A Recipe For Tradition As Valley Man’s Home-Made Sauerkraut Ferments, His Ukrainian Heritage Flourishes

Weston Withers’ eyebrows, thick as Brillo pads, cavort wildly as he pounds a wooden hammer into a bucket half-filled with shredded cabbage.

“You hear that chjuke, chjuke, chjuke?” asks Withers, also known as Mr. Sauerkraut. “That’s the moisture starting to come out.”

Indeed, clear liquid brimming with bubbles oozes out of the pulverized cabbage while a slick of perspiration forms on the 61-year-old man’s forehead.

Both are products of Withers’ elbow grease, which he has applied liberally over the years to work as a log truck driver, longshoreman, car dealer, jet engine mechanic and “bear wrassler.”

But the making of “the kraut,” as he calls it, holds a special place in his heart.

It connects him to his Ukrainian heritage, to gardening and to people, all of which he loves.

“It’s enjoyable to make and to deal with the people,” Withers says.

People with a taste for the pungent German side dish visit Withers’ peeling clapboard home - “That was good paint 30 years ago…” - at Broadway and University in the Spokane Valley each year between mid-August and Christmas to sample his fermented cabbage.

He scoops the sauerkraut out of 5-gallon buckets and crocks by hand, the way his ancestors did hundreds of years ago in central and eastern Europe.

He’ll put on gloves, but only if a customer asks. “A hundred years ago, there wasn’t plastic gloves,” Withers says distastefully.

The short, stout man with the vice-like grip learned to make sauerkraut from his grandparents, who immigrated to the Spokane Valley from the Ukraine about 100 years ago.

He recalls first helping prepare a batch of sauerkraut with his grandmother in 1939.

Withers says learning to make the stuff was like learning to walk in his family.

“In those days, it was accepted that the kids and the grandkids done what your parents and grandparents done,” he says. “We just followed through with the family tradition.”

Withers still does it the old fashioned way.

He uses only fresh-cut cabbage, which he gets from his own garden and other vegetable plots throughout the Valley.

Withers shreds the whole heads by hand on a 70-year-old oak cutting board.

There are no food processors in Withers’ “kraut room,” a white-washed cubicle in his basement lined with shelves of Mason jars, some empty and some full of preserved fruits and vegetables.

He then hammers the cabbage to release its moisture - chjuke, chjuke, chjuke - and laces it with salt and spice.

The amounts, which he measures by hand and eyeball, are a closely guarded secret. Some people are trying to steal his recipe, he says.

Then the cabbage is put into a bucket or crock, covered with an old serving plate that is weighted down with a rock and allowed to ferment for five weeks.

Until recently, he produced small batches for personal use.

Then he perfected his recipe and began making several flavors, which he sells to people who see the hand-painted sign in his yard.

Withers estimates he makes about 90 gallons of sauerkraut each year now.

He sells eight flavors: caraway, celery, garlic, mustard, jalapeno, hot mustard, dill and dill-garlic.

Jalapeno is his favorite.

His wife of more than 30 years, Margarette, says she likes it, too, when she can get some.

“I think I got one pint last year,” she says.

Her husband laughs.

“That’s true,” he says. “It seems like about the time she wants some, it’s either in between makings or it’s all out.”

Withers figures on raising his prices a quarter this year, to $3.75 a quart.

He’s not worried about potential boycotts from price-conscious customers. Let them eat kraut from a can, he says.

“If they don’t want to pay it, that’s fine,” Withers says sternly. “There are other people out there that appreciate fresh kraut.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo