(no subject)

[skygiants]

One of the things that came in our CSA box this week is a giant head of cabbage, an item with which I personally have never cooked!

genarti has determined that half of it should be used to make slaw. I have no objection to this. However! Given that we have an entire cabbage, I have also decided that we should finally experiment with some of the recipes in this important historical work: The Vilna Vegetarian Cookbook, a 1938 publication of the hipster prewar Jewish-Lithuanian vegetarian scene. My heritage!

Having dutifully looked up cabbage in the index and discovered, as expected, a WEALTH of options, I therefore invite the internet to vote on which recipe we should attempt:

Poll #24299

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 116

View Respondents

What should we make with our cabbage?

View Answers

Cabbage and Apple Borscht
12 (10.3%)

Beet Soup With Cabbage
6 (5.2%)

Bigos (Polish Hunter's Stew)
13 (11.2%)

Bran Borscht
0 (0.0%)

Cake Filled With Cabbage
17 (14.7%)

Cabbage Cutlets
2 (1.7%)

Imitation "Veal" Meatloaf
6 (5.2%)

Kreplekh
12 (10.3%)

Milkhik Cholent with New Potatoes
2 (1.7%)

Cabbage Pie
6 (5.2%)

Vitamin Salad with Raw Cabbage
0 (0.0%)

Cabbage Soup with Milk
0 (0.0%)

Stewed Cabbage
0 (0.0%)

Stewed Cabbage with Potatoes
5 (4.3%)

Stewed Cabbage wth Rice
1 (0.9%)

Stuffed Cabbage
16 (13.8%)

Cabbage Turnovers Cooked in Butter
13 (11.2%)

Ukrainian Borscht
5 (4.3%)

Notes: a.) I have excluded the recipes for Red Cabbage and Savoy Cabbage, neither of which being a variety we have at this time; b.) both 'Cabbage Cake' and 'Cabbage Pie' appear in the 'Baked Goods' (cakes, cookies, etc.) section of the book.

Anyway, while we're here, allow me to share with you my favorite recipe in the book:



(Transcription: ROLL SOUP. Crumble 2 French bread rolls into a bowl. Add 3 tablespoons butter and some salt. Pour on 1 cup boiling water, and cover tightly for 5 minutes before serving.

[The rolls in Vilna must have been much smaller. This soup can be made with one roll. - Ed.])

Comments

[musesfool]

I feel like this is one of those things where if dumplings (kreplach) is an option, I have to choose dumplings. ;)

[skygiants]

I have never actually made dumplings, but armed with this book, I see it in my future!

[julian]

I was frozen with indecision for so long that I almost didn't vote. Tickyboxes next time! (Or not.)

[skygiants]

Hard decisions for everyone! Life is pain!

[lydamorehouse]

I just have to reply that, though I voted for beet borscht, I am also highly in favor of stuffed cabbages. SO GOOD.

[skygiants]

The stuffed cabbage recipe in this book is .... complex. If that one ends up winning (currently tied!) I'm probably going to have to do a step-by-step breakdown .... WE'LL SEE WHAT TRANSPIRED.

[marginaliana]

I was tempted to choose one of the actually reasonable options, but then there was the cake.

[skygiants]

when life gives you cabbages....

[rymenhild]

You inspired me to take out the library ebook and read it. My favorite editor's note so far, from "Special Bread For A Stomachache":

This recipe, which calls for 55 cups of flour, has not been tested. Any reader who does so, and can confirm its efficacy in treating a stomachache, is more than welcome to contact us. -Ed.

[rymenhild]

Omg the guestbook from her restaurant

To all friends of humanity:
It is no disgrace to cherish animals,
They too grimace
When one gnaws on their stomachs.
They too dream before dawn.
Come, band-of-vegetarians, to the fine good Lewando!
-M.Y. Grossman

[nextian]

I yearn to know about the Cake Filled with Cabbage but... maybe not enough to actually make you eat it?

[hilarita]

Likewise.

[vass]

tbh, if it was me I'd just cut off a big chunk for whatever soup/stir-fry/curry/stew/etc I'm making. And it is me, at least in that I bought a whole (wombok, aka napa) cabbage last Friday and am less than halfway through it.

[skygiants]

Depending on the growing cycles of cabbage in Boston there may well be more entire heads of cabbage in our future!

[bironic]

These pretty much all sound good, and I love the existence of this cookbook.

Just this week I made a pot of not-stuffed cabbage, the cheater's version of stuffed cabbage.

Have fun!

[zulu]

That does sound much easier and delicious! Do you have a recipe?

I voted for Imitation "Veal" Meatloaf because anything with quotation marks in the title is just scary enough to try.

