La Choucroute Maison

An Alsatian cookbook written in 1577, while enumerating in detail all the tasks that need to be done each winter, laconically states, ‘The cabbage is to be salted/ The preparation of sauerkraut required no elaboration. Until recently, professional ‘cabbage cutters’ would travel from village to village, knocking on doors and offering to shred the cabbage, which would be salted and turned into sauerkraut. Now, however, it is a matter of buying a giant mandoline cutter at the village hardware