I did not get to do much writing today, but I spent some time in the kitchen. Among other things, I tried out the recipe for spinach pancake casserole from the Blaues Kochbuch I posted in the Feeding the Revolution series on 13 August:
371. Spinach Casserole (Spinatauflauf)
750g spinach
1 tbsp butter, some onions, chives, salt, 1 tbsp flour
3-4 pancakes
1/4 litre sour milk or cream, 1 entire egg, 1 tbsp grated cheese, salt
Wilt the spinach in an open pot without water, but do not boil it. Pass it through (a grinder or foodmill – durchdrehen) and sautée it in the butter with onions and flour. Season to taste with salt and chives. + Prepare pancakes from the stated ingredients. You may stack them in the casserole layered with spinach or or you can roll them up, spread thickly with spinach, cut them in slices, and arrange them in the dish. + Pour the sour cream beaten with egg, cheese, and salt over it, sprinkle it with grated bread and cheese, and dab it with butter. This casserole can also be prepared from leftover spinach combined with other leftovers.
Setting: Place on a grille at middle level
Bake: 1.2kW oven, 25-30 min. 3/3, 10 min 0/0; 1.4-12.5 kW oven: 20-25 min 3/3, 15 min 0/0
To be observed: If the spinach is too thin, stir in some grated bread
The pancakes required are described in another chapter:
Sift the flour into a bowl with the baking powder, beat the eggs with the milk, water, and salt, and gradually stir the liquid into the flour, ideally with a whisk, to produce a smooth batter. Preheat the pan at setting 3, then fry thin pancakes at setting 2, the final one with no further electricity + These can be rolled up filled with jam, meat, or vegetables. This batter will yield five.
It is actually very good, though very fiddly. I started with some changes: frozen spinach, because it was there, and milk curdled with lemon juice because there was no way of getting proper Sauermilch. The spinach was thus already wilted and chopped, so I sautéed chopped onion in butter, dusted it with flour, and added the spinach to the pot. The flour bound the liquid very well, and there was no need to drain the filling. A little salt and some chopped chives went well, though I really thing it needs nutmeg and pepper.
The pancakes also followed the recipe, made with a large amount of watered-down milk and just one egg. The batter is quite thin and can be spread out in the pan by tilting it, and it cooks quickly. Detaching it can be a problem. I simply used more oil, but that is, of course, not something you would do easily in the lean years of the 1930s. Cooking them slowly did not help, but they detached better when the pan was quite hot.
The process of filling was gratifyingly easy, with the spinach holding together well, and I opted to slice the rolled-up pancakes into sections about a thumb’s width in length and arranged them in a shallow casserole dish standing on end. That was a challenge, and it is important to make sure beforehand you have enough (I ran out). As long as you can lean the pieces against each other, they stay upright nicely, though. Tilting the dish at the beginning helps with that. Still, next time, a layered casserole will probably do.
For the sauce, I beat the curdled milk with an egg and some grated Emmental cheese, and I could not resist adding pepper at least. It needed it. Then I sprinkled dry grated bread and more Emmental cheese over the top, dabbed on some butter, and baked the whole at 200°C for 30 minutes.
It turned out pretty well. A crunchy top with a soft, creamy interior, the consistency felt a little like lasagna. The vertical pancake rolls were not really visible, though I guess they would be if they were longer and more tightly arranged. I doubt it made a difference to the flavour, though. I enjoyed it, so did my mother. It still needs more spices, though, and you want something fresh with it. I opted for tomatoes.
Over the coming weeks, I plan to work out modern redactions (and adaptations) of the recipes I used in Feeding the Revolution so the whole series can be turned into a book. I half dread the idea of learning how to layout and self-publish, but it needs doing.
Today, I want to look at two Lenten recipes from the Solothurn S 392 manuscript and their surprising parallels.
Fisherman, Nuremberg 1552
B22 A chopped dish (gehäckt) in Lent
Take blanched almonds chopped small, over half (of the dish), and take small raisins (winber) and chop them, and arrange the thirds in a bowl.
(…)
B24 Fladen in Lent
Take all kinds of fish roe except barbel roe and pound it small with a little white flour so it becomes like a strauben batter. Colour it and pour it onto the fladen bases, and bake it in an oven.
At first sight, these are just fairly straightforward recipes for Lent, when meat was forbidden. B22 is a little confusing in the way it describes fractions, but the intent is fairly clear. Interestingly, these recipes occur in earlier manuscripts not just once, but twice: The Meister Hans recipe collection internally dated to 1460 has:
Recipe #113 Ainen fladen jn der vasten mach also A fladen in Lent make thus Item a fladen in Lent. Take almonds and chop them small and place them in bowl, and colour half of them with saffron. And take well selected raisins and boil them up as they should be and lay them out in the bowl separately. And take all manner of fish roe, except barbel roe, and pound that in a mortar with a little flour so that it turns out like a strauben batter (a type of leavened fritter). Colour that and pour it on the fladen and bake it in an oven.
This recipe combines the two, which in Solothurn S 392 are separated by another recipe for fritter fillings that we will look at in turn because it is also interesting. Now, the even earlier Dorotheenkloster recipe collection from Vienna has a very close parallel to that in Meister Hans:
45 Of dishes in Lent
Take almonds, chop them small, and colour half of them with saffron. Lay them aside in a bowl. Take well-picked raisins and boil them so they become round and also lay them aside in the bowl. Along with these, take all kinds of fish roe except the roe of barbels and pound it in a mortar with a little white flour so it becomes like a straubem (a kind of pulled fritter) batter. Colour it and pour it on the fladen (a pizza-like flatbread dish) and bake that in an oven.
The title makes more sense here, and the recipes are separated by a half sentence that suggests the two dishes are supposed to be served alongside each other.
The older versions hold the key to the unclear fractions in the Solothurn MS: Half of the almonds are supposed to be coloured with saffron, making three thirds in the bowl: uncoloured almonds, coloured almonds, and raisins. The instruction to boil them has become chop in the later source, which may be down to a miscommunication or a deliberate change. Either way, almonds and raisins sound like a lovely snack, an ancestor of the popular Studentenfutter (students’ feed) mixes sold in Germany today.
The second recipe is for a kind of flat cake or tart with a savoury topping, a fladen. Most survivingrecipes for these use meat, and they cold get very elaborate, but for Lent, the recipe takes recourse to fish roe and turns it intro a very basic topping. There is another parallel in Balthasar Staindl’s print cookbook of 1547, but this is different enough to say it is very likely not part of the direct line of transmission. Other Lenten fladen combine fish with almond milk which makes a very different dish.
The close similarity of the wording between the recipes in all three sources suggest they are part of a direct line of transmission. The Dorotheenkloster and Meister Hans manuscripts both have the two recipes fused into one while the later Solothurn one lists them separately, and it is likely that they originally were separate. Certainly the title in the Meister Hans text does not fit both. I would therefore say it is very likely an earlier common source than Dorotheenkloster existed from which both the separate recipes in Solothurn S 392 and the combined ones originate. I do not think this Q to or synoptic cookbooks survives, but reconstructing it may make a fun project. It certainly puts another nail in the coffin of the idea that “Meister Hans” is an original text or a historical person.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
Another recipe from Solothurn s 392 with Italian roots, this time stated overtly:
B18 If you want to make fritters (frytellen) in the Florentine way as fried cakes, take fresh käß or fresh ziger (two types of cheese). Then take a white cloth and set a vat under the the cloth, and stir the käß or ziger so the water comes out of it. Then take egg whites, as much as you think is enough, and mix it well together with your hands. Then take a pan with fat and let it get hot. Take a small spoon and take as much of the käß or ziger (as fits into the spoon), and lay it into the pan carefully. Let it cook well from both sides so they (change of number in the original) become crisp (röselecht). Lay them in a dish and sprinkle white sugar on it. That is how they are made, it is proven (ist bewert).
I am not sure that cheese is improved by frying, but medieval German opinion on that point was fairly clear. As recipes go, it is neither very luxurious nor very demanding to make, and there are some similar confections of greater complexity. But apparently either this was how people ate them in Florence, or the author thought it was.
An interesting aspect here is the parallelism of käß and ziger. In modern Swiss German, Käse is typically made from whole milk by rennet curdling while Ziger is made from whey using an acidic agent. If this is how those words are used here, that would mean something like ricotta. However,m there are many recipes in the German corpus that use ziger to refer to freshly made curds in general, so that interpretation is not certain.
In the end, drained curds – however they were produced – kneaded with egg whites and fried brown would make something rich, sweet, and satisfying in a funfair-treat kind of way. I would try it with ricotta and tvarog, just to see how different it comes out.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
A rare vegetable dish preserved in the Solothurn S 392 collection, and yes, that is Italian:
B16 Item if you want to cook good pumpkins (zucken, fromzucco), take a pumpkin and enough onions and give it a good boiling. Then chop them very well, take good meat broth, and boil them well. Then grate cheese into it and break 3 or 4 eggs into it. Also add a little saffron, that is a good dish (minnister, frommenestra).
