Food Culture in Germany

Food Culture in Germany UrsUla Heinzelmann Food Culture around the World Ken albala, series editor GreenWood Press Westport, Connecticut • london... series Foreword The appearance of the

Food Culture in Germany



Food Culture in Germany

UrsUla Heinzelmann

Food Culture around the World

Ken albala, series editor

GreenWood Press

Westport, Connecticut • london

Henzelmann, Ursula

Food culture n Germany / Ursula Henzelmann

p cm — (Food culture around the world, ISSN 1545–2638)

Includes bblographcal references and ndex

ISBN-13: 978–0–313–34494–7 (alk paper)

1 Cookery, German 2 Food habts—Germany I Ttle

TX721.H453 2008

641.30943—dc22 2008007892

Brtsh Lbrary Catalogung n Publcaton Data s avalable.

Copyrght © 2008 by Ursula Henzelmann

All rghts reserved No porton of ths book may be

reproduced, by any process or technque, wthout the

express wrtten consent of the publsher.

Lbrary of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008007892

ISBN: 978–0–313–34494–7

ISSN: 1545–2638

Frst publshed n 2008

Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

An mprnt of Greenwood Publshng Group, Inc

www.greenwood.com

Prnted n the Unted States of Amerca

The paper used n ths book comples wth the

Permanent Paper Standard ssued by the Natonal

Informaton Standards Organzaton (Z39.48–1984).

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Illustratons by Gottfred Müller

The publsher has done ts best to make sure the nstructons and/or recpes n ths book are correct However, users should apply judgment and experence when preparng rec- pes, especally parents and teachers workng wth young people The publsher accepts no responsblty for the outcome of any recpe ncluded n ths volume.

v

series Foreword

The appearance of the Food Culture around the World seres marks a fntve stage n the maturaton of Food Studes as a dscplne to reach a wder audence of students, general readers, and foodes alke In compre-hensve nterdscplnary reference volumes, each on the food culture of a country or regon for whch nformaton s most n demand, a remarkable team of experts from around the world offers a deeper understandng and apprecaton of the role of food n shapng human culture for a whole new generaton I am honored to have been assocated wth ths project

de-as seres edtor

Each volume follows a seres format, wth a chronology of food-related dates and narratve chapters enttled Introducton, Hstorcal Overvew, Major Foods and Ingredents, Cookng, Typcal Meals, Eatng Out, Spe-cal Occasons, and Det and Health (In specal cases, these topcs are covered by regon.) Each also ncludes a glossary, bblography, resource gude, and llustratons

Fndng or growng food has of course been the major preoccupaton of our speces throughout hstory, but how varous peoples around the world learn to explot ther natural resources, come to esteem or shun specfc foods and develop unque cusnes reveals much more about what t s

to be human There s perhaps no better way to understand a culture, ts values, preoccupatons and fears, than by examnng ts atttudes toward food Food provdes the daly sustenance around whch famles and com-muntes bond It provdes the materal bass for rtuals through whch

v Seres Foreword

people celebrate the passage of lfe stages and ther connecton to

dvn-ty Food preferences also serve to separate ndvduals and groups from each other, and as one of the most powerful factors n the constructon of

dentty, we physcally, emotonally and sprtually become what we eat

By studyng the foodways of people dfferent from ourselves we also grow to understand and tolerate the rch dversty of practces around the world What seems strange or frghtenng among other people becomes perfectly ratonal when set n context It s my hope that readers wll gan from these volumes not only an aesthetc apprecaton for the glores of the many culnary tradtons descrbed, but also ultmately a more pro-found respect for the peoples who devsed them Whether t s eatng New Year’s dumplngs n Chna, foldng tamales wth frends n Mexco, or gong out to a famous Mcheln-starred restaurant n France, understand-

ng these food tradtons helps us to understand the people themselves

As globalzaton proceeds apace n the twenty-frst century t s also more mportant than ever to preserve unque local and regonal tradtons

In many cases these books descrbe ways of eatng that have already begun

to dsappear or have been serously transformed by modernty To know how and why these losses occur today also enables us to decde what trad-tons, whether from our own hertage or that of others, we wsh to keep alve These books are thus not only about the food and culture of peoples around the world, but also about ourselves and who we hope to be

Ken Albala University of the Pacific

Preface

I have been cookng and bakng snce before I could read and wrte

I was born n Berln n 1963 and absorbed a wde array of food nfluences from famly and frends Apprentcng as a chef, later takng on a restau-rant on Lake Constance, then tranng as a sommeler n Hedelberg and establshng a French cheese shop back n Berln all helped me develop

a deep understandng of the foodways of Germany and fnally resulted

n my swtch to food journalsm, wrtng, and hstory The famlar ways

at home were put nto perspectve by trps abroad, frst wth my parents and brothers to France and Scandnava, then on my own to the North Amercan East Coast More recently, I have contnued my culnary ex-ploratons wth trps to England as well as the North Amercan West Coast, Inda, Thaland, Australa, and New Zealand In every corner of the world, food has always been my lnk to people, to understand ther ways and ther lves Durng that tme, German food has changed mark-edly, and ts percepton abroad gradually followed sut

aCKnoWledGments

I am very grateful to Ken Albala, edtor for the Greenwood Press Food Culture around the World Seres, as well as Wend Schnaufer, senor ed-tor at Greenwood Press, for offerng me ths opportunty to pant a pcture

of contemporary German food culture Ths book would not have been wrtten wthout the background of the Oxford Symposum on Food and

x Preface

Cookery, to whch I was frst ntroduced by Harlan Walker n 2003 and whch I have been attendng ever snce It has developed nto my ntellec-tual home of gastronomy Here I met Barbara Ketcham Wheaton (“never confuse what s mentoned n cookbooks wth what people cook and eat

n realty!”), Darra Goldsten (who at our frst meetng trusted me enough

to commsson artcles for Gastronomica magazne), Wllam Rubel (who

has been the most nsprng food-frend ever snce), Susan Ross-Wlcox (a soulmate who sadly seems to have dsappeared from my lfe), and many others whom I would lke to thank for ther frendshp and assstance

