"A Sauerkraut Thanksgiving"

[mia]

Growing up, Thanksgiving was always spent in Baltimore with my grandparents. Thanks to my grandmother's tradition, the first Thanksgiving dinner I ever cooked featured sauerkraut. I learned how to make delicious turkey giblet gravy from her, too. She was a wonderful cook and baker!

"...Growing up, I had no idea that sauerkraut is not, to most Americans, a traditional Thanksgiving dish. It was always there, on the sideboard, as inevitable as turkey. That's part of the condition of being a kid: Your family, no matter the oddities or inconsistencies, still seems perfectly normal. Adulthood came late for me, because it was only five years ago when I learned that my family's sauerkraut could be considered weird, when the man who is now my husband spent his first holiday with us staring in puzzlement at the bowl of it.

I didn't know what to say that day to explain our tradition, but I've since done some research, and I now know where it comes from: Baltimore. Serving sauerkraut at Thanksgiving is an old tradition there, rooted in the homes of the city's German immigrants. In 1863, when Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, about a quarter of Baltimore's population was German. Sauerkraut was a given on their celebratory table, and so it became a common part of Thanksgiving meals across the city. Over time, it didn't even matter if you came from German stock: Sauerkraut became a Baltimore thing. My grandfather's family was as Irish as they come—Mack was their surname, a shortened version of Macgillycuddy—but he grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, eating sauerkraut on the fourth Thursday of every November....

http://www.bonappetit.com/.../a-sauerkraut-thanksgiving

[dhol82]

1. Do you cook it in any way?

I make a Russian version that is sautéed with onions and garlic until it is caramelized.
It makes a lovely side dish for pork or sausage.

[mia]

2. Your version sounds delicious.

I use store-bought refrigerated raw sauerkraut and add caramelized onions to that. Next time I'll add garlic.

[dhol82]

6. I also rinse the sauerkraut prior to cooking it.

The onions and garlic are lightly sautéed first in olive oil. Then I add the rinsed kraut for a final caramélisation.
It’s really good.

[mia]

8. Thank you!

Looking forward to savoring this!

[CrispyQ]

3. I love sauerkraut.

This is one of my favorite recipes, although I like it plain on mashed potatoes, too.

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/111546/russian-green-bean-and-potato-soup/

[mia]

5. Thank you for sharing this recipe.

It looks delicious and the recipe inspires lots of ideas for new flavor combinations.

[beveeheart]

4. Sauerkraut was on the Thanksgiving menu when I

was growing up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. It's never been a favorite of mine, but adding white wine and caraway seeds to it does make it better. I actually like it cold with a few drops of vinegar and caraway seeds.

[halfulglas]

7. They also put it in the stuffing.

I'm Polish and German by ancestry and sauerkraut was eaten in our home about once a week. It's cheap and nutritious. My husband was Irish but also loved sauerkraut,, especially on hot dogs. Anyway, as a wife and mom I didn't make it weekly, but I made it sometimes, as my kids didn't really like it very much. Well, we moved to Maryland in the 1970s when my kids were small, my son in grade school. His grade school had a Thanksgiving dinner for lunch that first year and the parents were invited, eaten in the classroom, with our kids, served buffet style. I had a little bit of everything except the sauerkraut. Everything tasted delicious except afterwards there was the aftertaste of sauerkraut and knowing I hadn't eaten any I asked a few other parents about it and was met with an "of course." Just as we chop up celery and onions and other additions to the traditional dressing, many traditional Marylanders chop up drained sauerkraut and add it.

[TygrBright]

9. My MIL was famous for her candied sauekraut contribution to the Thanksgiving table.

She added diced apples to it, allspice, black pepper and caraway, with a lot of brown sugar, and cooked it for several hours on a very low heat- in latter years, in the crockpot-- until almost all the moisture was cooked out and it was very soft and a little chewy.

It was a delicious sweet-and-sour note in the meal, but very rich.

reminiscently,
Bright

[dhol82]

10. That sounds awesome!

[Doreen]

11. This sounds wonderful. I love Sauerkraut.

[alfredo]

12. Sauerkraut was part of our thanksgiving dinner

Ham Hocks
Mashed potatoes
Sauerkraut
Peas

Good eating any day of the week.