Roodeschool red cabbage. Sounds nice, says grower Henk Landwehr, but his red and white cabbage has been rejected for export. Now he is trying to sell the 100,000 coals himself.
Mrs Van Lingen (80) walks with her daughter through the Goudgewas farm shop at Roodeschool. There are 4 red coals in her cart. ,,They are delicious,” says Mrs. Van Lingen. “I bought 6 here at the end of September, I cut them finely, boil them, shake them a bit and when they’ve cooled I put them in the freezer. When I crave red cabbage, I take a portion from the freezer and prepare it. I always add a little cinnamon and a splash of vinegar.”
He lives in Warfstermolen, almost 50 kilometers from Roodeschool. He knows that Goudge was through him his son who works in Delfzijl and was enthusiastic about the shop. Her daughter boasted about Goudgewas cabbage and has shopped there regularly ever since.
“Take off the outer leaf anyway”
Grower Henk Landwehr (67), who also owns the Goudgewas shop, is as enthusiastic as the customers about his red cabbage. He has harvested only a small fraction of the acre and a half of red and white cabbage on the Tilweg at Roodeschool. The earth is too wet.
What he’s collected is fine coal, he says. “Due to the massive drought, there is a little growth on the outer leaf, but you can remove it anyway. Look, here’s a cabbage cut in half. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“The Crack Will Rot”
Richard Kruijer of Tuindersbelang thinks otherwise. As mediator between farmer and trader, he inspects the crops. Last week he took a look at Landwehr land and white and red cabbage was not acceptable, he thought. “I was disappointed. If you take the leaf off the cabbage, you’ll find a crack on the third or fourth leaf and that crack will rot.”
Kruijer says he still wants to check it out, but thinks Roodeschool cabbage isn’t a good fit for its normal route: to wholesalers all over Europe and sometimes Israel and Dubai.
Buy red cabbage from Roodeschool for the food bank
Landwehr says it reacted with resignation to Kruijer’s statement that it did not buy coal from him. “I am an entrepreneur and I start from the positive. I sell the cabbages here at Goudgewas for a euro each. I don’t want to think they are wasted, it is a waste of the good quality and our investment.”
He says he’s working with the food bank and has come up with a slogan. ,,’Give and eat: buy red cabbage from Roodeschool.’ You can buy red cabbage just as much as donate money, right?”
He once had to shred a shipment of vegetables, but he thinks that’s a scenario he doesn’t want to think about right now.
Pyt Sipma has 100,000 kilos of carrots left
Farmer Pyt Sipma (49) from Frisian Engwierum experienced this scenario last year. His regular German juice producer suddenly stopped buying his organic carrots, leaving him with 100,000 kilos of carrots. There will be another cause, he says.
After much deliberation, he decided to sell as many carrots as possible to nearby customers. “In this way we still sold 20,000 kilos of carrots: 5 kilos for 5 euros. The rest went to the feed industry.
Sipma stopped growing carrots and switched to wheat. According to him, the rules are still going in the wrong direction. “If I had 15 quintals of carrots I would sell 5 quintals to the consumer, the rest was too big, too crooked, too small or too long and ended up in feed. We shouldn’t want that waste, should we? The consumer doesn’t care what the carrot looks like, as long as it tastes good.”
‘Red cabbage is tasty and healthy’
Groningen chef Paul Rodenberg loves red cabbage. According to him, most people know it from a jar, but real red cabbage has so much more flavor and color. Salad, stew, soup, with applesauce, with herring, in pancakes – you can do so much with red cabbage. It is an ancient vegetable, prescribed by doctors in ancient times because it is so healthy. If you buy some big red cabbage, you can eat it for days: yummy. Also with hachee or venison.”
