The Ugliest Vegetable

Have you been a good hound this year?

If Earth was a face, cabbage would be the pimples. A blemish on the land. Short, fat, lumpy. Not as delicate as lettuce and with less taste than broccoli. Cabbage is a poor person’s food grown on a peasant’s plot. But just like bad skin, a cabbage patch provides strength for those that tend it. You all remember Crater-Face from Grease, yes? He may have lost the race to Danny Zuccho, but that didn’t mean he lost the war. The movie ended well for Danny, but a quick surf of the web will yield the much darker and less popular spin-off, Grease: The College Years which opens during orientation week at Cal State Fullerton. The cold open shows Crater-Face stabbing John Travolta before he kidnaps Olivia Newton-John. Like I said, zits build character and so too does cabbage. Episode 2 fast forwards to the trial. Each witness represented a critical point in Crater-Face’s life. Flashbacks enlighten us to the struggles. He matured young and was one of the tallest boys in middle school because of it. But it also brought an early onslaught of hormones. Fade to a sleep over when Crater-Face’s friend first suggested he wash his face, and he soon realized how sensitive that made him. Crater had a big heart, but even bigger white heads.

Following Crater’s journey, the viewer may find themselves sympathizing with the villain, even, loving him. You may find yourself angry at the world that made him. The world that asked everyone to be smooth and beautiful. You see Crater’s inner strength and you know that he will survive prison. Hell, he could survive anything. And just then, that’s when you realize that Crater-Face is just like cabbage. Hard, ugly, and necessary.

- krautHammer

Sit down dear reader and open your mind to me. Poof. I just planted a seed just then, and whether you like it or not, it’s growing in your brain. It’s sauerkraut, of course. And now you can’t stop thinking about it, can you? Its tentacles have you gripped, it’s odor too is flooring you. Listen very closely, can you hear that? No, you cannot, because the kraut has once again commandeered every one of your senses. Now, sit back and let it make love to you through my words.

             One of my favorite party tricks is to ask everyone at the table to describe the first time they heard of sauerkraut. The responses I get are just hilarious, most common and most funny to me personally is a disdainful grimace followed by something along the lines of “I have no fucking clue when I first tasted sauerkraut, let alone heard of it”. Lol, imagine not remembering such a pivotal event. Some folks don’t trust people who can dance, I don’t trust people who don’t remember busting their kraut cherry.

            Mine busted all over me and my entire family one summer down in Ocean City. It’s known to be a dry town (no booze for sale), but the place is more or less drenched in kraut from Memorial Day til deep into the dog days of summer. Go and test it out for yourself if you dare, but don’t forget your life jacket. Next thing you know you’ll be swimming out of there like Chief Brody saying “we’re gonna need a bigger bun”. I was already feeling accomplished that summer, young lil’ puss as I was, for having out-of-the-blue, opted for cream cheese on my morning bagel rather than butter – my brother never forgave me for leaving him in the dust like that. Well so kraut was a logical next step, a ‘second base’ if you will on the diamond that would round out my budding palate. But the rather meager sprinkling plopped atop my dirty water dog was much more than a feel-up, it took me all the way home… I haven’t been out much since. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here again, kraut may be a one-trick pony but I’ll take that ride every time.

 Ride-or-die.

- Sauerpuss

Take Care, Take Kraut

Once you’re a hound, you’re a hound for life - or so the saying goes. How long said life lasts, well that’s up to the liver (especially in my sauer pickled position). The trade-off between pleasure and abstention is a tale as old as time. As krautHounds, we beyond a shadow of a kroubt, believe in preserving things. The art lies in the balancing of short term joys which may harm the body and feed the soul - versus the longevity producing practices of daily exercise and a wholesome diet. Even the writing of the last two words elicits shivers in the ole’ ‘puss. But still we must acknowledge the uniqueness of our positions here on planet Earth, consciously observing the comings and goings of friends and family on this crazy spinning orb. Realize this hounds, we get one ride, so stretch that mother out as long as you can - just not at the cost of real life too often. ‘Cause after all, if a hound is barkin’ ‘bout some stellar kraut and there’s no one to hear it, does it make a sound?

