"I made sauerkraut," she said, "Polish dishes."

Here Bilger talks with Blake Eskin about making sauerkraut at home, the surprising ways in which bacteria are integral to human life, and some of the unusual foods he ate (or refused to eat) during his reporting.

In the most East European traditional versions, the filling is made entirely of mashed potato, ground meat, sauerkraut, onions, kasha (buckwheat groats), or cheese.

No, Hitler would have said, "If you want to make sauerkraut, you have to chop cabbage."

"Oh well ... You can't make sauerkraut without chopping cabbage, can you?"

In addition to meat, they make a small number of sausage-related kosher condiments: sauerkraut, pickles and mustard.

Using the same technique as the process for making sauerkraut, green fodder was preserved for animals in parts of Germany since the start of the 19th century.

Last year I got into making kimchi and sauerkraut as a way of preserving of food.

It is the equivalent of pickling cucumbers in vinegar or making sauerkraut, and it produces what is called winter kimchi.

This sourdough process is known as "backslopping" or "inoculum enrichment"; when used in making sauerkraut, first- and second-stage population dynamics, important to developing flavor, are bypassed.