deutsch anyone??

Sauerkraut, I discovered years later, uses an alias in France. There it is called choucroute, and there it reaches its apotheosis, chiefly in Alsace, the province just across the Rhine from Germany. There it is milder because it is rinsed, then cooked in wine (or occasionally beer), and there it is far more richly embellished.
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Something similar to choucroute has been eaten in Europe since ancient times. The Küchenmeisterei, a 15th-century German-language cookbook, mentions salted cabbage. In the 17th century, says the British food writer Sue Style, the local monks ate it regularly, as did the grand families of Strasbourg, for whom it often formed the centerpiece of gala Sunday lunches as well as wedding feasts.

Low in calories, rich in potassium and calcium, it is an excellent source of vitamin C, which is why mariners like Captain Cook carried barrels of the stuff on their expeditions. Like limes, it helped to keep the dreaded scurvy at bay and thereby made much longer voyages practical.

Much of the best choucroute consumed in France comes from a village called Krautergersheim, which is surrounded by fields of a choice variety of cabbage called quintal d'Alsace. Idling along a pretty back road one day a few years ago, admiring the mistletoe in the trees and the storks in their nests, my wife, Betsey, and I came upon signs heralding the "Capital of Choucroute." The boosters needn't have bothered; the pungent aroma in the air made it clear how the village earned its living.

Preservation, not flavor, was the name of the choucroute game in the days before canning, refrigeration and freezing. Just as cheese preserved milk and pickles preserved cucumbers through the crop-poor winter, choucroute offered a way to enjoy a green leafy vegetable ?- and its indispensable vitamins ?- on the long, dark, bleak days when the fields are draped in snow.

Production at companies like Wagner begins about the first week of September or before. The green outer leaves are peeled from the heads, which can weigh up to 15 pounds. The white inner leaves are finely shredded and layered with salt in crocks or barrels, then left for three or four weeks until fermentation begins. The kraut is best when still young and crisp; if it has turned yellow, it is past its prime.
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Einmal Lehrer, immer Lehrer, gell Walter

prof d'un jour, prof toujours!

Et bonne bouffe!

es ist dein figur?

Ich kann mich mit dir unterhalten. Woruber willst du sprechen?