Thaga's Hot and Spicy Pickled Cabbage Recipe

 

For display purposes only!

            At the close of summer, in moist, damp climates one of the things remaining to be dealt with in the garden are the cabbages. In Ooog’s garden there was a row of them. Massive thumpers of cabbages, like gargantuan green roses. Almost everything else had been harvested. Two big bags of spuds, still in their native dirt, to keep better, lay in the old stone and log cottage’s basement. There was a box of carrots and turnips, and a mesh bag of boiling onions hung from a hook on the basement wall.

            Now, cabbages keep pretty well. But they will eventually go rotten. And, besides, Thaga and Ooog love sauerkraut.
            Thaga made rather special kraut. Like any Neanderthal chick, she loved it hot and garlicky. (There were also several braided ropes of garlic in the basement. Also dried peppers on strings.)
            One day while Ramona and Cherry were visiting Thaga and Ooog, drinking herbal tea and eating cinnamon rolls, Thaga gave Ramona a taste of some kraut she had made with spring cabbages earlier in the summer.
            “Thaga, how do you make this? It seems like it would be good with deer or turkey, or wild pig!” said Ramona, full of admiration. And Thaga was tickled with the compliment.
            “I could show you! I have everything we need here. But, you know, it takes time, like weeks, to get really good like that,” said Thaga. “Shall we make some right now?”
            “Yes, it sounds like fun,” said Ramona.
            “I have an empty three gallon crock. Why don’t we set that much up?” said Thaga. She was already putting the crock on the slate floor handy to the big wooden table.
            Next, Thaga took her big, almost a pinafore, apron off of its hook in the back of the kitchen, which she always wore in the garden, looped it over her head, and tied the strings in back. It was made of blue and white striped heavy cotton. It had big pockets sewn into it. One must always have big pockets, or what’s the use of it all?
            Cherry watched it all, delighted.
            “I think we need two of those big cabbages. Let’s go,” said Thaga, and they all trooped out to the garden. Ooog was out there doing some tidying up for the end of the year.
            “Which two are the biggest, dear love,” said Thaga to Ooog, and he came over and pointed out a couple to her. He cut them loose from the soil with his folding knife and stripped off the big outside leaves. He threw those into the chicken yard. The chickens were happy to see them and all ten ran right over to deal with them. Cherry enjoyed watching the speckled hens for a few minutes.
            “I’ll carry them. What’s next?” said Ramona.
            “I’ll show you in the kitchen,” said Thaga.
            Back in the kitchen, Thaga got out her big cleaver and a large cutting board. She made sure that Cherry knew to stand clear and she whacked those big pale green orbs into quarters. Soon she had eight nice clean cabbage wedges shining on the cutting board.
            Then she got her cutter which was standing in the back of the kitchen. What it looked like was a long, narrow, two sided wooden box, with a blade just peeping out of a slot halfway down its surface. Ooog had made this himself out of some repurposed oak lumber and a large blade that he had salvaged somewhere. It was a beauty! Much fancier than most kraut cutters because he had carved some little floral doohickies along the sides. Ooog always made things for Thaga as nicely as he could.
            Cherry got sleepy and was put down to nap in the front room on the sofa and covered with a little crocheted blanket.
            Then Thaga demonstrated the best way to hold the wedges of cabbage, and she sliced one. She let Ramona do a few. It was very easy for Ramona because she is quite strong, much stronger than Thaga herself.
            Soon there was a great pile of finely shredded cabbage on the big table waiting for the next step.
            Ooog came in from the garden, went into the bathroom and washed up, and then he went down into the basement and got a rope of garlic and some dried red peppers, little thin hot ones.
            “The next part is fun, if you don’t mind getting a little messy,” said Thaga. That next part was salting and massaging the shred until they got a little juicy.
            Thaga isn’t a measurer. She does things by eye. So, she got her tin of sea salt and put just the right amount of salt on the shreds. Then she and Ramona worked them in their hands until the shreds were limp and getting a little juicy.
            Meanwhile, Ooog had peeled four heads of garlic for them.
            Thaga chopped the garlic on the cutting board into fine pieces. She did the same with about a dozen of those dried peppers.
            Then they packed layers into the crock, which had been moved to the table top, scattering garlic and pepper pieces on the layers and kind of mixing it all together. They mixed in a good handful of caraway seed too.
            Cherry woke up and came out to see what was happening.
            “It smells good in here,” she said. It must have been all the chopped garlic she was smelling.
            The final thing to do was to weight it down in the crock so it didn’t float up and rot or get moldy. Thaga had a nice white China plate that just fit inside the crock. She used that and then weighted it down with a nice clean river rock about the size of a small bunny.
            Then they washed everything up, the cutting board and the cleaver in the big sink in the kitchen. Ooog took the kraut cutter outside and hosed it off. Then he brought it back in to dry in its place at the back of the room. They wiped the table well, and the job was done except for the waiting.
            “When you come back in a couple of weeks, it should be done,” said Thaga. “I will send some home with you, and you can see how Ralph and Twigg like it with something you’re cooking.
            “So, what do you think?” said Thaga.
            “It was fun. One of those things that human people do I can see. It just wouldn’t happen at the Fire Circle,” said Ramona.
            “No, we’re the ones with the cabbages and all that,” agreed Thaga. “It all starts with seeds and a garden.”
            “Mhm,” agreed Ramona.
            “I think we should have you all over for sausages and kraut when it’s ready,” said Ooog, who was sitting on one of the wooden chairs near the table, resting from digging around in the garden.
            Both ladies agreed that it was a very good plan.
            So Ramona and Cherry walked on home as evening was just beginning, to make something for dinner for Ralph and Twigg and themselves too.
            “Human people work so hard,” Ramona marveled to herself and smiled a little, but kindly.

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