When fermenting cabbage, you have to kiss over the barrel (Laila Rudzone)

“So it has happened that I’ve been living in Germany for some time now. Homemade food carries a kind of genetic memory — of grandma’s pancakes or dad’s pike patties, those familiar childhood tastes. Even the stewed sauerkraut on the Christmas table reminds me of the cabbage fermenting days at grandma’s countryside home. In autumn, when the big heads of cabbage were harvested from the field, they were piled up in the middle of the yard under a broad oak tree, waiting for busy hands. The yellow oak leaves slowly swirled through the air, falling onto the cabbage heads. The slightly chilly, misty morning was no obstacle to the great cabbage-souring party. A wooden tub was prepared in advance, scalded with boiling water and scrubbed clean. My grandfather made the wooden barrels and tubs himself. From the attic, the cabbage grater was brought down — it had been carefully stored year after year. Grandma, wearing her apron, cleaned each cabbage head thoroughly, peeling away the outer leaves until only the white heart remained. Grandfather placed it on the grater and, pushing the wooden box back and forth, shaved it down. The white cabbage strips, mixed with a few grated carrots and caraway seeds, pleasantly crunched in the barrel under the wooden pestle. The cabbage was pressed until the juice started to separate. When the tub was full, a wooden lid and a stone weight were placed on top, and the cabbage was left to ferment. For about a week, it was poked every day down to the bottom of the barrel so that the gases could escape. From the Lubāna region in Latvia, there’s an old saying that when fermenting cabbage, one should kiss over the tub — then the cabbage will keep well. Everyone who has made sauerkraut can test the truth of that for themselves :))) To make the sauerkraut healthy, rich with good probiotic bacteria that help produce the happiness hormone serotonin in the gut, only salt should be added — 20 grams per 1 kilogram of the combined cabbage and carrot mass. It shouldn’t be oversalted so that it doesn’t need to be rinsed before eating, and all the goodness stays in the cabbage. In the winter season, when someone caught a cold, grandma would hurry to the cellar with a bowl in hand, scoop out some sauerkraut from the big tub, and bring back a dose of vitamin C. For the children, she sprinkled a bit of sugar on top to make it tastier. That vitamin boost would get all the weak ones back on their feet. And there’s strength in sauerkraut juice — many a market woman has revived herself with it after having one drink too many. Cabbage gives strength and health, and that strength goes straight through the stomach. In Germany, I don’t ferment full tubs of cabbage, but smaller amounts — just enough for sauerkraut soup, stewed cabbage with roast pork, or as a salad mixed with chopped onions and oil to eat with pleasure.”

Story submitted by Laila Rudzone. Photograph from Laila’s private collection.
(Originally written in Latvian).

Grandma’s secret ingredient used in pickled vegetables (Ana Beatrise Apse-Paese)

“My grandma, Eunise, pickles vegetables on the regular. Cucumber, carrots and cauliflower. She adds onion and garlic and her secret ingredient are cloves. She cooks them in water, vinegar and salt (two cups of vinegar for four large cucumbers) until the cucumber loses its green hues and then stores it in jars in the fridge. My grandparents eat pickled vegetables everyday at lunchtime. As kids, me and my siblings were never fond of pickled vegetables, but my mom, Leila, has always had quite Latvian tastebuds, so, when we went out to eat burgers, we would all pick out the pickles to give to her, who gladly ate them. As a grown-up, I now appreciate my grandma’s pickles and reproduce them in my small apartment in Germany, where I study.””

Story submitted by Ana Beatrise Apse-Paese. Photos are from Ana’s personal archive.

A once-a-year feast of Latvian specialities (Maija Liiv)

My family left Latvia in 1944, and settled in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in 1950 and I was born here. At this pre-Christmas time of year I think back, with nostalgia, to the once-a-year feast of Latvian specialties of my childhood.
My brother and I had birthdays either side of Christmas Day, so there was always a huge family and friends party at our house then.
The anticipation and preparations started long before. I remember taking out our best plates and serving dishes, cleaning the rarely-used silverware, and shopping at the far-away delicatessen that was the only place in those days that had the ingredients we needed for our party table. I loved the sights and smells of that delicatessen, as well as the sounds of many languages spoken by customers.
My mother (Lauma Sīlis) baked her own rye bread and sweet-sour bread, bacon rolls, cinnamon buns and poppy seed buns, pepper cakes, and our birthday tortes. She assembled platters of what seemed ‘exotic’ cold-cuts in those times of comparatively very plain Australian food. There was smoked salmon, rollmop herrings, sprats, smoked eel, tongue, and salami. The making of meat-in-aspic involved a trip the to butcher’s shop to buy a pig’s head. In those days,1950’s 60’s, pigs’ heads (wearing sunglasses, very tropical) were displayed in butcher shop windows.
She also made her own pate, rasols (with beetroot), stuffed eggs, fresh cucumbers in sour cream, and home-pickled cucumbers, and countless other traditional Latvian treats.
Australian Christmas staples were also on the table: ham, home-roasted chicken (after killing and plucking), prawns, trifle, and Christmas fruitcake.
My mother Lauma did all this as a single mother (separated), who also worked in full-time employment as a shop assistant. I honour her for her effort, her planning and coordination, her ability to save all year for this annual expense, and most of all for her love and for her incredible culinary talent. This woman, who left Latvia as a 17 year old, gave us our Latvian heritage and the most amazing childhood birthday/Christmas memories. Unforgettable.

Amber Table (Dace Gulbe and Inta Grunde)

Dace Gulbe and Inta Grunde have been preparing and setting festive tables for Latvians on the East Coast of the United States for about 20 years with Amber catering company.They talk about the most popular foods they make (pīrāgi!), about their cooking process, and also share their experience of how it was recently when the President visited Priedaine and they prepared the food for the event.

Little Māra went into the forest…

“Little Māra went into the forest, the green forest was her home.” I heard this from my grandmothers while going mushroom picking together in the beautiful forests of Latvia. Unforgettable memories. I lived in Garciems for the first six years of my life. During the Second World War, my family began the life of refugees. On October 4, 1944, we left Riga. Upon arriving in Germany, we lived in the barracks of the Fischbach camp. That’s where I started elementary school. The lessons were conducted in Latvian. In December 1949, my family had the opportunity to go to America, to earn a living as lumber workers. Later, we moved to Milwaukee.

My grandmother’s recipe book (Marianna Auliciems)

This is my grandmother Elza Auliciema’s (née Šūpulis, born in Cirgaļi in 1908) cookbook and recipe notebook. The book was published and purchased during the refugee years in Germany. On the inside covers, my grandmother wrote down other, newer recipes in her own handwriting.

How I make rasols (Dustin Becher)

My wife Signe and I have been married for around 6 years now. We live in the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA. ……My wife is from Latvia, and I have been to Latvia a dozen times…

DVF mobile corner store

The Daugavas Vanagi Fund’s traveling store in Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 1968. In front stands the store manager, Arturs Vancāns. From the collection of the Documentation Centre and Archive of Latvians in Great Britain.