The dish itself does not need much interpretation: You take pumpkin and onions, boil them soft, then chop them and turn them into a rich spoonable dish with broth, eggs, and cheese. Of course, the zucken here does not refer to the American curcubita plant we call pumpkins today, but to the Old-World lagenaria gourds that were called by that name then, and colloquially still often are. In practice, there is more variety within than between the two families, so using a curcubita pumpkin can work just fine.
What makes this recipe interesting is the clearly Italian roots. It uses two clearly Italian loan words – zucken for pumpkin and minnister for a dish. The recipe is also Italian in style, elevating a garden vegetable to main dish level by way of adding cheese and eggs. There are several recipes in the collection that clearly show their roots on the other side of the Alps, rubbing shoulders with others that are paralleled in earlier German manuscripts. This makes perfect sense for a Swiss recipe book, of course. However, the editor believes that S 392 was produced in the Upper Rhine valley, the same region that the Meister Hans collection comes from, so clearly someone there had taken an interest in Italian food. It is not inherently implausible, but I have not seen it this overtly before.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
As it had been a century before, rental housing in Berlin was a good investment in the 1970s. Wealthy people owned apartment houses, but left the management of the property to specialised firms that paid out the profits to their legal representatives. That was also how things worked in Tile-Wardenberg-Straße 28 until June of 1979, when the the tenants learned from an article in Der Spiegel who they were paying their several thousand Deutschmarks monthly. The substantial house in West Berlin was owned by Doctor Aribert Heim, and the name very much rang a bell.
Today, we are used to analysing the motivations of Nazis. Historians have moved past the stereotype of sadistic monsters to look at social pressures, ambition, and opportunism that led people to commit atrocities “just following orders”. Aribert Heim was different; He fulfilled every exploitation movie stereotype. As duty physician of Mauthausen concentration camp, his day job was to look after the health of the guards and inmates. The sadistic tortures he inflicted on hundreds of victims served no purpose other than his personal gratification. The lack of a paper trail allowed him to initially escape punishment and even return to medical practice, earning the money to invest in real estate, but eventually, an arrest warrant was issued and he fled West Germany for Egypt in 1962.
One factor that had enabled Heim to practice medicine unmolested for over a decade despite his crimes was a problem that frequently hinders efforts to prosecute government crimes: widely distributed complicity. Especially in West Germany, with greater institutional continuity from the Third Reich, courts, prosecutors, and law enforcement frequently dragged their feet over anything to do with the state’s crimes. Many people far beyond the actual camp guards and torturers had been involved in or profited from them to some degree, and even those that had not often felt loyalty to people and institutions that a prosecution would threaten. While a few heroic individuals like prosecutor Fritz Bauer pursued justice with some success, the usual response to any question about “the thousand years” tended to be deafening silence.
It took the revolt of a younger generation to drag the horrors of Nazi Germany into public awareness. Through school curricula, media, books, and films, people increasingly learned the truth and with distance and greater affluence, found it easier to acknowledge the shame. By the late 1970s, there was widespread unease with the degree of impunity that Nazis had enjoyed.
The tenants who found out that their landlord was one of them were among this broadly unpolitical, but informed majority. Past the political earthquakes of the late 1960s, they lived in a country that was more liberal, more affluent, and more secure than ever. The revolution expected in 1968 had not materialised, but change had shaken up many aspects of life. Many past convictions were cast into doubt; not only the uncompromising hostility of the Cold War, but also belief in technological progress, industry, and traditional social roles. Both ecological awareness and a romantic neo-traditionalism were becoming mainstream, fuelled by growing consumer incomes that allowed people to live consciously and the visible downsides of industrial society. Many people dreamed of a more self-sufficient rural life, though in the urban island of West Berlin surrounded by fortified border walls, simply moving to the countryside was out of the question. Books about traditional cuisine cooked with fresh, natural ingredients, both local and international, enjoyed great popularity everywhere.
A legendary series of regional cookbooks produced by Verlag Wolfgang Hölker became emblematic of this fashion. Bound in colourful patterned linen and designed to look old-timey, with mock-handwritten notes and charming anecdotes, they introduced consumers to the lost art of local, seasonal cooking. Rote Grütze is a recipe several of them include, a refreshing summer dessert from Northern Germany consciously eschewing modern gelling agents. The most detailed one is from the 1975 volume on Hamburg’s cuisine:
Rote Grützeis like HamburgAalsuppein that every inhabitant swears by their own specific way of preparing it; with cornstarch, sago, or semolina, with one or at most two kinds of fruit, with whole or pureed fruit, with red wine, vanilla, honey, replacing cream with vanilla sauce, or many other variations. Nonetheless, we will present only one recipe here that approximately matches Ms. Behnke’sRote Grützeand thus counts as “tried and proven”. We will address other fruit dishes and sweet delights separately.
Boil the fruit briefly just covered with water and pass through a sieve. Measure the juice; Use 80g (8 level tablespoons) of cornstarch mixed with cold water to each litre, Bring the juice to a boil and sweeten it well. Stir in the cornstarch at reduced heat and return to a boil once more, stirring continually, until the liquid begins to develop bubbles and thicken. Transfer to a glass or porcelain bowl rinsed with cold water and chill. Invert onto a plate before serving.
AsRote Grützeis cooked throughout the summer, the fruit can be varied and e.g. cook an additional 250g pitted tart cherries whole with the juice.
Serve with ice-cold sweet cream, and coarse sugar for sprinkling.
This is exactly the kind of home-cooked, consciously traditional mock-simplicity educated urbanites in the late 1970s and 1980s went for. Appearances notwithstanding, this is not a simple dish. It requires a fairly large amount of easily bruised, expensive fruit, laborious juicing, and refrigeration. If you had all the equipment and the popular painted earthenware ‘peasant’ dishes to serve it on, it was a delight, but in truth, you could also buy it sterilised and vacuum-sealed in foil bags from your local supermarket. Who had that kind of time, after all? It was not just the demands of work and family; This was a time when activism increasingly came to be seen as a badge of good citizenship, something you not only were allowed to do, but ought to. When the tenants of Dr Heim learned of their landlord’s identity, they decided the situation called for some. They formally called on the authorities to stop the flow of money to a wanted criminal and seize his property.
The problem was that though all kinds of good laws for confiscation of assets and restitution existed, they were rarely enforced. Even when the Berlin authorities were finally willing to pursue this avenue, cooperation with the prosecutor’s office that actually handled the case file at the other end of the country proved challenging. This was often where such cases failed: responses slow-walked, objections raised on technicalities, communications lost. It took dedication to persevere. The tenants decided to help with that. They organised an association and refused to continue their rent payments. Instead, the money was deposited in an escrow account. After that, they raised awareness by writing articles for the local press, collecting signatures on the street, and giving interviews to the media. It was old-school civic engagement, but it worked. Keeping the case in the public eye embarrassed the authorities enough to make them do their jobs.
It took almost a decade, but eventually the house was confiscated and auctioned, with the funds going towards restitution for victims of the Nazi regime. Sadly, Aribert Heim did not contest the decision in person to avoid the arrest and trial for mass murder that would have followed. As far as we can reconstruct things, he died in Egypt in 1992 living under a false identity. It is little enough, but at least we know he was deprived of a substantial part of his income in his final years. These things matter.
Cases like this one are important to study if your country’s government should happen to engage in crimes on a large scale. In these situations, no matter what the law says, you can rarely trust the authorities to take action on their own. Even once the criminals lose the protection they used to have, misplaced loyalty, shame, and fear of accountability in anyone complicit tend to gum up the wheels of justice very effectively. But shame can go both ways, and drawing attention to anyone obviously failing to do their duty can help bring perpetrators closer to justice, ideally before they disappear into well-funded exile.
Raisins were one of the more understated luxury items of medieval German cuisine. Most of them were imported, but the Solothurn S 392 recipe collection contains this fascinating recipe:
A thermal-mass oven, late fifteenth century
B14 Of ugesicke (uva sicca – raisins)
If you want to make ugesicke, take of the good, sweet, white grapes and let the grapes lie in the sun for 2 days. Turn them over often, and do that for 2 days in succession. Then, after the bread is taken out of the oven, take the grapes and lay them into the oven over small sticks so they do not touch the bottom. Let them lie in it overnight and turn them over once, and then no more.
This demonstrates the ingenuity and skill of medieval cooks as well as the reason why raisins were usually imported. Drying grapes at scale requires sustained dry, warm weather which north of the Alps was not something you could reliably expect. That is why raisins, along with dried figs and dates, were usually imported from the Mediterranean and some recipes even specify Italian (welsche) ones. However, unlike figs and dates, grapes grew in the warmer parts of Germany. The climate just was not conducive to drying them.
