On the Porch
Onisha Ellis
I titled my blog Old Things R New because I want to learn the old ways of growing and preserving foods as well as growing and using medicinal herbs. Recently I read “A Luminous Future” by Teodor Flonta. The book is set in the late 1940’s through the early 1960’s in Romania. I was fascinated with the foods he ate during that time, in particular, sour cabbage. In “A Luminous Future”, Teodor’s mother would ask him to get a sour cabbage out of the barrel for dinner. I love learning about different methods of food preservation and since Teodor is on twitter I was able to ask questions and he graciously answered.
“Sour cabbage: take a whole cabbage, cut out the stem, get in the middle of it where the stem was and clean very well the white matter – you obtain a hole like a cone – fill that hole with coarse salt and place the cabbages on the bottom of a barrel next to each other, then you add other layers of cabbages on top until you fill the barrel. Then you add a handful of pepper whole grain, some horseradish, the root, and cover the cabbages with water. Then you place a plank or a lid on top of the barrel and on top of the lid you place a rock or something heavy to keep the cabbages pressed. That’s it. After 2-3 months your sour cabbage is ready. Among the cabbages you can put carrots, green tomatoes, turnips and they’ll be sour too and are quite good in winter. So, the juices the cabbage release and the water, plus the horseradish and pepper do the trick… you don’t need anything else to preserve them in.”
Of course, my next question was how do you eat it? Do you eat it cold or cook it?
“The cabbage can be eaten raw, as it comes from the barrel, like pickles. Or you can add a bit of oil and pepper like you do with salads. Ariella (wife) uses cumin seeds also and no pepper. Then you can fry it with mince meat or ribs or pieces of pork meat… first fry onions until translucent, add the cabbage, 2-3 bay leaves, 10-12 pepper grains, the meat and let it simmer for 40 minutes or so. It is delicious.”
I love the idea of going to a barrel and grabbing out a spicy cabbage so I am looking around for a small barrel. Thank you, Teodor for sharing your knowledge. Teodor and I also discussed preserving meat by larding. I am sure I will be writing about that in the coming weeks. “A Luminous Future” is a wonderful non-fiction novel and I highly recommend it.
If anyone has any tips for preserving or medicinal herbs, I would love to hear from you.
Old Things R New 