Photo credit: A Spoonful of Thyme |
Around these parts (eastern Pennsylvania) the menu of choice
for New Year’s Day is pork and sauerkraut. It is said that to have the combination on January 1st
is good luck. Where did that come
from? To find out, I consulted
foodtimeline.org. (Did you know
that apple butter first came on the scene in 1765?) According to the site, the tradition of ham or pork on the
first day of the year originated in Germany, Austria, and Sweden. In these areas, wild boar were caught
in the forest and killed on New Year’s Day. Some conjecture that the pig represents plumpness and
getting plenty to eat; a sign of prosperity of sorts. Others say that since the pig digs with its snout in a
forward direction, it’s a way of looking forward as we move into a new
year. Okay…
Another site mentioned that you would never want to eat fowl
on New Year’s Day, as birds scratch to find their food. No one wants to have to scratch to make
a living, right? Sure, I’d rather
root for it with my nose! C’mon!
I’m thinking that pork and sauerkraut were all they
had. The kids turned up their
noses, so the parents made this thing up about eating it bringing good luck.
It’s like when I didn’t want to eat the crusts from my
breakfast toast and my grandmother would say, “If you don’t eat those, you
won’t get curly hair.”
“Why would I want curly hair?” I would ask.
Although it must be true.
I never ate the crusts, and I've never had curly hair.
She also resorted to the “children starving in Africa”
ploy. That didn’t work
either. “Get me an envelope,” I’d
reply.
My grandmother had a lot of superstitious behaviors. There were the traditional ones, like
opening an umbrella inside, walking under a ladder, or knocking on wood. (If there was no wood around, she would
rap on her forehead.)
Then there were ones I had never heard of; like always leaving a house
using the same door by which you entered.
If your nose was itchy, it meant you were going to be kissed. (Not something that any respectable
8-year-old boy wanted to hear.) If
you dropped silverware it meant company was coming. I mean, really.
If you were carrying a bunch of silverware, it was easier to drop, and
you were probably carrying that much because
company was coming.
Once, we used her superstitions against her…kind of. A common grandmother gift was scented
candles. She had five grandchildren
and tons of candles, and she never burned them. As she had come through the Great
Depression and was a Latshaw, she saved things. I’ll tell you about her used gift-wrap
collection some time. Waste not,
want not! We finally told her that
it was bad luck to have unburned
candles in your house. We based
this on nothing, totally making it up.
The next time we visited Grandmom it looked like a wake. There were burning candles
everywhere! Of course all of the
electric lights were off. Waste
not, want not! You could barely
make her out, except for the candle flame reflections in her glasses, and her
dentures smiling in the darkness.
She was smiling because she was saving on her electric bill.
Whatever the superstition, I prefer to say that it’s our tradition to have pork and sauerkraut on
January 1st. I love it,
especially served with mashed potatoes.
My recipe follows. Forgive
the lack of pictures, but after all, I haven’t made it yet. (That
would be bad luck!)
PORK & SAUERKRAUT
Ingredients:
1 pork roast, 4-5 lbs. (I usually buy boneless, but bone-in
is fine.)
2 cans (27 oz.) sauerkraut
1 cup apple cider
2-3 tart apples, grated
¼ cup brown sugar
½ teaspoon Caraway seeds
Kosher salt
Ground black pepper
Directions:
I use a covered roasting pan as well as the maxim “slow and
low” to make roast pork. If you
have the time to roast for 3-4 hours, pre-heat the oven to 275°. If you want to cut the time a little,
use 325°.
Rinse the sauerkraut using a colander and cold water. Some people like the strong, tart
flavor of the juices, but most do not.
(I think that it might put hair on your chest…or at least remove
varnish!)
Place the pork roast in the center of the roasting pan. If your roast does not have the fat
trimmed, position it fat-side-up.
Next, arrange the rinsed sauerkraut around the roast. Sprinkle the top of the roast with Kosher
salt and black pepper.
In a medium bowl, combine the cider, (you can also just use
water), and brown sugar and stir until the brown sugar dissolves. Pour this over the sauerkraut. Finally, add the caraway seeds and
grated apples on top of the sauerkraut.
Start roasting with the lid on, periodically checking to
make sure the pan doesn’t go dry.
If it does, add a little more cider or water. You can also stir the sauerkraut once or twice during
roasting. If you’d like the roast more
browned, remove the lid for the last half hour. Your target internal temperature for well-done pork is 170°. If the roast reaches 170° well in
advance of your serving time, cut the oven temperature back to 200°-250°, and
the roast will just get more and more tender.
It’s tough to make gravy from the kraut-flavored pan juices,
so I usually use store-bought (gasp!) pork gravy for the mashed potatoes on New
Year’s Day. Sorry about that…but
don’t get your snout out of joint!
Happy New Year!
(If you’d like a devotional to use on New Year’s Eve, ParkerFord Church Pastor Josh Bytwerk
authored one. Click here to
download it.)
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