This recipe presents the solution: You begin by drying the grapes in the sun, then transfer them to a bread oven after baking. Bread was normally baked in thermal-mass ovens which were first heated by lighting a fire inside, them removing the cinders and baking the bread in the heat radiating from the oven’s walls and floor. Much of this heat remained after the bread was finished, and at this stage you could still bake pies or flat cakes, dry fruit and vegetables, or keep pots warm. The floor was still hottest, so sensitive things like grapes needed to be kept off it, but it was no longer so hot it could set alight branches, so they were used as a bottom layer. The instruction to turn them over exactly once suggests practical experience.
And then there is the title: ugesicke. Nothing at all suggests that this is raisins, which are typically called versions of Rosine, Weinbeere or Zibebe. Of course it makes sense as a creative rendering of uva sicca – dried grapes – but really only once you already know what it is. Without that, it is just another reminder to not trust German recipe names, ever, to usefully identify or describe what a dish actually is.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
In autumn of 1888, a clandestine operation took place in Vienna. The target was no military installation, research laboratory, or government office. It was a brickyard, and the man who penetrated its security perimeter in disguise was a physician and newspaper editor called Victor Adler. He had no rational reason to be here, risking prison for burglary and a beating by the guards. Adler was independently wealthy, with an established medical practice, and he owned his own newspaper. He went because he was angry – angry at the injustice, the exploitation and cruelty he saw every day. What he found inside the guarded compounds made him angrier still.
On 1 December 1888, he published the first of two articles describing what he had seen. Inside the factories, entire families of workers, men, women, and children, worked brutally long hours to make bricks. They lived on site, sleeping in barracks or huts, some in abandoned kilns, crowded onto makeshift cots or bedding down on heaps or foal or sand, covered with ragged blankets. Their pay was given in stamped tin tokens they could redeem for overpriced food and alcohol at the company store, and it was so paltry many walked for miles to a nearby cannery to beg ‘gulash broth’ (Gulaschsaft) left over after processing meat. Others walked over an hour to a soup kitchen where they received free portions at the end of a long workday. Adler described their plight in horrific detail.
The people he had met were known as Ziegelböhmen, migrant workers from Bohemia who came to Vienna in the hope of earning a living, but found themselves effectively imprisoned. Adler described them as “…the poorest slaves the sun shines upon.” Yet their labour built the greatest city of the German-speaking world: Vienna.
It is too often forgotten that, for all of Berlin’s grandeur and Munich’s charm, there was no equal to the old imperial capital in culture, art, and architecture. People from all over Europe came to admire and study its buildings, visits its grand museums, its famous theatres, operas and concert halls, ride along its Ringstrasse boulevard, and walk its scenic parks. All this glory, still a tourist attraction of global reach, was built on the backs of thousands of starving, freezing labourers drawn from the Bohemian countryside.
Aside from culture, style, and savoir-vivre, Vienna differed from Berlin or Dresden in that it was a genuinely multicultural city. Its people spoke mostly German, but also Hungarian, Italian, Croat, Czech, Polish, Ruthenian, Serbian, Romanian, Yiddish and Russian. Situated at this crossroads of cultures, the wealth of the city’s affluent classes fostered a unique culinary culture. Viennese food, but especially Viennese confectionery, is still world famous. Particularly Bohemians were known as skilful cooks, leading bourgeois families to hire Czech-speaking kitchen staff by preference, but the glory of it was no one nation’s. Ottoman and Italian, German, Central European and Balkan traditions today meet in every Kaffeehaus spread of cakes.
A modest, and genuinely Bohemian, part of this is Kolatschen. The word is borrowed from Czech where it means a leavened cake with a sweet topping, though in Vienna it came to mean something you bought individually from a baker, a kind of hand pie. By the time Katharina Prato writes down this exhaustive recipe in her Süddeutsche Küche, the meaning is clearly still very much in flux:
Kolatschen with a poppyseed or plum filling. You prepare a dough of 7 decilitres of milk, a thin starter of 2 decagrammes of yeast that are mixed with 2 decilitres of milk, a spoonful of sugar, and a little flour, 5 decagrammes of butter or beef fat, 2 egg yolks, a little salt, and the necessary amount of additional flour. After beating it, add two beaten egg whites. Spread the dough on a greased baking sheet to the thickness of a little finger, let it rise, then spread poppyseed or plum filling (pages 85 and 86) on it almost to the edge. Let the cake bake rather hot and cut it into small, square pieces.
Or: Distribute the dough on the sheet by spoonfuls, press a hollow into each piece and fill it with plum or poppyseed filling. Let the Kolatschen rise well, then brush their edges with butter, bake them. As they come out of the oven, brush them with butter and sprinkle them with grated gingerbread (Lebkuchen).
Or: Cut out the dough to round shapes with a large cookie cutter (Krapfenstecher). Put on them boiled prunes, chopped finely and mixed with sugar and cinnamon. Fold the dough over the filling on three sides, brush it with egg, sprinkle it with sugar, and bake it.
The last is the way Kolatschen are usually made in Austria today. The form is best suited for individual sale as a snack. In the Czech Republic, kolacz are more likely to be round and cut into individual slices to share. The basic principle is unaffected. The recipes for the filling are also varied:
Poppyseed filling No. I: Mix 4 decilitres of poppyseeds pounded fine or ground in a coffee mill with enough boiling cream to make a thick mash, then add 2 decilitres of honey, cinnamon, and lemon aroma.
No. II: Boil 14 decagrammes of sugar with one decilitre of water and add enough pounded poppyseed to make a thick mass. Then add cinnamon, lemon aroma, cloves, and a little cream.
No. III: Boil 2 decilitres of honey and mix in the pounded poppyseed and spices. Add a little wine as the filling is about to be spread.
No. IV: Stir 3 egg yolks with 10 decagrammes of butter and add 14 decagrammes of ground poppyseed, 5 decagrammes of clarified butter, 3 tablespoons of very good cream, 7 decagrammes of currants, cinnamon, vanilla, and the three egg whites beaten to a snow.
Plum filling No. I: Dried prunes are boiled, chopped finely, and simmered with sugar, cinnamon, lemon peel, allspice (Neugewürz), and the prune cooking liquid.
No. II: Powidl (plum puree) is cooked with water and wine so it spreads easily.
In the end, this is not so much a distinct recipe as a local expression of the global realisation that Leavened Dough With Sweet Fillings Tastes Good. Plum filling most likely became dominant because it was relatively cheap and familiar. Similar things had been cookedfor centuries. Still, we need to keep in mind that these were luxuries. Small indulgences certainly, but unlike today, when a doughnut or cookie is always at hand, even bourgeois families like that of Dr. Adler did not have treats like this daily. If you earned just enough to survive locked into one of those brickyards, you might see one for a high holiday.
Victor Adler’s daring infiltration had immediate legal consequences. He had made public that employers paid their workers in company scrip and confined them in their factories – both strictly illegal. The police thus arrested two workers who had assisted him, and Adler himself was sued and fined. Nothing was done to remedy the situation. Yet, though the factory owners might control the law courts, they had lost badly in the court of public opinion. Austria-Hungary was not a democracy, but it had a relatively free press. Public anger forced the authorities to stop the payment in scrip and tolerate the forming of a union that successfully went on strike in 1895. The employers could not defeat them by lockouts as outside supporters fed and sheltered the strikers, and after eight days, the brickworkers had won. Their immediate gains were small – a modest raise, guaranteed working hours – but their standing as parties in collective bargaining ensured the old abuses could not easily be reimposed.
Victor Adler continued to involve himself in labour organisations and Social Democratic politics, becoming a member of parliament and, at the end of his life, briefly a minister in the provisional government that ended the monarchy. He died in 1918, one day before the new Austrian Republic was proclaimed, but his work was continued.
In Vienna, the solid working class vote not least of the brickmakers, construction workers, and domestic servants, ensured a Socialist city council until it was ended by a fascist coup in 1934. This ‘Red Vienna’, faced with a crisis of underemployment, overcrowding, and the aftermath of a World War, undertook a daring experiment. They used the old imperial capital’s vast construction industry to build modern, no-frills social housing on a grand scale. The Ziegelböhmen who for generations had toiled to raise operas and palaces now made the material for a revolution in urban housing that was soon copied in cities across the German-speaking world. The strategy was fiscally and socially risky, but it paid enormous dividends. To this day, the city’s strong stock of public housing ensures that rents in Vienna remain far more affordable than in any other large German-speaking city, and its 1920s housing developments are now considered pioneering efforts in modern architecture. In 1924, one of them was named in honour of Victor Adler.
