosh, but the results were good,
they were pretty yeah, pretty positive, good, good source of
vitamin C absolutely m in Eastern Europe, families would prepare
barrels of sarakraut to get through the winter, sometimes fermenting
up the three hundred heads of cabbage, sometimes adding spices,

(19:27):
carroy seeds and other vegetables and or wine. Towards the
end of the eighteen hundreds, Europeans would place shredded cabbage
in a crock and for those without a shredding tool,
all was not lost. Enterprising peddlers went door to door
offering to shred cabbage for a small price. Can you

(19:48):
only imagine like you get a knock on your door
at somebody with because these tools look kind of like
um kind of hook knife, and he's like a cabbage
for do you have cabbage to shred? Here? This is
a cabbage shredding house. For some reason, I'm envisioning the

(20:09):
merchant from Resident Evil four. What cabbage do you need
to shridden? Anyway, that's a character I'm going to hold
in my head for D and D purposes because oh gosh, okay,
well I'm looking forward to that guy. He's gonna be
a troublemaker. I'm gonna warn you. But I do you

(20:30):
have characters who aren't troublemakers that you bring into dn T?
I think there's an argument, or maybe the pineapple looking gnome,
uh maybe, or an honest the gnome. You're right is
a very nice gnome. I'm I'm sorry, I did not

(20:54):
mean to sully her name. Yes, apology excepted more and
During the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a large number of
Germans migrated to the United States, about five million by
the beginning of the nineteen hundreds, Germans were the largest
immigrant group in the country, and they introduced sara kraut

(21:15):
to the United States. At first, the Dish States, largely
in German communities, but it didn't take too long for
the word to get out and force sauer Kraut to
spread across the United States. In Fremont, Ohio, and nineteen
o five, several Saara Kraut manufacturers came together under alan
assessment to create the Fremont Company, which, if you if

(21:37):
you don't know, is a pretty big name in Saara
kraut like grocery store Sauer Kraut that you can buy hm.
During World War One, American and British soldiers began referring
to German soldiers as crowds, and eventually its usage brought
in to refer to all Germans. Um. And this is
also the time when Americans began calling sara kraut liberty cabbage. Yeah. Yeah,

(22:00):
by association. The term sauer kraut was kind of just
just the food and the term and everything was looked
down upon. It was a very derogatory slur. Um still
sometimes used fun fun times, fun times with bias. Yes, yes,
what episode did we talk about that in? It was
it was like not Hamburger, but it was Sundsbury State,

(22:21):
That's what it was. Oh, there you go. Yeah, we
did talk about this before. Um and Yeah. This was
just one thing among a wave of fanatical anti German
sentiment that swept across the US during World War One.
German language books were burned, some German Americans were forced
to publicly kiss the American flag, some were beaten. Not
good no, um and it and it led to a

(22:44):
a downturn in in in sauer kraut consumption for decades
from from from what I read, it really only in
the past couple of decades. Um, like since the turn
of the century has started bouncing back in America to
previous numbers of conception. Yeah, and that the liberty cabbage

(23:05):
thing that was grocers and producers calling for that because
people just weren't buying it, and they thought, you know,
if we changed the name, maybe people will purchase it.
They were the only ones, but they were leaving push
um alright, but pivoting away from that. According to MPR,
in the nineteen sixties, chocolate serkraut cake was a popular

(23:29):
April Fool's food. Now. I don't know about you, Lauren,
I didn't know April fools food. It was a category
of food. But maybe maybe it was in the sixties.
Maybe we're missing maybe from having been born in these
are modern times, we have missed out on an entire

(23:50):
genre of joke food. Is this true? Does anyone know
about this? I feel like you would have thrived as
I'm in many ways both of us would completely fail
at being sixties housewives. But um, but like you would
have thrown an amazing party with people fools foods. Yes,

(24:11):
I mean it's still fun kind you know, well, like
ser kraut cake, Like it's it's not a bad thing,
it's it's like, oh, surprised, has Sara Kraut in it?
You wouldn't have expected that loss. Yeah, that I assume
that's why it was an able Foods cake because by
all accounts it tasted great. So yeah, it's just the
name I suppose. I mean, I guess if you think

(24:32):
of like joke foods and you kind of an aspect
level of putting the your sneakler and the jello. I
wouldn't do things like that. But please write in and
let us know if this is something we've missed out on. Yeah,
we need to know very much. Safer needs to know

