Cabbage Delights.

I wanted to end ‘cabbage week’ with something really wild, but I cannot think of anything more outrageous than Sauerkraut Cake, which we have had before. Rumour has it that there is a chocolate cabbage cake ‘out there’ somewhere, but I cannot find it, and if it exists, it is probably not historical enough to qualify for this blog.


There are ‘cakes’ and there are ‘cakes’ of course. Here is another version, quite suitable for luncheon, I would think.

Cabbage Cake.
One cooked cabbage, cold; 1 tablespoonful butter, 1 well-beaten egg, salt, hard-boiled egg as a garnishing, hot water or milk, red pepper.
Run the cooked cabbage through the colander, using a wooden spoon, adding a little freshly boiled water or milk, if necessary; add the butter, egg, salt, and a touch of red pepper. Bake for 20 minutes in a buttered dish, and serve in a cake on a flat platter. A garnishing of hard-boiled egg adds, but is not essential.
The Winnipeg Free Press, January 29, 1916

And if it is cake today,why not pudding tomorrow?

Cabbage Pudding.
Take one pound of beef suet, and as much of the lean part of a leg of veal. Then take a little cabbage well washed, and scald it. Bruise the suet, veal, and cabbage together in a marble mortar, and season it with mace, nutmeg, ginger, and a little pepper and salt, and put in some green gooseberries, grapes, or barberries. Mix them all well with the yolks of four or five eggs well beaten. Wrap all up together in a green cabbage leaf, and tie it in a cloth. It will take about an hour boiling.
Modern Domestic Cookery, and Useful Receipt Book, Adapted for Families in the Middling Genteel Ranks of Life , by William Augustus Henderson, (New York, 1828.)

Finally, something not outrageous, but surely interesting, is the following recipe from another of those wonderful WW II leaflets.


Cheese and Cabbage Spread.
1 oz. cheese, finely grated
1 oz. cabbage, finely shredded
Salt and pepper
1 teaspoon onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon vinegar.
Mix all ingredients together and use in sandwiches.
Food Facts No 261, July 1945

Quotation for the Day.
The cabbage surpasses all other vegetables. If, at a banquet, you wish to dine a lot and enjoy your dinner, then eat as much cabbage as you wish, seasoned with vinegar, before dinner, and likewise after dinner eat some half-dozen leaves. It will make you feel as if you had not eaten, and you can drink as much as you like.
Cato (Marcus Porcius) 234-149 BC.