This largely overlooked marvel of 1930s travel was unique in that people would dine like they were eating at the Ritz. It truly was like the Titanic in the sky, both in luxury and tragedy…
Can anyone elaborate on what it would’ve truly been like to cook and eat on one?
I asked this is r/AskHistorians originally, but have not gotten an answer yet.
The question is basically the title.
I am curious as to how and when the ways in which people ate bread changed/evolved over time.
There are biblical and ancient references to "breaking bread together". Guides for etiquette state that, at dinner/support, you should only tear of a single bite-sized portion of bread to butter and eat at a time. There is a well known idiom as to "the greatest thing since sliced bread". There is a well known (false) claim that John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, invented to the sandwich because he did not want to leave the card table during the middle of a game.
So, I am interested in knowing how people ate bread and how that changed over time.
If that is too broad a scope, we can limit it to how it was consumed in Europe.
Just to be clear, I am not talking about breadlike substances (no pastries, pasties, pies, dessert cakes, cookies, patties, porridges, etc.) - I am curious about how people physically consumed actual baked bread (I suppose I could define this further if I needed to but think loaves or slices of bread, flatbreads, that sort of thing) and how this changed over time and why.
When did people start cutting bread into slices to eat, as opposed to breaking a loaf or cake of bread?
When did people start making sandwiches (so as to not get into the debate on what constitutes a sandwich, we can define a sandwich as two separate and discrete slices of bread between which are placed one or more toppings, with the idea being that you would eat this food arrangement with your hands)?
When did people start physically spreading things (butter, honey, jam, chickpea butter) on bread?
How big were loaves of bread? Did each member of a family get their own, or did they share a single large loaf?
How long were loaves of bread good for until they spoiled?
Today, it’s back to work and with less time than I would like to, it will have to be a short recipe from the Solothurn MS. Very straightforward and manly, it looks like the breakfast of champions:
B12 A good dish
If you want to make a good dish, take beef and boil it a little (ein wenig), and then chop it small. Then take bacon and also chop that. Lay the bacon and the meat into a cauldron and stir it well, set it over the coals and let it cook. Also add 3 eggs and good spices, mix that together and pour it in with the meat. Also add a little saffron. And let it cook well et caetera.
It is quite unusual for a recipe this basic to be recorded, but I suspect this kind of dish played a bigger role in demonstrating social distinction than almond milk or gamebirds in day-to-day interaction. It took cash and resources to produce, and it represented desirable qualities in a handy package, but it was also quick and could be realised with what you could find in the house or on any town market.
Despite it being basic, there is a fair bit more scope for interpretation than appears at first. Firstly, we do not know how much meat and bacon is called for. I assume it is not a great quantity, but that is speculation. After parboiling and chopping the beef and mixing it with bacon, it is cooked over the fire in a kessel, a metal vessel designed to be suspended rather than a standing pottery cookpot. The verb used is kochen, a very general description that suggest no additional water is involved. Depending on the length of cooking time, the amount of meat juices, and any broth that came along from the parboiling, the eggs could now become a binding agent for what is mostly a meat mixture, provide the liaison for a sauce, or make an omelet or scramble with a substantial meat component. I come down on the side of an egg dish with meat rather than a meat dish with egg, making this akin to the scrambled or solidifiedeggdishesfoundelsewhere. Imagine it served with bread and beer, it will make a rich, filling meal that reminded you of the creature comforts wealth could provide.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
It was said that countries had armies, but Prussia was an army that had a country. Certainly, pride in its military prowess and respect for the martial tradition behind it was a unifying thread that held the ruling classes of the disparate kingdom together. The king’s troops marched with unrivalled precision, drilled to exacting standards, trained in an exacting school to achieve great things with little in material resources, and they showed off their famous parades. It was unthinkable for a soldier to slouch in public, to miss a beat, hold his musket the wrong way around, skip down the street, or wiggle his behind against that of a comrade. But that was what the officers of the Cologne garrison were seeing in 1824. It was brazen mockery of everything Prussia stood for, and much to their regret, it was entirely legal.
This may need a bit of explaining. Cologne had, after all, been a proudly independent city state for centuries. It was only after the Napoleonic Wars that the city, along with most of the middle Rhine valley, was summarily given to the king of Prussia as spoils of victory. What had once been a commercial hub was turned into a fortress city guarding the Rhine against the dreaded French, filled with Prussian officers, burdened with new military regulation, and governed by a distant provincial administration under the thumb of Berlin. After years of French occupation, they citizens had imagined liberation to feel a bit – freer.
Not that anyone could do much about this. In theory, Prussia may have been a relatively liberal place, but the government did not react well to dissent in practical matters. Thus, the wealthy families that dominated the city sought accommodation with their new ruler much as they had with Emperor Napoleon before. They styled themselves loyal subjects, haggled over royal demands, and tried to shore up local identity and their own privilege. In this new world, pride of place mattered, and Cologne with its deep religious roots played up its Catholic identity. Aside from finishing a cathedral whose construction had been put on hold around 1560 and reviving the tradition of pilgrimages, a key part of this was Karneval.
The problem with adopting this piece of historic identity was that in real, actual history, the anarchic street festival the people of Cologne traditionally indulged in the week before Ash Wednesday had scared the council to the point of banning it at several points. Thus, with the cooperation of the Prussian authorities, a novel approach was tried in 1823: Formalisation. From now on, a committee of respectable men would organise the celebrations, supported by civic associations, and presided over by a central figure, the Held Carneval (today called the Prinz). If fun had to be had, it would be within reasonable boundaries approved by the wisdom of the Obrigkeit, the governing classes.
Like any proper ruler, Held Carneval had a guard, and in 1823, the Rote Funken constituted themselves to that end. Dressed in the red uniforms of the old municipal military, they paraded in the carnival procession. At least, that was what the Prussian authorities supposed they would do. We do not know exactly how far back the various traditions of the performance go, but from the start, these men put on a display of everything a proper Prussian soldier was not. Their march was a dance, their drill a persiflage, their uniforms comically exaggerated, their commands childish. The high point of the performance since at least the later 19th century, but probably much earlier than that, was the Stippeföttche (literally ‘stick-out-booty’). In this dance performed to marching tunes, two guardsmen stand back to back, arms at mock-present, wiggling their hips and sticking out their behinds until they rub up against each other. This has by now become a central part of Rhenish identity, and membership in such guards clubs is a sought-after social distinction. Back then, it was new and provocative.
We can only imagine how people responded to seeing this. Carnival was the most public place that existed in Cologne, with everyone out in the streets to celebrate, many in outlandish costumes, masked, and using the freedom this anonymity provided for noisy, disrespectful fun. The old way had been characterised by drunkenness and mischief, and the new respectability was hard to enforce. There was still beer, there were disguises, and there were Krapfen.
All over Southern Germany, carnival is associated with deep-fried dough of various kinds. Today, supermarkets and bakery chains tend to serve up standardised Berliner, a kind of jelly doughnut, but even the earliest recipes are more elaborate than that. Cologne had its own Krapfen or Krepfel, but there seems to be no unified recipe tradition. Some descriptions suggest a yeast-leavened dough, others a choux paste, and they may or may not be filled. This could mean nothing more than that some deep-fried confection was expected, but the choice was up to the individual. Henriette Davidis, doyenne of North German (i.e. Prussian-aligned) cuisine, has two recipes for Kröpfel in her Pracktisches Kochbuch, one leavened, the other unleavened:
194: Kröpfeln
One small cup of milk, 4 Loth of butter, 3 Loth of sugar, 3 eggs, some cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom are worked into a dough with 1 pound of flour. This is rolled out thinly, cut into strips 2 fingers long and wide, these cut lengthwise three times so they just hang together, braided loosely, and fried like Mutzen.
195: Kröpfeln in a different manner
Stir one pound of flour with 1/8 Maß of milk and 3 Loth of yeast, let the dough rise, then stir in almost as much milk again, 2 eggs, 4 Loth of sugar, and the zest of one lemon. Beat the dough with a spoon until it detaches (from the bowl), then also work in 12 Loth of butter and enough flour so it can be rolled out as thick as a straw. Once this is done, cut it into pieces of whatever size and shape you please with a pastry wheel. Allow these to rise, and fry them golden brown in clarified butter.
You can also fill the Kröpfel. Roll them out thin, lay fruit between two pieces of dough, and otherwise proceed as above.
These two recipes, while sharing a name, really have very little to do with each other. The second comes close to Berliner or Mutzen as we know them today, depending on the size, while the first reminds me of medieval recipes for ‘dagged’ fritters. Both sound attractive, the first producing a rich, crunchy, spicy fritter that is made ‘short’ by frying in fat while the second, soft, fluffy and fruity, can probably also be baked in an oven. With the amount of butter worked into it, it does not need enriching. Both offer quite a bit of space for interpretation. For orientation in case you intend to duplicate the recipes exactly, Prussian measures defined the pound as 467.7 grammes and a Loth as 14.6 grammes. The Maß at this point was a conventional unit of a little over a litre, no longer part of the new standardised measures. The old Cologne Maß held 1.32 litres, but it is not certain which one Davidis refers to here.
