Making Mom’s Sauerkraut

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My Mother’s Sauerkraut Recipe:

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All you need to make sauerkraut is a cabbage, some sea salt, a canning jar and boiling water.

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First slice the cabbage into thin slices.


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Stuff the cabbage into a canning jar as tightly as you can, pressing it down with your fingers and or a wooden spoon.


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Put a tablespoon of sea salt into each jar.

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Fill them up to their brims with boiling water.

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Screw on the lids tightly, but not all the way. You don’t want them completely sealed yet so that air and water, if they need to, can escape.

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Store in a dark place on newspaper. As the sauerkraut cooks, some of the liquid might seep out. Give it several days to do that. Wipe the jars clean and seal them as tightly as you can after that.

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In six weeks you’ll have your sauerkraut.

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44

I hear Dad’s chainsaw echo down the field
cutting firewood for December’s stove. Her
knife in hand Mom chops the cabbage she’ll seal
in jars pouring boiling water over
it first with a tablespoon of sea salt.
Come November she’ll have her sauerkraut.
Summer yet, but going, and not the fault
of summer that it goes. I want to shout
“Don’t go!” but that won’t stop its going though and
feel it in my bones. I put away the
stuff that stays and pack the stuff that goes. A
wasp falls down along the windowpane and
curls up on the windowsill. Leaves burn
and swallows go before they can return.

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