Sauerkraut borrows a German compound of sauer, sour, and Kraut, greens. The familiar food is finely cut cabbage fermented in brine.
sauerkraut
A fermented food.
The flavour inside the word
How sauerkraut reached English
oldest first- sauer‘sour’
- Kraut‘greens’
combined
German
Sauerkraut
‘Fermented cabbage; literally sour cabbage’
into English
English
sauerkraut
‘The fermented cabbage dish’
The story of sauerkraut
Related
The compound joins a taste with the plant material it describes.