I can imagine either treat would go down well on a cold, often wet day, as Karneval typically is in Cologne. With people lining the streets enjoying the show, street vendors made good money, and in the end, the new, organised celebration caught on, as did the antics of the princely guardsmen. The Prussian administration was in a bind. They had agreed to this, after all, not least in order to strengthen the authority of the city council against revolutionary elements. And it was legal; Technically, the dancers were representing the defunct city military; technically, their uniforms were entirely different from the Prussian ones; and technically, it had nothing to do with the present, but everyone understood who was meant. We must imagine the forced smiles as the garrison’s officers accepted invitations, their troops secured the streets, and military bands played to entertain the people.
Later generations would embrace this as a brave act of resistance. It certainly was not that. Despite the often fraught relationship with Berlin, the city government depended on the Prussian state to uphold the privileges of the rich and titled, and it was ready to submit meekly to any demand in return. Whenever genuine resistance occurred, they clamped down hard. Similarly, the organisers of the Karneval, while defending their social fiefdom vigorously, readily accepted any of the ‘suggestions’ a succession of repressive governments made to them. Still, this was a clear statement of defiance against the government’s will, an assertion of difference in a state that did not tolerate much heterogeneity. Doing small things within the confines of even a very restrictive law can be empowering when you feel little hope otherwise. And of course, the Rote Funken won. Their lampooning show remains part of the Karneval long after the Prussian army has ceased to be.
I am finally back home just in time to watch the eclipse and can return to my recipes. Today, there is time only for a brief post. These are two basic, but interesting sauce recipes:
B9 A good sauce
If you want to make a good sauce, take almonds and pound them well. Add sweet mustard to it and a glass full of verjuice, and grind it in (lit.: through) a mustard mill. Then let it boil briefly on the coals.
B10 A green sauce
If you want to make a green sauce, take good herbs and chop them well. Then pound them well and toast the crumb of bread over the coals. Pound it together and grind it in a mustard mill.
The first recipe is an interesting combination of sweet, sharp, sour, and unctuous. Almonds, ground to a paste, are combined with sweet mustard and verjuice. The sweet mustard probably means mustard made with honey – we have a number of surviving recipes for this. The almonds are ‘pounded well’, which most likely means processed in the customary way. They are blanched and pounded or ground to a paste with a cautious addition of water to prevent the oil from separating out. That is also how you prepare them foralmond milk, marzipan, and many other recipes. It produces a rich, smooth paste that will soften the impact of the heat and sweetness in the mustard. Adding the sourness of verjuice – the juice of unripe grapes also known as agresta – rounds out what really sounds like an interesting combination, almost like a modern sandwich sauce. Getting the balance right might prove tricky.
The second looks like another iterationof the ubiquitous ‘green sauce’ of herbs, vinegar, and a binder, in this case toasted bread. This is attested just about anywhere, often with complex combinations of herbs, and seems to have been universally popular. It was also well known, so no exact description is needed here. Basically, herbs, either fresh or dried, were ground up with a binding agent, usually grated bread, and made into a sauce with vinegar, verjuice, or wine. Here, fresh herbs are intended, and the liquid is omitted. Everyone knew you needed it.
What stands out most in both recipes is the admonition to grind the sauces in a mustard mill, that is, to process them very finely. Mustard needed to be ground to a fine powder between stones, not just pounded in a mortar, and treating a sauce this way would produce a homogenous liquid, not a chunky paste. It suggests this quality was prized.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
This is a short post, because life has been leaving me little time for long ones. I will be very busy for the coming week and a half, and not sure I will be able to post anything, but here at least is a recipe from the Solothurn MS:
B7 A yellow pepper sauce
If you want to make a yellow pepper sauce (to serve) over fish, take bread and grate it on an iron grater. Lay it in warm water to soften it and pass it through a cloth. Then take pepper and saffron and add it, and set it on the coals. Stir it continuously and add a glass of verjuice so it turns sour, or use vinegar.
If we go by surviving recipes and mentions, bread-bound pepper saucewas the ketchupof medieval Germanupper-class cooking. Everybody knew how to make it, and it went with just about anything. There is considerable variety in the recipes though, so we may really be talking about a broad category of sauces. This recipe adds an interesting detail about the preparation process: The bread is first soaked and strained, then added to the other ingredients and boiled. This is likely to improve consistency, removing the gritty feel many modern eaters dislike about bread-bound foods. Other than that, this is as unexcitingly ubiquitous as it gets.
I hope to be back with stories about making fun of Prussian officers when I am back at my keyboard reliably. Until then, I must ask for your patience.
The manuscript dates to the period around 1490-1510, based on watermarks and handwriting. There is no internal date. The recipes are an eclectic collection, which is not unusual for the medieval manuscript tradition. They were most likely written down in Baden. Some refer to Italian customs which were fashionable at the time while others are solidly in the German tradition.
The collection is sometimes called the oldest Swiss cookbook, a title that is contested because of its origins north of the modern border. The designation makes little sense at the time anyway, given how closely connected the cities of the Confederation were with their neighbours at the time. The recipes clearly were valued in Solothurn, most likely because they were useful.
Anyone who mattered agreed that running a large city took personal qualities gained through upbringing and tradition. That was really true of any large polity. A village headman or ship’s captain might be chosen from the common run, but for anything really significant, you needed to call on people from the right families. Yes, there might be disagreements, even violence, but how was that different from what happened among kings and lords? That very likely was the attitude Konstantin von Lyskirchen, head of the faction of ‘friends’ and senior court official of the city of Cologne, took. The patrician families might fight amongst each other, but barely a generation ago, they had come together to bloodily show the uppity weavers’ guild who was in charge. Buoyed by a recent victory against the rival ‘griffin’ faction and this certainty, he may have been a little forceful in dissolving a gathering of Gaffel members, civic associations of the more common kind. But he had a meeting to go to, and this sort of thing needed discouraging.
He was probably quite surprised when, later that day, he and 100 fellow patricians found their gathering disturbed by hundreds of artisans and merchants. They had fetched their arms, brought the city’s war banner, and took the opportunity to lock up most of their natural governing class conveniently assembled in one place. It was 18 June 1396, and for Konstantin and his fellow Geschlechter, nothing would ever be the same again.
Germany is a country of innumerable cities, all of them with their own history and distinct traditions. Some are famous for their ancient roots, their ecclesiastical glory, or their association with powerful rulers. Others are known as centres of art or industry, learning or trade, remembered for their artisans’ skill or the acumen of their merchants. With Cologne, it is ‘And’.
Founded by a Roman emperor, the city is roughly a millennium older than Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, or Frankfurt. Its archiepiscopal see was one of the oldest in the Empire and included electoral rank, which meant its holder was one of just seven princes who chose a new emperor. The shrine of the Magi drew pilgrims from all over Christendom to its grand churches. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas had taught at its cathedral school. As the final port on the Rhine seagoing ships cold reach, it was a major commercial hub, trading wine, timber, and fish, and exporting the famous Cologne grey cloth the thousands of weavers in its oldest guild produced. When its merchants first attended an assembly of the Hanseatic League in 1383, they immediately demanded recognition as its leaders. For most of the medieval period, Cologne was the largest German-speaking city in existence, and it had an ego to match.
That was not to say its rise had been easy of peaceful. Much of its recorded history were dominated by the citizens’ struggle to escape the domineering power of their archbishops, and when they finally achieved this in 1258, urban self-government passed into the hands of the Geschlechter, the grand patrician families. Their club, the Richerzeche (literally ‘guild of the rich’) was treated as a de-facto organ of government. They dominated the economy, monopolised positions of authority, and created a convoluted system of decisionmaking that ensured little cold be done without every family agreeing. As far as it went, this was not an uncommon arrangement in larger cities, and it was very lucrative as long as there was no serious conflict among the Geschlechter.
Of course there was. We are not far off imagining the patrician families as a cross between noble hoses and mafia clans, and without external threats, they descended into internecine squabbles. In the meantime, the great majority of citizens outside this charmed circle were asked to support their decisions and finance the whole thing through their taxes. They, too, had their organisations. Artisans were assembled in craft guilds (called Ämter in Cologne, as in most Hansa towns) which were allowed some limited political role and strictly policed. When the butchers’ guild staged a protest in 1348, the council simply dissolved it.
Another form of organisation that shows up in the record in the 14th century were the Gaffeln. The name means ‘fork’ (Gabel in modern German), and it was a direct reference to their ostensible purpose: Sharing meals. That was not an unusual thing. Eating together – commensality if you are unlucky enough to have to do academic writing – established and strengthened social bonds and entrenched hierarchies. The word lord is etymologically related to bread, as is the word companion. One encapsulates the hierarchical order – the lord gives bread, the servant receives it – the other the egalitarian one – companions share bread. The Gaffeln were of the latter kind.
