Summer of Cabbage Love

Vegan oven baked sauerkraut

''Metaphorically, bigos means "confusion", "big mess" or "trouble" in Polish.'' (Thank you Wikipedia:)

    Why Woodstock is such an important event in music history? It's not only because so many big names played there, it's also because it was one of the first massive festivals that gathered hundreds of thousands young people, with nothing else then music, peace and love. I visited some cool festivals too. In my city there's one really big festival, in the beginning it started like Woodstock, as part of political protest, but later it turned commercial, and now ticket costs more then 100 euros. Although line up is quite cool. The greatest festival I ever visited was Woodstock.

One of the first photos of the festival I saw on the internet looked something like this. When I saw it I knew I need to go there by any means necessary.

     I didn't do it with some time portal or by taking large quantities of LSD. I really went there, by train, from Berlin. I guess by now you already know, that I'm talking about Polish Woodstock. It's one of the biggest festivals in Europe. Like on original Woodstock entrance is free. You aren't gonna listen to Jefferson Airplane or Credence Clearwater Revival, but there are bunch of Polish bands you never heard of, who after a lot of beers, soft drugs and presence of 500 000 people around you sound like Jimmy Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner guitar solo.

    Anyway I was there, jumping around to sounds of Polish rock, eating cheap Hare Krishna vegan portions, drinking dusty beer, playing hide and seek with people camping near me and of course there were the mud baths. Everything one great festival has to offer. And the crowd around me was cool, some cute Polish girls from Lublin, squatters from Netherlands who came to the forest 2 weeks before the festival and were the first who set camp there that year, 2 Gothic chicks from Berlin and a guy with Polk High Al Bundy football jersey, some Polish hippie-like guy and a girl who dug 2 big holes in which they stand for the whole day, Hare Krishna guys who are aggressively smiling at people and bunch of festival freaks from different countries, that I missed to exchange numbers or facebook accounts with. After only one night there I knew I hit the right spot, and that this festival is like no other, at least in Europe.

I couldn't believe this is gonna be the place where I'll find sauerkraut dish

    In the middle of all that I see Serbian flag in the crowds. I was seeing that flag almost every day at the concerts, but I was always to fucked up to go check whose is it. One day I firmly decided to check the Serbian flag, I go there, and I see a friend from Belgrade waving the flag.... Wooow man, wtf, what are you doing here?!
After some beers, he tells me:

 -Do you know they serve podvarak at the food stands?

-Nooo shit? They eat it here too?!

-Yeah man, they call it bigos in Polish, and you get a good portion too, for just one euro.

I guess people who read this blog already noticed in this post, my appreciation to any dish that contains sauerkraut. Podvarak is a sauerkraut baked in an oven with smoked meat and is one of the things I really missed when I turned vegan. Until one day,  I decided to make vegan version of it. Just to remember my Woodstock days under the sun.Vegan podvarak turned out great, and here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

-sauerkraut, 1 kg (2,2 lb)

-potatoes, 2 big ones, or 3 medium size (around 600 grams=21 oz),

After puting onion slices in oiled casserole

-onions, one big onion,

-garlic, chili flakes (smoked) or sweet paprika powder, bay leaf, black peppercorns, thyme, salt, oil.

1.  Oil your casserole and put sliced onion in it, spread onion slices around the whole bottom of the casserole. Put some salt on the onion slices, crush the garlic and add it too. 

2.  Then put the first layer of sauerkraut on top. Cut potatoes in cubes and add them on top of the sauerkraut. After adding the potatoes sprinkle some salt, chili or paprika (depends do you like it hot or mild), thyme, drop few peppercorns and bay leaf on top. Then add second layer of sauerkraut, the potatoes again, and same spices go on top. Last layer should be sauerkraut, and after adding all the same spices on the very top, pour some oil on your dish. 

3.  Sauerkraut loves fat, so don't be stingy with oil. I usually use cold pressed sunflower oil. Cover the casserole with aluminum foil, tuck it in. Leave it in preheated oven for one hour on 200 degrees. After that take it out, take off aluminum foil, leave it for a minute or two to rest and then put it back in the oven for another 30-45 minutes on the same temperature. Watch your oven from time to time, so it doesn't burn.

After adding first layer of sauerkraut, potatoes and spices.

    Podvarak is a great dish, people usually prepare it in the winter when they pull out their first sauerkraut out of the barrel. It goes well with some yogurtif you are vegetarian or some cooked (pickled) red beets salad with garlic. You can serve it with black bread and some buckwheat or millet kasha.

    Only person who probably missed original 1969. Woodstock more then me is my dad. He was 16 at a time and he was all into each and every band that played there. Back then they were ordering records from London record stores by post, working hard in the fields to earn money for new records of: The Beatles, Janis Joplin, The Who and Joe Cocker and his favorite musician of all times was Carlos Santana. I think most of people from Yugoslavia loved him, probably because they could feel in a right way his distinct fusion of latino sound with rock'n'roll, so unique, emotional and new in 60's USA and since Yugoslavia already heard and loved latino music with Yugoslav mariachi music from the 50's that made him really popular among Yugoslav youth. So while making this magnificent dish, try imagining how it felt to be on dairy farm on Catskill mountains, near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, state of New York, while Black Magic woman was played.

* Since all 4 days I camped on Polish Woodstock I was on all kinds of substances, I didn't took any photos there. Although I asked some of the people I met there to lend me some photos for this blog post. Now they are searching their old photo archives, looking for those. Until they find those I put some interesting photos of the festival I found on the internet, on web sites: roadeightyfive.com and deon.pl.

Enjoy vegan podvarak a.k.a. weganskie bigos.