Sauerkraut

[ohiobuckeye]

Pretty common around this neck of the woods. My mom used to make her own kraut in a huge stone crock when I was growing up back in the 40s and 50's. Smelled awful as it aged but the end result was tasty. I haven't seen home made kraut for years and my wifes kraut all comes from a can.

 

[Half Scale]

Interesting, i'm English/Scottish, grew up in Tenn (near Nashville), lived in Ala, Ga, Ohio, and now NC. We had homemade saurkraurt growing up in Tenn. and i loved it. Kinda got away from it in Alabama and Georgia.

Then we moved to Bowling Green, Ohio, i fell in love with it again.

We moved to NC in 1978 but saurkraut and brats are still part of out diet.

 

[rimfired]

It was always a staple side-dish beginning at Thanksgiving and still is the main New Years day ingredient. I do a cc brt pork roast in the oven in sauerkraut, remove the roast to rest, and make homemade dumplings in the kraut on the stovetop. Whipped potatoes and summer corn that I blanch and cut off the cob and freeze. That's good eatin"!

I started working in 1960 at ten yo. in a corner grocery store with two butchers. Just before Thanksgiving we would get a wooden barrel of fresh kraut delivered and would sell it in Chinese type take out boxes. Those butchers convinced me one day that a coffee mug full of kraut juice would be good for me. Fool me once........

 

[imjin138]

We always had kraut with holiday meals, in Union Grove there used to be a Meter Brothers saurkraut, my dad's secind wife worked there and we had cases of the stuff. In Franksville right down the road we had the yearly Kraut festival.

I am cooking Spare ribs and kraut right now for Sunday supper.

 

[loknload]

Don't know of ever having it with turkey, but on New Years Day it's Pork and Saurkraut for dinner to bring good luck for the new year!
Don't know for sure if it's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing but my family was PA. Dutch.

 

[Waldo]

I grew up in Prince George's county MD. My mother was from Iowa. We always had sauerkraut with turkey at Thanksgiving. My wife is from PG county also. Both her parents grew up in Washington D.C. They always had sauerkraut with turkey. We still do. I love it.

 

[Jim Shugart]

I like it and we eat it often with sausages.

Captain Cook tried to get British seamen to eat it in the 18th Century to prevent scurvy. (It's a great source of Vitamin C.)

It didn't work. They thought it sucked and threw it overboard.

 

[reddogge]

My wife's family and my family are Marylanders and we always have sour kraut with a turkey dinner. Several years ago a minor scandal erupted in the family when my sister in law in PA hosted Thanksgiving dinner and banned sour kraut from her house. We offered to make it and bring it but she banned it. The next year my elderly mother threatened to make it and keep it hot in the trunk of the car and go outside and spoon it on her plate. The sister in law relented and we now are allowed to bring it in a crockpot to be served Thanksgiving day.

To me a turkey dinner is incomplete without it.

 

[mtgianni]

I have added a jar of kraut to a dutch oven turkey breast the last 1/2 hour. It has to go to folks that will appreciate it and is much better hot than cold.

 

[Hermann]

Since I am here at the Kraut source (Germany) so to say ... I can say
Sauerkraut goes with mashed potatoes and with whatever comes with that.
Best Sauerkraut is cooked in/with white wine, but there are zillions of recepies out there.

 

[ecam8000]

I love sour kraut, but my family doesn't like me after the sour kraut. A simple fill your belly recipie: Jar of kraut, in sauce pan, Sausage (or what ever meat you can find in the fridge) and biscuit batter (or store bought in the roll, torn into thirds or quarters) simmered together until the biscuits are done. Add water if needed. Caution: wait between bowls, as it seems to grow once inside.

 

[roosterk]

Kraut

Like the West German post, my (German descent) family ate it with mashed potatoes.

As for New Years Day, my family has to have black-eyed peas for luck on that day.

roosterk

 

[Moonman]

I use a Pork Butt Roast in the crockpot (it just shreads up with the kraut in the end) with washed kraut and add Yukon gold potato in big cubes after cooking awhile. Use plenty of fresh cracked pepper. I do a few times a year, espesially at New Years but I've never done on it on Thanksgiving.

 

[Joe in SC]

I don't recall it being a traditional Thanksgiving side dish, but we did eat it with regularity. I live in the foothills of the Blue Ridge and come from Scot/Irish blood. My ma and pa both were both from the "farm". I have seen many a crock full of cabbage curing for later use. I love the stuff, always have. I'm sure the German immigrants passed this along to farmers of other heritage in our area. I'm glad they did. Ma also pickled white half runner green beans. Sounds kinda funny to the uninniated but as some of you other southerner's know, they are most tasty.

 

[paladin42]

My Granny was Scots but she always had a crock of the stuff going in the root cellar in WV.