EVERETT – One thing that hooks people on the Everett Sausage Festival is its “deceiving” sauerkraut, volunteer Barb Stavig said.
Its softness and mildness betray many people’s preconceptions about sauerkraut, said the 38-year-old Stavig.
The sauerkraut’s recipe stems from Stavig’s grandmother Sophie Schmidt, who immigrated to the United States from Germany at age 19 in the 1920s.
“It was in her head,” Stavig said. “She didn’t want to give it to anyone.”
But the strong-willed, hard-working woman was generous enough to share the recipe with organizers of the sausage festival, a fund-raiser that began in 1976 to help Immaculate Conception/Our Lady of Perpetual Help School.
Schmidt died of natural causes at age 93 in 1997, Stavig said, but her sauerkraut still helps the festival flourish.
“I’m proud of it,” she said.
Along with other types of food, visitors enjoyed sausages and the sauerkraut on Saturday on the Perpetual Help Church grounds. Nearly 400 volunteers in all are expected to pitch in for the three-day festival, which continues today.
The volunteers include some who don’t attend the church, said Frauna Hoglund, a treasurer for the event.
“We get people who just like working here,” she said.
Jude Davis and LuAnn Fino attended the festival for the first time and were happy with the good weather, service and food.
“It’s a good place to come,” said Fino, 50, of Everett.
The two good friends were having a late breakfast of sausages and sauerkraut on Saturday.
“We might come back tomorrow and have some of this again,” Fino said.
Afterward, Fino and Davis, 57, of Marysville, browsed the crafts booths while children flocked to the nearby carnival.
This year, volunteers bought about 2,500 pounds of sausage from a sausage maker in Vancouver, Wash., and prepared about 650 pounds of sauerkraut, Hoglund said.
Stavig said she wasn’t worried about what to do with any leftover sauerkraut.
“It will be gone,” she said.
Reporter Yoshiaki Nohara: 425-339-3029 or ynohara@ heraldnet.com.
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