Chinese sauerkraut shows good taste at home and abroad

SHENYANG — Walking through his neighborhood supermarket in Australia, where packs of Chinese sauerkraut line the shelves, Huang Xiqing feels like he's shopping in his hometown of Shenyang in Liaoning province.

"The sauerkraut soup tastes just like home," says the 45-year-old expat living in Canberra, sounding a little homesick.

Chinese sauerkraut, a pickle made of wombok, or Chinese cabbage, is a traditional specialty of the northeastern region and is now sold across the country and exported.

In the past, only a few fresh vegetables were available during the cold northeastern winters. Wombok, which was cheap and could be stored for a relatively long period of time, gained popularity with ordinary households.

In Shenyang, 70-year-old Wang Shuqing still maintains the habit of making Chinese sauerkraut every winter. After harvesting wombok from her garden, she puts the leaves into a big jar along with water and salt and two months later, it is ready to eat.

However, it is no longer the main course on her menu for Lunar New Year's eve, which now includes braised prawn, fried beef and carp cooked with sweet-and-sour sauce. "Now that our livelihood has improved and the logistics have developed, we can find whatever we want to eat during the winter," she says.

Over the years, the elderly woman has seen the changes to her dinner table.

In 1988, China launched a "Vegetable Basket Project" to increase the production of non-staple foods, to ensure urban supplies. In 2023, Liaoning built and upgraded about 100,000 mu (about 6,666.7 hectares) of greenhouses.

"Now people have more food to choose from, they don't just want enough food to eat, but also to eat well," says Zhang Sining, a research fellow from the Liaoning provincial academy of social sciences.

Before Spring Festival, the wholesale food market in Liaoning's Panjin city was a busy place, with more than 2,000 metric tons of vegetables arriving from southern China every day. There, buyers could also find crabs from Russia, salmon from Norway and cherries from Chile.

The production of traditional dishes like Chinese sauerkraut has also risen.

In the township of Damintun, the wombok growing area has increased to more than 30,000 mu. Several Chinese sauerkraut companies have been established. Among them, the Xinmin agricultural product company of the Heilongjiang Cuihua Group has sold its Chinese sauerkraut not only domestically, but also to countries including Canada, Japan and the United States.

Chinese sauerkraut has become a signature northeastern dish, and restaurants there now serve sauerkraut burgers and sauerkraut pizzas to cater to the tastes of young people.

"This is the first time I've tried Chinese sauerkraut, and it tastes marvelous," Deng Bin, a tourist from Sichuan province, said during a visit to Shenyang.

Between Jan 13 and 28, when people were making purchases for Spring Festival, sales of Chinese sauerkraut on Douyin increased more than 10-fold compared to last year.

For Huang however, Chinese sauerkraut is largely about nostalgia and an enduring link to home.

"Now that I have tried delicacies from across the globe, Chinese sauerkraut is still one of my favorites, and reminds me of my hometown," Huang says.