(24:55):
about what we have to say on Sara Kraut. Yeah. Yeah,
and we do have a little bit more for you.
But but first we've got one more quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,

(25:16):
thank you. And we're back with like fermentation bubbles. I
don't know, sorry, especially hard because I don't remember what
it tastes like, but I tried. I gave it to

(25:38):
the old college. You did, you did? Josh wrote, ladies,
thank you both for such a great podcast. Well, thank you.
Um it's become something I look forward to every week.
So I have to say I've developed a love hate
relationship with Saver during quarantine because it just makes me
hungry for food. I can't get re understand. Um, oh well,

(26:01):
I guess that just means more food adventuring when things
get back to normal. Now for the mystery. My mom
is Latina and her family there's been a long held
tradition of making chicken molay on special occasions. It's a
sort of Mexican gravy that's served with rice and tortillas.
But for some weird reason, the family recipe uses peanut
butter as one of the ingredients. I've spent hours researching

(26:25):
traditional Mexican molai. All seem to involve random things like
chocolate and Chile's but definitely not peanut butter. Anyway, I
just thought you might come across an answer in all
of your travels, especially considering how much Annie loves peanut butter.
I have never heard of this, but I'm into it.
I think it'd be good. Uh yeah, I mean with

(26:50):
all kinds are I mean, like, it's a fairly simple
recipe from what I understand. I mean, coco is usually involved, right,
but peanut butter. Huh. If any listeners can help solve
this mystery, we call upon you were flashing the saver. Yeah,
we or we just need to do a need to

(27:12):
do a mole a episode. Yeah, alright that both both
uh Nicole wrote. I wanted to write in about the
great Pittsburgh Paroche Race and some of their memorable high jinks.
My family had season tickets to the Pirates for years
and supported them even during the darkest times. There were

(27:33):
many times when Jalapeno Hannah used her purse to gain
an edge or fend off a meddling Pirate parrot. A
few years ago, I was watching the game from college
in July. I went to a college with an e
typical calendar, and they showed a highlight of the parogie
race in which Cheez Chester was injured and had to

(27:54):
be carded off of the field. It was great to
listen to the announcers bring it up when there was
a lull in the last few innings. The Cheese Chester
Antics did not stop there. Potato Pete took his spot
in the races because only for Parodi race at a time,
and Pete knocked Chester down and stole his crutch when
he was on the sidelines. Oh, if I remember correctly,

(28:15):
they had a whole story about Chester's recovery at the
Altuna Curve. The Pirates a a affiliate in Altuna, Pennsylvania.
He even raced in the Great American Bagel Race. It
was a really silly sidebar to normal baseball, but helped
the homesickness. Also, the curve is home of another food
slash animal based mascot, l the Tuna. Get it Tuna,

(28:42):
corny but endearing. All of that is great, yes, ah yeah.
Also have we talked about the Great American Bagel Race?
Is that a thing that I've managed to forget about?
I would be shocked if we talked about it and
forgotten it. Uh, And it's an outrage we can't believe. Yeah,

(29:05):
if we have forgotten about it, I am outraged for
us and at us both both. Yes. Yes, And then
if we just haven't talked about it, still outrage. So
it's just a scurrying outrage when it comes to what
I hope is bagels racing. Yeah, if we did a
whole episode on bagels and we somehow didn't uncover that

(29:26):
in our research, then you know we have we have
some splaining to do, we do. I mean you, you
were you had a lot of strong opinions in that episode.
It was a very emotional episode for you. It was
possible that we you had bigger things on your mind.
That's true, that's true. I mean, you know, I try
to be I I try to be an unbiased journalist.

(29:49):
I don't. I don't at all. That's not Sometimes the
opinions are too strong, you know, you know, you know,
I do what I can. We're all world, world, just
doing what we can. We are we are and I
am loving all of the listeners sending in what you
are up to during this quarantine. Yes, so thanks to
both of them for writing. If you would like to

(30:10):
write to us, you can. Our email is hello at
savor pod dot com. We're also on social media. You
can find us on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram at
savor pod, and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio
app or Apple Podcasts or just you know, wherever you
listen to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our

(30:32):
super producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you
for listening, and we hope lots more good things are
coming your way