The Mystery of the Missing Sauerkraut

When I was growing up, my grandmother made sauerkraut at least once a week from the big jars stored in the cellar. I didn’t pay much attention other than when I was asked to haul the next jar into the kitchen. So as a young adult, I was surprised when I bought the same sauerkraut to make for myself and found it was nothing like my childhood recollections. The following weekend at my grandparent’s house, I checked the cellar, confirmed that I had bought the same brand, and asked over lunch why my sauerkraut was lacking.

My grandmother gave me a long suffering sigh, once again faced with a grandchild who did not appreciate her lifetime efforts to make our world a better place.

“You don’t just heat the raw sauerkraut from the jar,” she said. “You need to add juniper berries and a bay leaf and maybe a pinch of caraway. If the kraut is too acidic, you can add some onions to sweeten it. Then simmer it slowly in half a bottle of white wine.”

“Champagne,” said my grandfather.

“Don’t be silly!” She glared and him and patted my hand; I was back to being today’s favorite.

“Some people make sauerkraut with champagne,” he muttered.

“Rich people,” she said, using the tone she normally reserved for snake oil salesmen and Catholics.

“Sylvia might be a rich person some day.”

She glared at him and the subject was dropped.

The sauerkraut in Estonia, hapukapsas, is not quite the same; it is somehow tamer, as if made by someone who isn’t sure if they actually like fermented cabbage. You can buy it fresh at the supermarkets in plastic bags with sell-by dates. When cooked to my grandmother’s recipe, it’s perfectly nice. It’s better if you let it sit for a week or two past the sell-by date. I had accepted a life of slightly inferior sauerkraut until I found the Sauerkraut Woman at the central market.

She always offered old and new ferments, both at the same price, as if no one could quite decide if aging it was a good thing or bad. One version was studded with caraway seeds, another stained purple with beet juice. Sometimes she would have a barrel with a warning symbol of a bright red chili, although based on the actual heat, it was maybe only in the same room as a jalapeno. I happily tried a batch from every barrel and then started from the beginning and tried them all again. And then one day I went to the market and she wasn’t there.

In a panic, I posted to r/Eesti on Reddit.

The Mystery of the Missing Sauerkraut

In the covered area at the back of Keskturg, there was a beautiful woman. She was large and fresh faced and generally somewhat grumpy looking and she sold cabbages. She had fresh cabbages, of course, but she also had five or six big barrels of hapukapsas. She had the normal hapukapsas with carrot but also hapukapsas with caraway, hapukapsas with garlic, bright pink hapukapsas with beet and at least one more barrel which I haven’t yet had a chance to try.

And she’s gone.

[load soundtrack]

 Maybe it’s my fault – I was away for most of May and did not visit the market for a week or two before I went. It took me some time to realise she was gone for good. I thought perhaps she’d sold out early or maybe taken a day off.

But it’s been a week now and the wooden picnic table remains bare.

I’ve searched every corner of Keskturg in case she’s moved to a new spot to enjoy the summer sun while it lasts. Then I thought maybe she’d moved on to the bright lights of Balti jaamaturg, tempted by the flashy new stalls and access to electricity. But there’s no sign of her.

There’s no sign of anyone selling barrels of hapukapsas, although tubs of bright green kurk (cucumbers) are everywhere. I found one single vegetable stall with a measly plastic bucket of hapukapsas with carrot.

I don’t even like carrot.

Can you help me? I don’t know if she has abandoned me forever or perhaps it is just a seasonal thing and she will be back once the cold wind begins to blow and the snow gathers around the concrete square where she once was.

And if it is true that the woman of my dreams is simply gone without a trace, then am I fated to a lifetime of carrot in my sauerkraut? Or are there hidden barrels of caraway and beet somewhere in Tallinn where I might fulfill my darkest culinary fantasies?

One person, who had also bought sauerkraut from the woman, shared my sadness that she was gone. One gave me instructions for making sauerkraut at home with fresh cabbage and salt. Another informed me that I could buy fresh sauerkraut in grocery stores and there was no need to go to the market. My favorite offered no help at all but said simply, “This is the best lovestory.”

It was six months later when I stumbled upon the answer, so obvious that I was embarrassed that I ever doubted her.

Sauerkraut is seasonal. In the spring, when the fresh green cabbage appears in the stalls, the sauerkraut woman disappears, probably hard at work shredding vegetables and filling up barrels. She returns with the full barrels every autumn, enough fermented cabbage to keep us sated and healthy until winter fades back into spring.

She would not, I fear, approve of my adding champagne to her sauerkraut. But the truth is that these cold winter evenings, I often open a bottle of champagne in my grandfather’s memory, pouring one glass into the sauerkraut and the rest into me.