Sauerkraut: 'An ambrosia of mankind'

James Perez sent me an email last week that started like this: “Sauerkraut deserves more attention.”

I couldn’t help but read on.

Mr. Perez, a Chicago publicist for Frank’s Kraut, told me about the launch of two new websites that pay homage to fermented cabbage: The Sauerkraut News Bureau at www.sauerkraut.com and the world’s only sauerkraut wiki (allegedly), at www.SauerkrautWiki.com.

One can also join the Kraut Klub, a group that stands ready to unite the sauerkraut lovers of the world. Their mantra: “To some folks, sauerkraut is just another condiment. To you that’s just plain disrespectful.”

The Kraut Klub touts its own “Sauerkraut Manifesto,” a pledge to fermented cabbage it calls “an ambrosia of mankind.” These guys are serious kraut lovers.

It’s good to know there’s now all this information about sauerkraut at my disposal because you never know when you’re going to need a new recipe that contains sauerkraut. I actually liked sauerkraut even before I married a man of 100 percent German descent who considers kraut a mealtime staple.

I’m guessing I’ve probably manhandled more cases of sauerkraut than most people. Because my husband is known as the King of Bratwurst and we still peddle sausage at a couple of county fairs, sauerkraut figures heavily into the condiment mix. At the Richland County Fair in Sidney, it’s my job to keep the sauerkraut bowl filled and that can be a hectic task at peak sausage-consuming hours. We go through about six to eight cases of roughly gallon-sized cans of kraut in four days.

Trust me, that’s a lot of kraut.

I tried my hand only once at making sauerkraut. It was about 25 years ago during a particularly abundant year for cabbage in our garden. My mom was visiting and helped me shred the heads of cabbage and get it ready for the fermenting process. We’d gotten a recipe from a couple of hobby farmers next door but made a grievous error in reading the handwritten recipe. Instead of putting in 5 tablespoons of salt, we thought it said 5 cups of salt.

Suffice to say our sauerkraut in inedible. I’ve never had enough extra cabbage since then to try it again.

Sauerkraut typically is considered a food of German origin, but as the sauerkraut website notes, it was actually the Chinese who began fermenting shredded cabbage in rice wine nearly 2,000 years ago. The Germans didn’t get around to fermenting cabbage in its own juices until the 1500s. By the 1600s it was a staple on long sea voyages because of its high vitamin C content.

Apparently kraut has all kinds of health benefits — it’s an immune booster, a “Superfood” that fights cancer and a digestive aid, that is, according to the self-serving website that calls sauerkraut the “cruciferous wonder.”

Maybe those school lunch cooks knew how healthy sauerkraut was all those years ago when they served up huge portions of it in grade school nearly every Friday. Lucky for me, I learned to like it.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.