- Sauerpuss

Few would accuse me of being a man of detail but when it comes to life, it’s the little things that count. Recently, I found myself going deeper into a Covid spiral. Tired of the isolation. Stuck without a clear view of when this thing will end. And if it does, what does “end” even mean? Smaller parties? Less interaction? Less connection? It’s in these moments of despair when I need a strong sense of purpose more than anything else. Low and behold, where do it I it but in my fridge.

Late one night, I wandered into the kitchen to eat my lonely feelings. As I break the door seal and the cold golden glow spreads across the dark room, so too did one of its contents spread a glow across my soul. Wedged in the door, between the hot sauce and the mayonnaise, my guardian angel – Sauerkraut.

If this seems a bit odd to you, please keep reading. If it seems entirely off, please remove yourself from this website. You are not a hound and you don’t belong.

There are a lot of similarities between the lockdown and sauerkraut. I have spent several weeks researching this list and, while it is extensive, it is not exhaustive.

1)      Sauerkraut is stuck inside, without release. Just like us, without a proper release, the isolation can become dangerous.

2)      Sauerkraut is a condiment, but it is also an individual. Sometimes, it can feel like we don’t matter. The world is so big and what difference does it make to have another unremarkable person taking up space. Lost in the sea of condiments, who would miss us? Do not forget, we are hounds. And just like a double-decker-dose of kraut, you’re good to the last plop. Next time you see condiments passed around a table, take note of the leftovers. You will find a condiment minimalist’s nightmare. Half the ketchup squirted goes right into the dishwasher. And that almost-full plastic ramekin of mustard is already on its way to the dump. Next – stay sober enough during your next krautfest to record how much of the good stuff goes in the garbage. Take a little or take a lot, foodies of all levels respect sauerkraut and finish what they start. No my friends, we are not just another condiment. We are hounds, and no bit of us is wasted.

3)      Sauerkraut tastes good on its own, great with some things, and terrible with most things. And just like kraut, hounds are not meant to be kept indoors. We don’t taste good when the main course is a nine-month lockdown. We are individuals, yes. Give a hound a park and let them live. Give a hound a barbecue, and boy oh boy do we fly.

It was a profound moment I had. It hit me all at once. There is nothing wrong with me, I just need a little patience. I need to be like the kraut. Stay in my jar, focus on myself, and take my release when I can find it. The days will be getting longer soon. A brighter, better future awaits. One filled with vaccines and barbecues. One in which the kraut and the hounds are released. Unleashed on a world hungry for flavor. Bide your time my fellow doggies. We don’t know when the opening will be, but we damn well better stay fresh for it.

- krautHammer

To Sound It or to Hound It

Sauerkraut is a snapshot. After a short period of confinement, it lacks the oxygen needed to move on to the next stage of respiration, so it just stops – then and there it becomes the kraut we know and love. It’s like time frozen for eternity at the perfect point of decay.  Moments may slip by us all, but time stands still for those brine-bleached strands of goodness. Here you thought you were eating some run-of-the-mill condiment, a cousin to relish (eww), an uncle of slaw (barf city), but no sir… you are ingesting the Buddha, the Sage, Taoist monk of all foods – IN the moment ALL the time. “Focus on the breath” is the command of many a good guru. Well, it is just that lack of breath that brings kraut to this blissful state.  And don’t we all need a bit of that in this age of grasping, of memorializing and pinning down every moment with posts and pictures and texts – as if we could possibly own them, as if without claiming them, they could not be real. The digital world is polluted with our blandest moments, ones we couldn’t appreciate ourselves, so we thrust them out there into the ether to be admired by others. For sure there is a human need to share, and I respect that as much as the next hound. At this very moment Ol’ Sauerpuss is seated adjacent to his friend and foe in all things kraut, the krautHammer himself – and believe me, the scene is raw, pure and unpasteurized. In fact, it was the subtle yet powerful flavours of Mcclure’s Sauerkraut which inspired these words. So let us not allow this era of social distance, of quarantine and fear blot out the impulse to inhale the musk of day-old kraut on a friend’s collar with a warm embrace. We can all enjoy kraut, but we don’t have to be kraut – we don’t have to freeze ourselves in any moment, no matter how good -- we have to accept them as fleeting and welcome the new ones with open arms.

-Sauerpuss

Hear ye! Hear ye! Your favorite krautHounds are back at it and stuffed full of nature’s detox. And oh what a detox we had this week. McClure’s Sauerkraut = delicious, but also expensive. A jar of this brined veggie will set you back a cool $10US. This may be the most I’ve ever paid for kraut and it gives me mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’ve reached a point in my life when I can throw ten bucks at kraut. 19 years of education have finally paid off. On the other hand, it’s old cabbage… have I become a yuppie?

At Aspen Market on Washington Street, I had a choice to make. It wasn’t like “Sofie’s Choice” but it still tore me up inside. I had two krauts, one in each hand. One bagged, one jarred. The former charged $2.99 for a metric pound of my muse. The latter, a clean $10 without any reason why, just a name. The difference in price for something I always considered somewhat of a commodity was tough to swallow. However, I found that the product was anything but. Tangy, but smooth. Firm and not overpowering. I had a bit of a kraut-piphany tonight… I paid more, tasted less, and loved every bite of it. Perhaps… perhaps I paid for subtlety.

Subtlety is an art that is almost entirely disregarded today, my cabbage patch pals. I could go on a million tangents about the cultural celebration of loud we find ourselves living in. Loud music and loud opinions. Big muscles big trucks. Binge drinking and crash diets. The algorithms that dictate our lives promote the least subtle. And the older I get, the more I realize that loud is a front. It’s a cover for poor quality. So much of what we ingest is free or cheap, and it’s loud and it’s garbage. Subtle has a value, and this hound just learned about it.

-krautHammer

Labels and Fables

A cabbage match made in heaven.

Don’t be fooled by labels… a lot of times they are used to tell you what something isn’t rather than what something is. How many non-hoberries do you know that label their bony booties as “JUICY” when even Skeletor would pass on that ass? I never quite got why guys in high school would tell me that shaving their Black Forest made their jimmer-jammer look bigger. I always just thought getting a boner made mine look bigger, but I guess I had some growing up to do.

How about the ultimate label… circumcision? Remind me what this label says again? Hygiene? It don’t take a foreskin to make a person sick. Believe me. It’s more attractive? That’s a bullshit thing to say. It’s like saying the Thousand Year Reich is good after the fact… yes everyone is blonde and blue eyed and there is no more war, but did you see what it took to get there? No! You weren’t in the room when that newborn miracle had the most tasty part of him cut off. All you see is the result. You look at the result, you look at the label, but you don’t understand what is actually behind it all.

And this brings me to my final point. Pasteurized sauerkraut is basically like a circumcised penis. It has the look and feel of the real deal, but none of the natural saltiness and health benefits. Beside flavor, what makes kraut great? Probiotics. And what do Americans do to things that can be hiding places for bacteria? They pasteurize where possible, and circumcise where not. The problem is, what lays hidden in the unmarketable dark corners of our wangs and our jars is the best part of the trip. For in the foreskin is the greatest concentration of nerve endings. And in sauerkraut, real sauerkraut, is the stuff that keeps the gut churning out healthy movements. But here in the land of the clean and the home of the cut, in order to label everything clean we’ve destroyed the things that make us real.

