Sour Cabbage Soup (was Re: SC - pierogys)

[Jenne Heise]

> I have a mostly-modern Transylvanian cookbook by Paul Kovi, and he
> describes use of a seasoning made by subjecting boiled, sterilized milk
> to some kind of controlled fermentation, keeping it in a jar at room
> temperature for several days, during which it becomes both sour and
> bitter in flavor. Yes, for all of you that are ghoing to ask how this
> happens to a sterile product in a sealed jar, that's a good question,
> but that is apparently what happens. This milk stuff is then simmered
> over a decreasing flame until it can be formed into blocks and dried.
> The cubes are then added to soups as a seasoning for foods that are
> supposed to have a sour and bitter flavor (maybe not unlike German wheat beer?).

Hm. The fermenting of milk is something we usually think of in connection
with nomads, and Transylvania had several waves of nomads. What's the name
of the cookbook? I think my Magyar-persona friend Istvan might be
interested.
 -- 
Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise	      jenne at tulgey.browser.net
disclaimer: i speak for no-one and no-one speaks for me.
"I do my job. I refuse to be responsible for other people's managerial 
hallucinations." -- Lady Jemina Starker