Fermenting for three generations in Canada (Aija Zichmane)

Story written down and submitted by Dagnija Roderte.

Pēteris Freimanis: My parents left Latvia when my mother was six and my father was eighteen. My father ended up in a camp in Germany. My mother fled by boat from Ventspils to Sweden. I was born in the old diaspora, in Sweden. When the family lived in Germany, I studied at the Münster gymnasium. Then I followed my first love to Canada, where I lived for 14 years. Then I lived in Latvia, where I met my children’s mother, whom I followed back to America. That’s how I ended up here in Chicago, now I ferment cabbage and bake bread.

In childhood, I certainly ate stewed sauerkraut. My grandmother had a friend who made his own sauerkraut every year. There was a huge bucket on her apartment balcony that this friend had made. And I remember I would go out, without saying anything to my grandmother, and fish out that sauerkraut. I ate it just like that, straight from the bucket. And she would say: “Don’t eat it, we’ll have to make more!”

In Chicago, we met our friends Daiga and Aigars. Aigars made sauerkraut. We always bought from them. And one year I went to him, said — I want to, too. I was an apprentice. The master showed me how he does it. He had everything in the garage and it was serious. That’s how I started… It turned out really tasty and so I continue to do it every year now. I ferment in a large barrel. Now I’ll soon have a second barrel. But I can’t buy a bigger one, because then I can’t lift it.

Dana (Pēteris’s wife): You should see him trying to get that barrel out of the car by himself! It’s difficult even for two people. I tell him, you need two, not large, well, a normal size. And he says he wants another barrel — a bigger one!

Pēteris: I’ll make it again this year. We like it ourselves, people want it. And in two barrels.

First, the cabbage is in the barrels and has to absorb the salt. I only add caraway seeds when putting it into jars. But for some I add it, for some I don’t. You put it in jars when “it’s tasty.” But that also depends on the weather, on the warmth, on the cabbage. It can’t be too warm or too cold. Right now it’s perfect — +14°C, +15°C during the day and not below +5°C, +6°C at night. The closer to zero, the cabbage “starts to freeze” and nothing really happens. That fermentation stops. One time I made it when it was so damp, and wet, and rainy. It turned out alright, but it wasn’t the same. Well, it’s very interesting.

One year I made it in November — it was cold. We put blankets and pillows around the barrels. And one year we threw the whole barrel out. One cabbage head had something spoiled in it. Something we didn’t notice. Everything was ruined. Ugh! Oh, how my heart ached! And we made it a second time. Right away, immediately.

I don’t have my own grater. Grating cabbage is an event for Aigars and me. I drive over around eleven. On the way, I buy some 14-16 heads of cabbage. He has already started in the morning. And how can you grate cabbage without having a beer? And then we, the guys, grate in his garage, drink beer, and listen to Radio 2. Talk about life. Complain about our wives. It’s an all-day event in the garage, for the guys. And then in the evening, get the barrel into the car and drive home. Aigars’s garage is like a small house — there’s a television, a refrigerator, shelves. You don’t drive a car in there. It’s a place where he can escape.

Dana: We say: “We are fermenting cabbage!”, but it’s Pēteris who does it.