-krautHammer

Sure, everybody knows it, because we’re all thinking it. No no NO, it’s not the fact that America’s democracy is showing signs of decay worse than the Sphinx’s unibrow. Nay, it is far more serious than that -- Kraut needs a major rebranding campaign in the worst way! It’s saur- (sour?), it’s stringy and wet to-boot and sports a moniker better suited to Hitler’s favorite anal-exploring gerbil. Well guess what, here’s my iPhone 5S, call someone who gives a shit. In fact, better yet, call someone who gives a FUCK. You do you, and kraut will do what it’s always done – fermentate and masturbate… your taste buds. Why does everything have to pose as something it’s not nowadays?  It seems like any and every Insta-SHMO out there with better-than-average hair genetics and a well-worn copy of Kerouac thinks they have the right and duty to tell us all what’s what. But I say this: Who knows what’s what?  I haven’t met them yet, and if you dear reader do, point them to me so I can shove a forkful of Kraut the size of a baseball into their gob. I liked it better when we owned the fact that we are all just mentally instable and flighty homo sapiens, chugging Schlitz and popping Benzos while the kids jump on the trampoline, all in an effort to dampen down the hunter-gatherer instincts our ancestors honed on the Savannah. Kraut doesn’t need an overhaul, we all need an underhaul. Life’s a bitch of a puzzle, don’t come at ol’ Saurpuss with any grand solutions that don’t include a solid brine and some good eatin’ for my gut biome.

-Sauerpuss

Just Cause It Sours, Don’t Make it Kraut

As I write these words, I nibble from a plastic ramekin of “extra” sauerkraut from a local bar called ‘Pet Shop’ – (all krautHounds go to heaven). This minor bit of context pales in comparison to the major events that envelop us constantly of late. And as I masticate this magical mush, I can’t help but make deeper connections. Does progress always look progressive?  Does success always need to smell so sweet?  Often, when dug in, when one is really ‘in the shit’ as they say, they cannot see the good of it. All they can see is the struggle. Kraut is like that too: a discarded (and disregarded) pile of cabbage, thrown thoughtlessly aside to rot in its own juices – which it does in darkness – with little or no fanfare. Only to emerge as a champion, stronger not just for its unique odor but for the struggle which brought out it’s rawness. It’s in this process, this very specific battle of elements which nature requires, that the Kraut becomes better – more refined – harder yes, but very much more its true self. ‘Truth’ it turns out, ain’t no bed of roses. But it just might be a big ol’ pile of Kraut.

-Sauerpuss

Cabbage – a no frills yet rich source of life-giving nutrients to peoples around the world. People starved of more exciting produce. Boring old cabbage. Reliable. Predictable. Forgotten. Left, likely by mistake, one fateful fall in the recesses of some dark country cellar. As it sat alone, it did the only thing it could do… it soured. If that head of cabbage had feelings, I can almost guarantee it felt a whole lot like we do right now.

We may all be souring a bit in 2020. Covid lockdowns are keeping us all separate. Stuck inside. Cut off from the world and fresh air. While isolated, it is important that we follow sauerkrauts lead… we cannot despair and rot. Instead, we must find the eau de vie that is already within us and let it bubble and brew into something entirely unique and defining. We must all emerge from the pandemic as sauerkraut, not sour people.