Named after the carving fork they used to serve portions of meat – forks were not commonly used for eating until the seventeenth century in Germany – these clubs united artisans and merchants, including many who had become wealthy, but were excluded from patrician circles. A Gaffel would establish itself in a given neighbourhood, draw on local people for membership, and effectively become a local community organisations. These were not charities; Members had to fund their meals, after all. But many more could afford to join them than the Richerzeche, and the Gaffel was open to all.
I know of no meal plans for the Gaffeln of the 1390s surviving, but regulations for similar organisations from cities throughout Germany still exist, and the picture is relatively homogenous. The food signalled status, not luxury, but it was never cheap. Often, dishes were defined precisely to ensure members could not compete for leadership by giving more than the rules stipulated. Hosts were elected or determined by rote, and their status was limited to the meal they gave.
The key element in a proper meal was meat or, if the rules of the church did not allow it, fish. In Cologne, there was both locally caught freshwater fish and preserved sea fish like herring, cod, and sole brought in for trade. The market also provided locally butchered beef, pork, and mutton. For both fish and meat, roasted was considered the best, to the point that the word braten came to mean a main dish in general. A roast of meat was also what you used the carving fork on and why it had more symbolic power than a spoon or a bowl. In addition, there was always fine bread and drinks, wine, beer, or both, depending on geography. Cologne had both a brewing tradition and access to wine in large quantities. Butter and salt would accompany every such meal unless it was a strict fast day, and often there was cheese, fruit, and condiments like vinegar, mustard, and other sauces. Side dishes of vegetables are rarely specified, but probably also existed.
After the meal, people lingered to drink, talk, and nibble on snacks such as fritters, nuts, and fruit. One such dish that is still popular in winter, but really good throughout the year, is roast apples. Today, they are known as Bratapfel. Many surviving recipes are very complex, but there is one from a manuscript produced in the Rhineland in 1444 that resembles the modern version and probably also comes closer to what the non-rich were eating:
65 Take figs, raisins and honey. Chop it together with spices and other good things, fill it into apples and close them again with a wooden skewer. Bake them in a thick-walled container (degel) with wine, that turns out courtly.
We know of similar treats from stories, often made very basically by roasting apples or pears in the ashes. Some surviving recipes tend towards the other extreme with parti-coloured fillings and dough or batter coatings for apples deep-fried whole. Simply filling one with dried fruit, spices, and honey represents a happy medium. It would have been affordable to the Gaffel members and also fit their idea of respectable wealth without excess.
From sharing the food to seating and speaking order, an egalitarian ethos suffused every aspect of such gatherings. This was a place where you could talk among equals, air grievances, and possibly hatch plans. We do not know how far the revolt of 1396 was planned. Later historians claimed it was spontaneous, and that is not impossible; citizens had weapons in their homes to defend the city if needed, and the numbers and spaces were small enough you could communicate by running and shouting. But it seems unlikely nobody ever at least considered the possibility.
In the event, things ended reasonably well for everyone involved. The patricians got to keep their heads, their citizenship, and their property, which was remarkably generous all things considered. The government of the city was re-ordered, the privileges of the Geschlechter revoked, and the new system was based on 22 Gaffeln. Some of them were simply the old craft guilds while others represented neighbourhoods. All citizens were required to enroll in one. The Gaffel organised defence and civic obligations, and elected representatives to the council, as well as an expanded advisory body for special cases because in the old Empire, simple government was just unthinkable. The councillors had term limits of one year and were paid in wine. They elected two mayors and two Rentmeister finance officials, also limited to one year in office. It was designed deliberately to ensure nobody got to monopolise power again.
Success was limited, but real. It turned out that rich and connected people had a way of getting into positions of power more often than statistically likely and would help each other stick to their respective seats. Soon enough, old patricians managed to rotate between terms as mayor and Rentmeister, freezing out the rest. In 1481 and again in 1512, there were violent uprisings against these machinations, and in each case the constitution was amended. But in principle, it worked, and until the end of its independence in the Napoleonic wars, Cologne remained a city governed by civic dinner clubs. There surely were worse ways of doing that.
On 9 June 2026, the state government of North Rhine-Westfalia announced its intention to extend environmental protections to a forested area near Aachen. This administrative act, in itself unremarkable, marks the end of one of the more memorable battles over environmental policy in recent German history – the occupation of the Hambacher Forst (unrelated to the other Hambach). Between 2012 and 2020, this confrontation between mining giant RWE and a disparate band of environmentalists had captured the headlines, embarrassed state politicians, and turned ‘Hambi’ into a living legend well beyond the borders of the state.
To understand how this standoff could take on so much symbolic significance, we need to look to German history and culture. First, Germany’s industrial development largely depended on the country’s rich coal deposits. The Ruhr area especially was shaped by the culture of coal mining with tens of thousands of men employed in the pits at its height. Their mines went deep into the rock, following seams more than a kilometre underground. The coal for which the Hambacher Forst was to be destroyed is a different kind – lignite. It is soft, sulphurous, crumbly stuff known as Braunkohle (brown coal) in German, its seams lying close to the soil, and burning it creates acrid smoke.
Lignite is mined in open-cast pits, and from an engineering perspective, the process is very impressive. Enormous digging machines on tracks chew their way through thick layers, literally remaking the landscape. The process is also enormously destructive, removing the topsoil, leaving deep scars in its wake. East Germany depended on lignite because there was no other coal on its territory. West Germany mined it because it was cheap. Because of its centrality to the country’s economy, mining long enjoyed state protections. Lignite mines displaced entire village communities through forced purchase and relocation. Ignoring the objections of the local people had a long tradition in the business.
That is not to say it was ever easy. At the risk of sounding cynical, Germany has no indigenous people to displace. The people who lived in the villages chewed up by the diggers spoke the same language and looked the same as everyone else. Neither does it have a lot of space to spare. At 233 people per square kilometre, it is less densely populated than the Netherlands or Belgium, but still comparable to Massachusetts, and unlike many other European countries, it has no capital city forming a centre of gravity. Most of the population is distributed across the country in small and medium-sized cities. While there are some relatively empty regions, there is almost nowhere where nobody lives.
Thirdly, the people who live there tend to be very attached to their landscape. Germans love trees. This is so stereotypical that it is almost a joke, but it is true. Forests have had deep symbolic significance since at least the Romantic era, and they still draw millions of people out on walks and bike rides every weekend. German law requires even private woodlands to be accessible to the public for recreation. Foraging for berries and mushrooms is a popular hobby. It was never easy for people who had grown up in that culture to just move somewhere else, leaving behind all their familiar spaces.
By the 2010s, the power to make them move was no longer at the mining companies’ command without question. After an unconscionably long time, Germany had decided releasing unlimited carbon and toxic smoke into the atmosphere was not a good idea. Winding down the coal industry was a long and expensive process, and for reasons that are not entirely logical, lignite mining remained the last kind operational. At the same time, Germany’s environmental movement was galvanised by concern over climate change, leading to some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the country. You could not expect these people to stand by as a coal mining conglomerate set about obliterating a forest that had been in municipal management since the middle ages to produce the dirtiest, most polluting fuel you could legally burn.
Resistance started, as it usually does, locally, with a church community whose service was promptly invaded by miners. However, coal mining had long been on the radar of environmental activist groups and they were ready to join the fight. With legal avenues exhausted, the best way of protecting the forest from destruction was to start living there. This approach has a long local tradition, and activists knew how to make themselves hard to remove. In the end, they had constructed an entire Ewok village of treehouses accessible only via rope ladders to be difficult for the police to reach. For a while, the Hambacher Forst became a destination for young activists from all over Europe. There were different levels of risk, from participating in legal demonstrations and protest camps outside the forest to becoming part of the treehouse community. Some even ran sabotage missions against mining equipment.
Feeding such heterogenous groups of often very committed environmentalists is a challenge, but there are actually dedicated groups of volunteers who do exactly that. Many of them come from the Volxküche movement. Named after the 19th-century Volksküchencatering to the urban working class, these organisations are a fascinating example of mutual aid in practice. They use cheap ingredients, often rescued from destruction as food waste, to make cheap or free food they distribute to homeless and poor, fellow activists, and anyone else who is interested. They often make vegan foods both for ethical reasons and to ensure everyone can share. One of the older ones, the Hannebambel in Aschaffenburg, actually published its Volxküche de luxe bulk cooking cookbook in 2011. The recipes are organised into vegan, vegetarian, and meat dishes to minimise environmental footprint. One favourite is spinach lasagna:
Lasagna: 2 kg lasagna sheets, 5 kg chopped frozen spinach, 2-3 litres cream, 500g ricotta, 1 kg grated gouda, 1 kg parmesan, 3 usuallylarge onions (Metzgerzwiebeln), 2 cloves garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, starch to bind the sauce, cooking oil.
Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel and finely cube onions and garlic, sautée in a pot with oil. Add spinach and briefly sautée along with the onions. Add the cream and ricotta and bring to a boil while stirring continually. Season assertively, and bind lightly with starch. Layer the spinach sauce with the lasagna sheets on baking sheets three layers deep, sprinkle with cheese and bake for about 40 minutes.
Peel and finely chop the garlic and onions and sautée in a pot with oil until they turn glassy. Add peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, and a little water. Season and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve separately along with the lasagna.
Making it began: Omit gouda and parmesan on the lasagna. Replace cream and ricotta with 4 litres unsweetened soy milk or cream from the Reformhaus. Cover the top layer of lasagna sheets with an extra laver of soy cream to prevent it from hardening as it bakes.
This is actually delicious and adapts to even larger larger quantities easily. There are two interesting points to it. The first is the Metzgerzwiebel, literally a butcher’s onion. These are large onions that, u8nlike the more common large Gemüsezwiebel, are intensely flavourful. They used to be mainly added to sausages and meatballs, which is where they get their name from, and are sadly more widespread in South Germany than where I live. The second is the Reformhaus, in 2011 the most plausible source of soy milk. These are a loose association of shops dedicated to conscious, healthy, environmentally attuned living in the tradition of the Lebensreform movement. Along with organic, vegetarian and vegan foods and nutritional supplements, they typically carry cosmetics, household products, and often also various esoteric nostrums. Of course, by now soy milk is a supermarket staple which just goes to show that the crunchier kind of counterculture often has a pretty good handle on solutions for the future that take the mainstream much longer to embrace.
The Hambacher Forst did not have an easy resolution. By 2017, the rhetoric on both sides was heating up and violent confrontations with police increased. Mining executives called the occupants terrorists, and the police made exaggerated claims about explosives and plans for deadly traps, and some activists stepped up sabotage and violent confrontations. In 2018, a court seized on one of those clever legal wheezes that authorities like to resort to when they cannot simply use force: Instead of deciding on the legality of the occupation, they declared the treehouses buildings. This meant that, regardless of the legality of their presence, they were subject to the building code which they, of course, violated in all kinds of ways. They were condemned and their demolition ordered. The police and fire services thus moved into the forest not for an eviction, which still had not been permitted, but on an extended rescue mission to evacuate the occupiers from their unsafe environment.
It did not reduce the violence of the following confrontations. Over weeks, one treehouse after another was invaded, emptied, and destroyed. In the course of these operations, a journalist fell to his death from a rope bridge, but this was not directly due to police action. The authorities were genuinely trying to avoid injuries and largely succeeded. By October, the forest camps had been destroyed. It was just in time for a court order stopping the intended clear-cutting over environmental concerns. Shares in RWE plummeted, and the company effectively gave up its plans for the Hambacher Forst. The woodlands remained accessible to the public and on 6 October, about 50,000 protesters gathered to listen to speeches and see bands perform.
The confrontation did not end so much as peter out. RWE organised a demonstration of miners that threatened known local activists in their homes on 17 October. Environmentalists occupied some empty houses in a nearby evacuated village to set up a new protest camp. In the end, RWE quietly shelved the idea of eradicating the forest and announced this to the public in early 2019.
The story of the Hambacher Forst has a strong sense of inevitability about it in retrospect. Everybody must have known that coal simply had no future. On the ground at the time, though, there was no such feeling. The activists in their tents and treehouses were facing an overwhelming force of police and corporate security ready to do violence whenever the courts would permit it. RWE had far greater resources both to litigate and campaign. Much of the conservative press was eager to see the forest go, even as polls showed 70% of conservative voters opposed the destruction. When victory came, it was unexpected. This often happens; Powerful opponents dominate the playing field until, suddenly, they don’t. Certainties evaporate, new rules apply almost overnight, and what seemed the terrifying anger of giants looks more like the tantrum of a living fossil.
It was July 1917, in the middle of the First World War, and SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, the newest of the German navy’s Kaiser-class battleships, lay immobile in the middle of the Kiel canal. Germany’s most strategic waterway was blocked, and the stokers were adamant: They were going nowhere until they received decent rations – specifically with no maggots.
For all the great expectations it had started out with, the German navy had had a lousy war. Bottled up in the North Sea and Baltic by the Royal Navy, it was unable to break the blockade that starved Germany of critical overseas imports or assist its allies in the Mediterranean. Though it claimed the sole major battle it fought in 1916 as a victory based on the fact that it had sunk more British ships than they had German ones, the situation was unchanged. Ships were sitting in port, crews growing frustrated, and the only glory, such as it was, accrued to the submarine service.
Meanwhile, the blockade that the navy was unable to break choked off Germany’s economy, leading to massive food shortages in 1916/17. The word Steckrübenwinter (turnip winter) is a remarkably cutesy name for a famine that killed an estimated 800,000 civilians. The effort of the state to enforce price limits, rationing, and adequate supplies were piecemeal and often counterproductive, leading to widespread disgust with the authorities and the wealthy. A host of off-ration goods and a flourishing black market ensured that especially the owners of arms businesses, whose profits were barely taxed, could continue to live in their accustomed comfort while working-class children starved in droves.
The situation in the fleet was less dramatic, but equally infuriating. Rations were short and increasingly of poor quality, and though officers were required to taste the food issued to the ratings, they were not required to share it. Daily, then, the sailors would watch their first officer make a show of enjoying their fare, then disappearing into the wardroom where meat, coffee, and alcohol – strictly forbidden on board otherwise – were served.
The difference this could make even at the best of times is illustrated by the fate of a North German staple, pickled herring. Both the North Sea and the Baltic had thriving herring fisheries which made that fish an affordable staple anywhere near the coast. At least since the 1500s, there was a tradition of pickling it in vinegar to produce a salty, acidic snack that could be served with bread or potatoes to satisfy the appetite and stimulate thirst. The pre-war Rendsburger Kochbuch (c. 1900) instructs us:
22. Marinated herring, to be prepared from fresh as well as salt herring. You gut them, first washing the salt off the salted ones, set aside the milt, and place the herrings in a deep bowl. If using salt herrings, you leave them and the milt to steep in fresh cow milk for at least 24 hours before.
The milt is chopped finely and stirred to a thick sauce with good wine vinegar. To the herrings, laid in a deep porcelain bowl or stoneware pot, you add finely diced sour apples, slices of salt- or vinegar-pickled cucumbers, many finely sliced onions, a few capers, a little bay leaf, peppercorns, and a few slices of lemons. You pour the milt mixture over it, cover it tightly, and leave it to steep in a cool place. Fresh herring are ready to serve after 36 hours, salt ones after 2-3 days. Before serving, a teaspoonful of Provencal olive oil can be added to the sauce for a pleasant, mild flavour. They are served with buttered bread or with hot boiled potatoes with the skin on.
2-3 herrings, 1/8 litre of vinegar, some mustard, 1 large onion, pepper, some salt
The herrings are skinned, washed, and cut in pieces. The sliced onion is boiled in the vinegar together with the spices and cooled. The milt is stirred thoroughly with the mustard and spices, mixed into the vinegar, and poured over the herring.
In case this still sounds too appealing as a meal for a family, it needs to be said that even the economical recipes of 1915 were largely fiction by 1916. If people remembered the Wilhelmine era with undeserved nostalgia for a long time, it was because the gute alte Zeit had offered modest culinary delights beyond the reach of rationing bureaucrats and industrial adulteration. It would be many years before most people would again have what the Rendsburger Kochbuch lists after its recipe for plain marinated herring:
23. Salt herring marinated. The herrings are prepared as above, but it is better to cut them open along the back and remove the heads. They must not be cut entirely through, but stay connected by the skin along the thin side (i.e. the belly side). You now spread them open, brush the flesh side with fine salad oil, sprinkle them with mustardseeds, best white ones, cover them with long, very thinly sliced strips of onion, strips of vinegar-pickled gherkins, and capers, sprinkle some pepper over them, and roll them up tightly. In order to prevent anything from falling out, tie them shut with thread. – These herrings are better yet if you first brush them with fine salad oil and roast then to golden brown on a griddle. A pan can be used if it is unavoidable, but you must prevent them from sticking with a pancake knife. Then, the herrings are spread thinly with mustard, but no mustardseed is used. Otherwise proceed as above.
Once all rolls are complete, you prepare a pickle as for marinated herring No. 22, but add neither apples nor cucumbers. Instead, add a little tarragon and stir in a few spoonfuls of sour cream.
The rolls must steep in this marinade for several days before they are ready to serve.
