I have this ridiculously large 20 quart mixing bowl that I’ve had for ages. When people see it, it literally becomes a conversation piece. The comment usually goes something like, “Wow that’s a very large bowl. I mean, wow, what a big bowl!” Followed by, “Why would you ever need such a large bowl?”
Well, if you’ve ever processed Alaskan grown cabbages, you know exactly why you need a mega sized bowl like this! Even if you’re like us and grow “small market cabbages” you’ll find they grow to exceptional and sometimes ludicrous size. We’ve never seen any sense in growing something like an OS Cross unless you’re literally entering into a competition.
The bowl actually makes the cabbage look almost reasonably sized and proportionate in this case. Many might have difficulty envisioning 20 quarts. Translated into a more recognizable figure, that’s five gallons. Might as well be a bucket. It’s basically a third the size of your entire gas tank on your car in cabbage. Fully mounded like this, we’re probably talking 6 to 7 gallons of shredded cabbage!
If you look up average cabbage weights, you’ll find they usually average around one to two pounds. I don’t think we’ve ever had one that small, usually they are pushing five to ten pounds. If we don’t get to them in a timely fashion, they can even exceed those weights. For exactly this reason, we strongly suggest the grower limits the number of cabbages they put in the ground. Honestly, one or two is usually enough for any average family. Trust us, you’ll have enough to put up, eat fresh and maybe even freeze some if you like!
We are, of course, not following our own sage advice this year. With a few cabbage trials in the mix, I think we have eight or ten cabbages in flight this year. It’s getting quite silly, really, and pushing our knowledge on various ways to prepare cabbage. We’re basically pretending we’re Irish over here as it serves our immediate needs for the moment.
Worse, we grew a very specific variety just for sauerkraut, which means we can’t even burn up our “regular” cabbage for that! We’ll show you that soon as we’re kind of excited about it!
Everything in Alaska really is bigger. Than Texas, even!
