newsminer.com

ALBANY, N.Y. — Sauerkraut Seth earned his nickname by chance.

Hawthorne Valley Farm, the nonprofit, biodynamic farm and dairy in Harlemville, N.Y., where Seth Travins first worked as an intern, had a bountiful cabbage crop back in 1999.

“We had some extra cabbage, and one thing led to another,” he said.

One thing was that first batch of four barrels, about 1,500 jars, of sauerkraut.

The “another,” was a line of five flavors of sauerkraut, a kimchi and several pickled vegetables, which today keeps Travins busy in the basement

of one of the farm’s buildings

making or packing sauerkraut for most of the year. The farm store grosses about $2,000 a month in sauerkraut sales, Travins said, and about the same amount each week at markets in New York City, where his products are sold twice a week. Martha Stewart has even claimed to be a fan.

Travins’ sauerkraut is a little different from the kind most people are familiar with. It’s packed raw instead of canned using heat. Travins said canning isn’t necessary, because the lacto-fermentation process is enough to preserve the sauerkraut for up to two years. Travins’ sauerkraut is tangy and crisp, more the texture of coleslaw than what you’d

expect from a can.

“It was a challenge, and nobody was doing it,” Travins said. “It’s about as easy as it can get in terms of processing.”

Lacto-fermentation is actually an old form of preserving cabbage, which started in China 2,000 years ago, where they used wine instead of salt, according to Pickle Packers International Inc., a trade group for the pickled food industry. Lacto-fermented cabbage later made its way into Europe, where it was embraced by Germans, who substituted salt for wine and called their version sauerkraut, or “sour cabbage.”

Travins said sauerkraut, which is a good source of vitamin C, was stored and served on English seaman Capt. James Cook’s ships to prevent his crew from getting scurvy.

For Travins, sauerkraut season starts in the fall. The cabbage is grown on local and regional organic farms, and the best cabbage is harvested after a couple frosts, because those heads tend to be sweeter.

The cabbage is shredded in a large industrial food processor and dumped into 55-gallon plastic drums, where it’s salted with Celtic sea salt and then pressed in order to release the liquid. The cabbage is covered with a heavy, water-filled plastic bag, which both compresses the mixture and seals out air. The cabbage is left to ferment in the barrels for two months at between 60 and 70 degrees. Each barrel holds about 300 pounds of sauerkraut.

As the sauerkraut ferments, sugars convert to lactic acid, which preserves food and keeps away harmful bacteria. Travins stores his sauerkraut in the refrigerator case at the farm store, but it would be fine on a pantry shelf, he said.

During the height of the sauerkraut-making season, two employees can turn out eight barrels of sauerkraut in an eight-hour shift.

Travins’ “Ruby Red” sauerkraut is a potent mixture of red cabbage, onions, garlic and bay leaves. He likes his jalapeno sauerkraut best served with eggs, and his curry sauerkraut was inspired by the recent popularity of turmeric.

His sauerkraut juice — yes, people drink it — is in such high demand that “it’s already spoken for before I even package it.”

But more than just European immigrants are clamoring for Travins’ sauerkraut, which became a full-time job at the farm in 2004. He ships cases to faithful mail-order customers (available at hawthornevalleyfarm.org) and smiles when he sees friends’ children gobbling up strands of sauerkraut like it’s candy.

A Germanic studies major who worked in restaurants in high school and college, the lanky sauerkraut maker likes being part of an age-old craft.

“In terms of making traditional food, (lacto-fermentation has) worked for humans for thousands of years,” Travins said. “You can’t really go wrong with that.”