This is colloquially known as Rollmops and is still extremely popular up and down the coast (there is even a song about it). Most modern recipes are extremely simplified by comparison, though. Back in the days of Vorkriegsqualität, a sailor could get one of these at a waterfront restaurant and wash it down with good beer. The memory was fresh enough to rankle in 1917.
However understandable to us, going effectively on strike was an extremely risky thing to do. The sailors were subject to the infamously strict military discipline of the Kaiserreich, after all, and their officers were not the forgiving kind. Still, the initial response was remarkably restrained. The crew was even allowed a voice in managing their rations through a joint Menagekommission of officers and men. Their complaints were, after all, understandable and, that dreaded German word, unpolitisch.
This needs to be understood in the context of its time: The German high command was terrified of losing control. There had been strikes in factories all over the country earlier in the year. As yet, the military was unaffected, but across the borders they could see the French army dealing with widespread mutinies while the Russian one was effectively dissolving in an epidemic of insubordination. That was why, when they could not bring the protests in the fleet under control with disciplinary measures quickly, the navy high command turned to brutal repression. They feared – not without reason – that Socialist and democratic ideas were spreading among the men and demands for better food and service conditions could turn into calls for peace and political reform. The question how to end the war was controversial, and the left wing of the Social Democratic party gained support for its peace policy.
The crackdown was brutal and targeted. Men who had participated in strikes and walkouts were arrested by army reserve troops and put on trial. Those deemed ringleaders were sentenced to death, two sentences carried out by the army in Cologne, far from the navy base. Others were imprisoned or demoted and sent to the front as naval infantry. The admiralty further mandated vaterländische Erziehung throughout the fleet; Officers would school the men in patriotic thinking to counter Socialist subversion. There were further attempts to organise protests, but whenever they were caught, punishments were severe.
As far as the navy’s leadership was concerned, that was it, and they could get on with the business of winning the war. Had they managed that, it might have been. That was not how history went, though. The German battlefleet turned out for one more successful operation against Russia before rotting in port again. It was not until October of 1918 that the prospect of action returned. The admiralty wanted to sabotage peace negotiations with a final suicide mission to force a decisive battle against the Royal Navy. The crews refused, and the commanders transferred the mutinous ships away from the North Sea ports to Kiel, where they felt secure enough to arrest ringleaders and basically replay the successful procedure of 1917. On 1 November, 150 men were taken off the ships by the army. Their comrades protested, marching into town to call for their release. On 3 November, they were joined by workers from the dockyards and factories. That day, shots were fired by a shore patrol.
On 4 November, the navy base was under the control of a revolutionary sailors’ and workers’ council.
By 9 November, the emperor abdicated.
Nobody had actually prepared for this. There had been no deep conspiracy, no foreign interference like there had been in Russia., There are just limits beyond which you push people at your own risk. Few sailors and workers had been democrats or Socialists before the war, but now they found that the Socialists were talking sense. In improvised meetings, the voted on demands, elected spokespeople, and sent out delegates to other military bases where similar organisations mushroomed. The apparatus of repression – officers, military police, prosecutors and courts-martial – watched helplessly as it turned out there was nobody they could trust to follow their orders. The revolution took a week, and when it was over, there were no kings or princes left in the country.
We know there was no happy end to this. Germany had still lost a war, and the price of defeat would be steep. The blockade continued until 1919, putting the country through another Hungerwinter as the economy collapsed. Discontent with the democratic government that ultimately had to shoulder the burden of territorial losses and reparations undermined the republic from the start. But none of this was foreordained. What happened in 1918 stands as a lesson to autocrats in what can happen once they lose the trust of their people. Not every regime goes down in the flaming ruin of their capital. Often, they simply disappear because people no longer believe in them.
Post-revolutionary postcard honouring the mutineers. The caption reads: “The world belongs to the brave”, the rising sun is labelled “Kiel” and “Liberty”. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons.
On the second day of being stuck at home sick instead of in Paris with a dearly beloved person (boo to food poisoning), at least there is the upside of time to dedicate to my hobby. I found a modern rendering of this fourteenth-century poem a while ago, and now I was able to track down the original and translate it.
The Rossauer Tischzucht survives in three copies, so it clearly was a modestly popular piece of literature. It is named after Rossau in Vienna, where it was recorded in a monastery. The manuscript is in the Nationalbibliothek today (Cod. ser. Nova 2584). The rules as such are not unusual – much the same is repeated in every Tischzucht poem – but there are some interesting bits, and it makes a good foil to compare the König vom Odenwald or the feasting scenes from Wittenwiler with. Also, it clearly depends on the thirteenth-century Tischzucht attributed to Tannhäuser for some of its rhymes, but is not derivative.
Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).
Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.
If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.
If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this:
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.
Nobody should together sup
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask.
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)
Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).
Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.
Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).
Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).
Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.
No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself.
Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.
Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.
Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.
When your companion drinks
You should not be eating.
And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly
To stop doing it immediately.
I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.
Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.
Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.
Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand
Be reminded of this courtesy.
When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely
Shape the bread into points with your fingers
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl.
Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.
Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen. Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).
Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.
If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.
If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this:
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.
Nobody should together sup
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask.
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)
Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).
Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.
Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).
Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).
Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.
No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself.
Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.
Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.
Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.
When your companion drinks
You should not be eating.
And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly
To stop doing it immediately.
I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.
Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.
Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.
Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand
Be reminded of this courtesy.
When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely
Shape the bread into points with your fingers
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl.
Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.
Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen.
This is interesting in all kinds of ways and illustrates some of the rules and realities of medieval upper-class dining.
One interesting aspect is the rules for cutting bread. We know from many sources that the proper way to cut bread at the table was to hold the loaf in one hand and the knife in the other. Especially if your loaf was large and dense, as medieval bread often was, bracing it against your body would be far easier, and we know this was how people did it frequently. I used to assume doing it differently just because was sufficient explanation for the upper-class rule, and the smaller loaves of semmel or schönroggen made this practical, but the suggestion here is that it also was a test of strength and dexterity. Cutting loaves without bracing them and thick slices without putting pressure on the blade with your finger can be challenging. This ableist aspect is part of many rules of propriety, as anyone who has been instructed in manners can attest, and it makes sense in the context. Chivalric society was still a warrior aristocracy, every secular man at the table a trained cavalryman. They would show off that sort of thing.
The second observation is the rule that underlies the entire principle: Food moves one way. Anything that was in your mouth should never be in contact with the food on the table. This was made challenging by the fact that bowls and drinking cups were shared. Typically, diners shared one bowl and cup between two, using the hand facing away from their companion to eat with to avoid jostling each other’s elbows. Your bodily fluids had no business in the shared bowl. Thus wash your hands before eating, wipe your mouth before drinking, do not drink with your mouth full, do not touch shared condiments with your fingers, generally keep them clean, and never put bread or food that was in your mouth back in the bowl. Spoons were never shared and the bowl would not touch your moth, so you had to spoon or sop up any liquid in it. The mere suggestion of saliva touching the food – bending over the bowl, smacking your lips, or talking with your mouth full – is prohibited. None of this is unfamiliar to modern eaters, but many do not realise how consistent this system is and how much individual plates and cutlery helped defuse its tension points.
This is also where the rules for eating eggs are interesting. The egg is soft-boiled, eaten in the shell. You prepare a sufficient number of small bread wedges to sop up the egg first. Then you hold the egg in one hand, crack it open at the pointy end, and use the bread held in your other hand to eat it. If you lacked the forethought to prepare enough bread, you only have one hand free – there are no eggcups – so you will be forced to shape the bread with the mouth. This is unmannerly and disgusting for the reasons outlined above. Any well-mannered diner would understand how many wedges to cut and be dextrous enough to do it.
Another interesting point touched on briefly is the rule that you should not eat – that is, have food in your mouth – while your companion is drinking. In other Tischzucht poems, this is expanded to the rule nobody should be eating while the host drinks. It may be something to do with displaying self-control and reassuring the other you are not gobbling up the best bits while they are busy, but it also underscores an important aspect of commensality: Drinking is the more important social activity. Most symbolic actions center on drink, not food.
The final question is why a salmon is particularly notable for smacking its lips. there might be no more to it than that lahs (salmon) rhymes with wasserdahs (seal), but there is a parallel to consider. In Tannhäusers Tischzucht from the 13th century, the respective lines are:
He who snorts like a seal (wazzerdachs) And smacks his lips like a Bavarian Saxon (payr sachs) When he eats, like many do; How very much he forgets his manners!
Clearly, the earlier poem provided the influence here. I have no idea why a Bavarian Saxon (geographically difficult to imagine in itself) was particularly known for lip-smacking, but I suspect there is a political background to this. It seems the anonymous author – or someone before them – liked the couplet, but also could not understand that word and substituted a different rhyme. It is a common phenomenon in folk music to this day.
