‘Kraut Creek’ has relevance in Carolina mountain lore

Sauerkraut helped put Boone, N.C., on the state’s agricultural map in 1923 when a group of Watauga County farmers established the North State Canning Company to process cabbage into sauerkraut. 

The company’s flagship product was “Watauga Mountain Grown Old Fashioned Chopped Kraut,” and a legendary secondary offering was known as the “Watauga Cocktail.” 

The latter was a unique and tasty sauerkraut-tomato juice blend, which scientists from North Carolina State University helped develop, according to Julie Hubbard of the Wilkes Journal-Patriot in North Wilkesboro, N.C. 

The beverage was described as “a salty, slightly sour concoction that many believed had a variety of health benefits, such as alleviating cold, flu and hangovers.” 

Thus, it became quite popular among college students who attended Appalachian State University in Boone (known as a teachers’ college back in that day and time). Tales were told about boozing forays over to Blowing Rock where the hooch was readily available. 

Anyway, locals always referred to the sauerkraut canning plant simply as the “kraut factory.” 

Outer leaves, cabbage cores and excess liquids from the factory were piped into nearby Boone Creek, earning it an alias – “Kraut Creek.” The distinct “aroma” hovered over the middle of the college campus. Back then, folks said “it was the smell of money.” 

In its heyday, the sauerkraut plant was churning out an average of 2,200 to 3,000 tons of kraut per year, canning 24,000 cases per day of the Watauga chopped kraut. As market conditions changed, production was discontinued in the early 1980s. 

(Ironically, the Watauga County Cooperative Extension Service office is now on the site of the original kraut factory.) 

Since 1995, Appalachian State and the community have pioneered stream restoration practices, making the creek healthy and beautiful for all to enjoy.

Boone Creek is today a designated trout stream, a tributary of the South Fork of the New River. (This New River flows north and joins the Kanawha River below Charleston W.Va.) 

Cabbage continues to move down off the mountain from Boone in Hollar & Greene Produce Company trucks. In 1963, Dale Greene and his father-in-law, Lige Hollar, founded the company that is now “the largest fresh cabbage operation for retail in the entire United States.”

 Hubbard kindly shared a treasured recipe from the family of the late Sue Gilley Roberts of Ronda, N.C.

 

Get three “fair size” and firm heads of cabbage, one gallon of water, two-thirds of a cup of salt and one cup of vinegar. Chop up the cabbage and put it in a 5-gallon bucket.

 

Pour the salt and vinegar into a separate pot with the water, bring to a boil. Pour it all into the bucket with the cabbage and stir. Put a plate directly on top of the kraut in the 5-gallon bucket, a rock on top of that and then a towel over the plate and the rock.

 

Let this stand for five days, stirring once daily with a big spoon. After five days, it’s ready to eat. 

Caution: Don’t use a metal container because metal reacts with acids and salt in the sauerkraut, discolors it and leaches into it. Instead, use a large stoneware crock, large glass jar or food-grade plastic container, Hubbard said. 

“Cabbage must be completely submerged (covered by one to two inches of brine) to limit air and support growth of lactic acid bacteria,” she said. (That’s why you need a heavy plate and a big rock to weigh it down.)