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
