Waynesville Sauerkraut Fest exhibits no sour feelings

40th Waynesville Sauerkraut Festival

No one can quite recall how long St. Augustine has been making cabbage rolls for the Waynesville sauerkraut festival.

A few of the experienced hands believe the tradition may go back to the first festival when it was started in the kitchen of one of the church’s priests. His recipe is still used, but instead of around 500, this year the tireless volunteers are set to make nearly 25 times that many.

The 40th annual Waynesville Sauerkraut Festival takes place Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 10-11. The festival, which last year attracted more than 300,000 people, features 400 artisans and live entertainment. But at the center of the festival is sauerkraut: boiled cabbage that is a surprisingly versatile as a cooking ingredient.

George Gehring is overseeing the production of 13,600 cabbage rolls by St. Augustine for the festival The recipe includes 5,000 pounds of cabbage, 270 pounds of chopped onion, 360 pounds of rice, 44 cases of tomato juice and more than 1,000 pounds of ground beef.

Beneath the church, a veritable assembly line — operating for 15 hours every day from Monday through Saturday — prepares the rolls. In the kitchen area, a group of volunteers carefully select the right cabbage leaf and place the beef and rice concoction inside. Outside the kitchen, 30 slow cookers are continually monitored until the cabbage roll reaches 180 degrees inside.

Leigh Harris can attest that sauerkraut also is a booster of baked goods and deserts. Her sauerkraut bark, a mixture of baker’s chocolate, pistachios and sauerkraut was the grand winner at the annual sauerkraut cooking contest held Oct. 3.

Harris, who also made a sauerkraut salsa that finished third, said the sauerkraut, when dried, lost a lot of its overwhelming flavor and retained a coconut consistency.