Sauerkraut-Inspired Memories

by

Nicki Leone

There was a point one holiday season several years ago when I found myself standing in the grocery store when I was hit with a sudden, overwhelming longing for sauerkraut. Where the desire came from, and why, I had no idea. I wasn’t pregnant, and usually my foodie cravings run closer to things like a bag of Fritos or some of that imported cheese that runs $23.99 per ounce. Before I had really even registered what I was doing, I had two bags of deli-packaged sauerkraut—two 2-pound bags—in my shopping cart and I was starting to throw in other things that seemed like they’d compliment it: Apples. Onions. Cabbage. Caraway, mustard and poppy seeds. Extra-wide egg noodles. Polish kielbasa. Potatoes and carrots.

I was feeling lonely, perhaps, and wanted comfort food. But this does not exactly explain the irresistible craving for sauerkraut. For my definition of “comfort food” please note the aforementioned expensive imported cheese, and the Fritos. (Not usually consumed together).  My mother thinks it’s genetic. But she is German-Swiss and therefore thinks sauerkraut is the most important Germanic contribution to civilization—and that’s taking into account both German beer and Swiss chocolate.

Personally, I don’t think scientists looking for the sauerkraut allele on the genome map are going to have much luck. But there is this important fact to consider: My mother is nearly always right.

In any case, there is no denying that when the leaves start to turn and the nights start to cool, my mind turns towards heartier fare and the first thing I cooked for the family when they came to visit this holiday season was a vast kettle of the German version of onion soup (it involves a bottle of good strong beer, mustard and pretzels), with thick slices of homemade bread.

My mother arrived armed to cook as well, and it is an indication of our simpatico natures that she brought along a cookbook she liked—Christmas in the Heartland—that happened to be by Marcia Adams, the same woman who wrote the cookbook I had pulled out from my “favorites” shelf in preparation for multiple family dinners, New Recipes from Quilt Country. Adams, who died earlier this year, got her start as a cookbook writer when she entered a recipe for “Chicken Reuben” in a national contest and won first prize. But what I love about her books—which celebrate Amish and Mennonite cooking—is how simple and delicious all the food is. I’ve never met a recipe in her books I didn’t want to make, and I’ve never met a recipe that, once made, I didn’t love.

What mom loves about the Quilt Country books is how familiar the food is. “This is just how we made it,” she would say about a rhubarb pie or an apple spice cake. (Adams even has one that is made with sauerkraut.)  Mom was actually quite an adventurous cook when I was growing up—we were the first family on the street to have a wok—but she grew up with my grandma’s cooking, which was a mix of Mennonite, German and Swiss food that tended to make the most of whatever was in season. And it is that kind of cooking that grips her most frequently now. Just as does for me, now that my genetic disposition towards chicken pot pies and molasses cookies has apparently come online.

So my mother and I spent a week or so poring over our books, making unrealistic plans for how much food we could cook, and eat, over the coming holiday. And because it is the holiday season, we found ourselves bookmarking the cakes and cookies sections of the two books with little slips of paper:

“Let’s make candied orange peel before we do the fruit cake!”

“This recipe for Moravian Sugar Cake looks good.”

“What about these strawberry-heart cookies?”

“I don’t have heart-shaped cookie cutters but we could use the biscuit cutters.”

(Mom and I both love fruit jam cookies.)

There aren’t many better ways to spend a holiday vacation. And really, we might have been okay if it was just the two cookbooks we had to choose from. But there was also the Italian side of the family to be considered. So we hauled out Lynne Rossetto Kasper’s The Splendid Table, looking for other ways to use up the cookie-sheets full of newly made candied orange peel:

“Look at this recipe for chocolate spice cake!”

We now have two chocolate spice cakes sitting on the counter, heavy with almonds and candied orange peel, encased in a layer of bittersweet chocolate.

And if all that weren't enough, mom pulled out a little Ziploc bag stuffed with index cards and magazine clippings. These were the family recipes. The ones I asked her to bring along because I have fond aspirations of turning them into a family cookbook someday. So now we also had to make the pfeffernusse, Mexican wedding cakes, oatmeal raisin cookies, Lebkuchen, Swedish rocks, date pinwheels and bourbon balls. Plus, the whole collection of Italian cookie recipes from Grandma Riga, whose granddaughter was my best friend growing up. We had Grandma Riga’s pizzelle, orange cookies, honey slices (which were a variety of biscotti) and Neapolitan tartlets. My mother calls Grandma Riga “Catherine of the Cookies.”

I love mom’s index card recipe collection not just because this is the food I grew up with, but because of all the accumulated notes that have been penciled in the spaces along the sides of the directions. Like in Great Aunt Lillian’s recipe for Polish mazurka cookies, where the  directions that call for 1/4 cup of old wine have the word '”old” emphatically underlined, and the word “berry” in parenthesis afterwards. My mother finds this attention to detail in the vintage amusing, because Great Aunt Lillian was a teetotaler.

It is now, as I write this, a week until Christmas and already mom and I have gone through a dozen eggs, half a pound of chocolate, nearly five pounds of flour, and a pound and a half of butter.

And we are still looking through the cookbooks, thinking about new recipes to try.

Books mentioned in this column:
Christmas in the Heartland by Marcia Adams (Clarkson Potter, 1992)
New Recipes from Quilt Country by Marcia Adams (Clarkson Potter, 1997)
The Splendid Table by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (William Morrow, 1992)

Nicki Leone showed her proclivities early when as a young child she asked her parents if she could exchange the jewelry a well-meaning relative had given her for Christmas for a dictionary instead. She supported her college career with a part-time job in a bookstore, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that her college career and attending scholarships and financial aid loans supported her predilection for working as a bookseller. She has been in the book business for over twenty years. Currently she works for the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance, developing marketing and outreach programs for independent bookstores. Nicki has been a book reviewer for several magazines, her local public radio station and local television stations. She was one of the founders of The Cape Fear Crime Festival, currently serves as President of the Board of Trustees of the North Carolina Writers Network, and as Managing Editor of BiblioBuffet. Plus, she blogs at Will Read for Food. She manages all this by the grace of a very patient partner and the loving support of varying numbers of dogs and cats. Contact Nicki.