[ranalore]

I voted for one of the borschts because, while both the cake and the pie sound like car wrecks in baked form, I do not feel the temptation to stare in horrified fascination at the aftermath justifies voting for you to actually eat either of them.

[skygiants]

My favorite thing about the borscht recipes is that at least half of them do not actually involve beets in any way.

[sovay]

b.) both 'Cabbage Cake' and 'Cabbage Pie' appear in the 'Baked Goods' (cakes, cookies, etc.) section of the book.

At some point in the future when it is safe to interact with other humans again, I would love to be part of attempting the cabbage cake, because I like several vegetable-based cakes (carrot, parsnip, beet), but I can't imagine how this one would work at all.

Roll soup remains amazing.

[skygiants]

IT'S A PLAN. In 2021, we make cabbage cake!!!

[loligo]

Cabbage is truly a marvelous vegetable. It will stay good in your fridge approximately FOREVER. If you use only part of it, the cut edges will eventually discolor, but it doesn't go bad. Just shave off the discolored parts and pick up where you left off. You can eat it raw, you can cook it, you can ferment it... It can fit in to pretty much any ethnic or regional cuisine. It's cheap and nutritious. In short, I love cabbage.

[skygiants]

I have a great respect for cabbage but so far that respect has been maintained from a distance .... but today that changes!

[chestnut_pod]

My beloved cabbage!

Really, who can say no to kreplach? Dumplings are such a good family activity too.

[skygiants]

Honestly all this discussion has me craving kreplach so much that there may be dumplings in my future even if they don't win this particular poll.

[selkie]

I was so torn but cannot imagine cholent while it’s hot!

I like to think Fania grabbed the cash box and fled East; that she made gezundheitsalat in Siberia into the 60s.

[skygiants]

On the one hand, cholent in 80 degree weather; on the other hand, cholent with extremely fresh cabbage during the season!

I think you should write the story about the introduction of trendy vegetarian cooking to Siberia in the 60s.

[lirazel]

Everything about this is delightful. Except for the fact that I now want sauerkraut and don't have any....

[skygiants]

I would send you some if we could!

[rachelmanija]

I HIGHLY recommend this: https://smittenkitchen.com/2020/04/roast-chicken-with-schmaltzy-cabbage/

ETA: I mean with any cabbage leftovers. I am extremely excited about cooking from this cookbook.

[skygiants]

I love the idea of caramelizing cabbage, a concept that had never occurred to me before this week! Cabbage had always seemed to me an inherently un-caramelizable vegetable, like lettuce.

[st_aurafina]

Oh no, what kind of cake?? Is the cabbage inside the cake? Is this a metaphor that I should not take literally?

Is there frosting?

[skygiants]

I'm not sure frosting as a concept is known to this book in general ... though I haven't looked through all the baked goods recipes to find out. >.>

[alias_sqbr]

I chose cabbage and apple borsht because while I've never had borsht, cabbage+apple is a good combo.

I haven't met a seasoned-cabbage-in-chewy-carbs-then-fried dish I haven't liked (though most of the ones I've eaten have been East Asian or Australian(*)) but am not sure which of these that would apply to, if any.

(*)my favourite is the Chiko roll but afaict they are tragically not available outside Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiko_Roll

EDIT: Oh also add me to the "desperately curious about the cake, not quite cruel enough to vote for it" camp.

[skygiants]

Oooh, I have never heard of a Chiko Roll but that looks delicious! (really 'seasoned-anything-in-chewy-carbs-then-fried' is usually a surefire win for me.)

[themis1]

Some of those sound quite nice, some of them not so. (Jewish Lithuanian:my grandfather, who sadly died before I was born.)

[skygiants]

I'm trying to be open-minded! The spirit of experimentation! (The grandmother who died before I was born was the most recent Pale of Settlement Jew in my family, too.)

[obopolsk]

Stuffed cabbage is one of my favorite foods, but I was just too curious about the cabbage cake not to vote for it.

[skygiants]

I'm real glad you did actually because, while I'm perfectly willing to give stuffed cabbage a go, the stuffed cabbage recipe in THIS book is ... uh .... slightly daunting.

[allchildren]

I have this book also and do not know What to do with it, so whatever you end up doing, please report back.

P.S. Regret to inform you that your favorite recipe is incorrect. Please see Special Bread for a Stomachache (p. 148). I forgive you in advance.

[skygiants]

I somehow always forget about Special Bread for a Stomachache, I think probably because with its fifty-five (55!!!) cups of flour it is too large for my mortal mind to comprehend.

I mean to post about this in more detail sometime today probably but we DID make the cabbage cake and it WAS, actually, quite good??