© Another Day in the Country
Now in order to pronounce the title of this piece correctly, you’ve got to pretend you’re German and frown a little, round your mouth and roll your tongue over the R’s. As a teenager this phrase always brought laughter around our dinner table.
There was this awkward, gangly teenage boy in my Bible class at church, when I was a kid. He had so many things going against him: ill-fitting clothes, scraggly hair, acne, a bedraggled look of a puppy who needed affection. He had one thing going for him: he was funny. He’d kid and joke around in this German accent about being the Zauerkraut Zalseman and send us into fits of laughter — even my parents got the joke and enjoyed his antics.
We took to calling him the Zauerkraut Zalesman and to this day, I can’t remember his real name. I do recall that he had a crush on me, the preacher’s daughter, and so I didn’t laugh quite as freely as the rest of the class — didn’t want to give him any grounds for encouragement. The last time I saw him was on my wedding day, standing in the reception line and the Zauerkraut Zalesman came through with his mother. “Here’s your last chance to kiss her,” crowed his mother, embarrassing the poor kid to death. To his credit he didn’t — try to kiss me. However, his fame lived on in our family.
“Smells like the Zauerkraut Zalesman’s been here,” my Dad would say when he came into the kitchen and discovered that we were having sauerkraut and mashed potatoes for dinner — he didn’t like kraut and especially disliked the smell. “I’ve fixed you something else,” my mother would dutifully report.
My sister and I dearly love sauerkraut and mashed potatoes with our vegetarian wieners. We call it “comfort food” because it reminds us of home. It’s especially good with thick slices of homemade bread.
My mom always made her own sauerkraut and I remember one year before they left the farm, my oldest daughter came by and made a request. “Show me how you make your sauerkraut,” she said. Mom and Dad kicked into gear shredding cabbage.
Once the cabbage was shredded, Mom seasoned it with sugar and salt, mixing the kraut with her hands and tasting it. There was lots of discussion between Mom and Dad until they deemed it “just right” and then it was packed into a crock until the juice rose to the top, covered with a plate and weighted with a fruit jar full of water and put in a corner of the garage. Now, all we had to do was wait until the day when the kraut was just right in the curing process — not too sour. Mom hated kraut that was too sour.
I’ve been making kraut since we came back to Kansas. For years, I was spoiled because Mom would make it and then just give us some. Now we’re on our own and making kraut is still part of my ritual. I planted lots of cabbage in the garden — got plants on sale at the end of the season and said, “Why not? I’ve got the room!”
I asked my sister to help me harvest and shred cabbage the other day. About half way through the process — with the house reeking and both sinks full of shredded kraut ready for seasoning, Jess said, “You know, if it was just up to me I’d go buy the kraut I need from the Hebrew Brethren who make that good stuff.”
Today, the kraut is ready and I’ve been packing it into jars — 60 pints, which means we could have sauerkraut every week all year long and then some. We could almost go into business. “How long do I put the finished product into a water bath?” I asked myself, taking down my Grandma Schubert’s old recipe book which actually had canning information in it. “Seems I remember 20 minutes in boiling water for pints. I’d better check.” Grandma’s old book just said, “Add salt and seal. Ready in two weeks.” I guess processing the kraut was something Mom added to the mix.
I’m almost done. Two batches to go — one stayed in longer than it should while I was writing this and broke a jar. Ah, well. We’ve got plenty. It will take us awhile to eat this bountiful harvest and right about now, on another day in the country, the whole house, my hair, my clothes, the very air is smelling like the Zauerkraut Zalesman!