-krautHammer

These Kraut Colors Don’t Run

I grew up in a red house. My parents couldn’t comprehend any other way. Diced, sliced, and fermented; for them only one leafy varietal would do. Brassica oleracea var. capitata F. rubra - the nomenclature that decorated my house in an unrelenting way, was about more than just color. When I was 14, my neighborhood organized a Fourth of July block party. I couldn’t wait! Hot dogs and fireworks. The celebration of a society made of global misfits and only the best flavors survived. My father, carrying on the tradition of his father and his father’s father, brought the family made red kraut. He was just as excited as me. He kept to himself for the most part, but kraut was his conduit to the world. Through his unique fermented flavors, his love showed bright. He was famous in among the extended Hammer family for his red kraut. I couldn’t wait for the neighbors to try, and neither could he. I was so proud of him. He worked on the kraut for almost a year. He grew the cabbage himself… he even pilfered manure from the ranch down the street. By September, the stink of shit was replaced by the sweet aroma of macerated goodness. Into the basement it went. Months went by. Summer came, and the tasting began. I could see it in his face right away… this was a winner. He was so proud, he claimed it was his best ever! I wanted to try some but he wouldn’t let me. He said I had to wait until the block party. The days dragged on and the temptation grew inside me like a pro-biotic stew. The pressure was building and I felt as if I would pop! But finally……. the day came. First came the day’s heat, then the smell of the grill, then the feast. I grabbed two dogs and put them onto lightly toasted buns and scuttled my way over to the fixings table. There it was, my father’s masterpiece. Fragrant and warm, ready for consumption. But there was something else. Something I had never seen before. A forbidden fruit so blasphemous its existence had never been recognized in my house. A temptation I wasn’t prepared to resist. Next to my father’s masterpiece was a big pile of something so familiar but entirely different. It was as if someone had bleached my father’s kraut until it was as white as winter’s first snow. The sign in front was more simple than dad’s. Where his said “Red Sauerkraut” this one just said “Sauerkraut.” My mind was spinning. I had to try it. I decided to go with one of each. I was scared, I knew I was being bad, but I had to know. I took a bite… What have my parents been keeping from me?

I ran away that night and haven’t seen my parents since.

- krautHammer

Does a bride wear black on her wedding day? Does a judge wear a pink wig to deliberate on the life of a criminal? Does the home team wear green? You don’t need the likes of Sauerpuss to answer these riddles for you. I’m a kraut man, my father was a kraut man… and my boy, my boy will be a kraut man and kraut is best served bleached. That which is shredded is not shred — that which is sacred, is not red. The good stuff? The good stuff is white, white as SNOWWWW. History’s major lessons are littered with it, all the major events evidence it’s ultimate truth. I could tell you a tale right now of a condiment so underappreciated it wanted to overthrow the government and take over the world - but I won’t. I digress, but to re-digress, let me reiterate, most of you (yes we know who you are) are lucky the hounds haven’t impregnated your sisters and moms. That’s how serious they are. And the colour of their kraut is the least of their caprices. When your flavour and impact are so deep and intense, hue is of no consequence. To kowtow to the ‘color seers’ (most folks are colorblind in fact) is pure decadence. Be the water falling upon the rock, be the kraut falling atop the wiener. Drape your elegant strands in any and all crevices that will have you and state your name not by your appearance but by your essence.

-Sauerpuss

Meet the Hounds

Sauerpuss (left) & krautHammer (right)

Men who love two things: sauerkraut and discourse.

The hardest step is the first one. We’ve taken it for you. So sit back, digest, and enjoy. krautHounds is a forum for people like you by people like us. Do we like each other? No. Do we agree with each other? Hardly. Do we share a love of fermentation and healthy digestion? Absolutely.

How many times have you had to request, with a bit of shame in your voice, “more kraut please…” It’s time to come out of hiding. World Wars I and II happened, but it’s not your fault. And it’s not cabbage’s fault either. So stop blaming yourself and start living the life you were [fer]meant to live. Start living the sauer life with krautHounds.

-krautHammer

Some say there’s a yin to every yang, I say there’s a krautHammer to every Sauerpuss. That tart yet cleansing acompaniment to your otherwise standard meal is us, the krautHounds, here at your disposal but not for your disposing of. Me, I’m your krautservative, show me a wall of kraut in the forest and I kneel at it’s alter taking for granted it”s unquestioned necessity. Show that same structure to krautHammer and he’ll want to cut it down and spread it on your tunafish sandwich! Have no fear, rest easy with a stomach of love, finely lined with a nutricious bed of the best stuff on earth. Pile it high, one and all.

-Sauerpuss