My frend Ebba Drolshagen has proved to be the perfect Internet scout, often comng up wth exactly the rght bt of nformaton at the rght tme Rchard Hoskng not only made me aware of the exceptonal qualty of Köngsberg marzpan but also very patently corrected my Englsh text In the last stage of wrtng, Sabrna Small came along lke a foodwrter’s deus

ex machna and provded nvaluable nformaton She helped to make the fnal manuscrpt more frendly to Englsh speakers I am deeply ndebted

to all of them, but all errors n the fnshed book are entrely mne.Gottfred Müller oblgngly rose to the challenge to llustrate, n hs usual precse way, some less well-known aspects of German food culture Jan Schwochow and Katharna Erfurth from Golden Secton Graphcs n Berln expertly managed to put a seemngly mpossble wealth of nforma-ton onto the small map of Germany I very much apprecate ther help.However, wthout three people n partcular, I would have never been able to wrte ths book: Brgt Bessmann not only taught me Englsh and logcal thnkng at school but has become a dear frend and most nsprng crtc Stuart Pgott, my London-born husband, contnues to open new doors I dd not even know exsted nsde and around me And fnally my

mother, frst provder of food, love, and unwaverng loyalty—danke.

introduction

Food culture n Germany—where should one start? Wth the herrngs, sausages, sauerkraut, and Black Forest cherry gâteau clchés? Or, at the other extreme, wth the wdely consumed fast food from countless chans,

as ubqutous n Germany as n the rest of the Western world? For ths country east of France, west of Poland, north of Swtzerland, and south

of Denmark, the queston of natonal culnary dentty seems partcularly dffcult to answer

Food culture has been descrbed as the lnk between agrculture and nutrton Once prmarly defned by geography and clmate, over the ages

t has been shaped by language, relgon, culture, and economcs, thus revealng cultural and socal dfferences Snce the onset of ndustralza-ton, wth the ntroducton of modern food technology and transportaton (often descrbed by the somewhat vague term “globalzaton”), food can seem utterly detached from any partcular country or regon However, the noton of home strongly lnks t to partcular places, and ths s par-tcularly clear n the case of Germany

After World War II, several generatons of Germans (and others) were tryng to look n only one drecton: the future Some tred to forget what seemed unbearable (the Holocaust and other Naz crmes); others were smply tred of hearng the same stores about war, hunger, and hardshps agan and agan Even postwar generatons became fed up wth the two

nevtable comments that came up as soon as one revealed one’s alty abroad: sauerkraut and Adolf Htler Why couldn’t one be from a

naton-“normal” country wth food everybody adored, lke France?

x Introducton

But gradually, Germans have learned to lve wth and accept ther tory, even the most sour and unpalatable bts of t Normalty today—the normalty Germans craved so much n postwar tmes—does not mean suppressng what s btter or uncomfortable, qute the opposte Germany

hs-as a naton hhs-as grown up, and Germans are now able to explore and knowledge ther cultural dentty, the sol on whch they lve, the food that grows and s produced around them For some years now, tradtonal dshes have been redscovered and revved Untl recently they had seemed to

ac-be slowly transformng nto exhbts n a food museum, produced for

tour-sts, whle everyday people n Hamburg and Berln, Munch and Cologne

ate mozzarella and pzza, Döner Kebab, and poularde de Bresse A return

to regonalty has occurred, counteractng the effects of globalzaton and

ndustralzaton Because of ths and a host of new culnary tradtons, wrtng about food culture n Germany today, ncludng sauerkraut, s a very exctng task

Germany—on a geohstorcal level—s a land n the mddle of the ropean contnent, stuated between Slavs and Romans, cold and heat, sea and mountans In the course of hstory t has been enormously nfluenced

Eu-from all sdes—one could even say t s composed of those nfluences Thus,

to understand the past, whch forms the background of all ths meetng, jonng, meltng, s to understand the reasons for what and how people n Germany eat today

Unlke, for nstance, ts neghbor France, Germany has no sngle tonal, overarchng haute cusne, not even a natonal dsh lke Brazl’s

na-feijoada Although Germany s not a partcularly large country (n terms of

land area, t s slghtly smaller than Montana, and ts populaton s between

a quarter and a thrd of that of the Unted States), ts culture s complex In addton to geographc, clmatc, and relgous reasons, ths s manly due

to mgratons throughout hstory, wth new peoples brngng ther foods and foodways wth them, as well as the fact that untl the declaraton of the German empre n 1871, Germany was composed of countless small

ndvdual kngdoms, fefdoms, and free ctes Ths made for a varety of regonal cusnes

When ndustralzaton reached Germany around 1850 (compared wth almost a century earler n England), the effects were far-reachng In the process, agraran Germany was quckly and thoroughly urbanzed and came to rely more and more on “modern” food ndustres As nneteenth-century ndustralzaton gave way to twenteth- and twenty-frst-century globalzaton, German food culture shfted once more to contend wth worldwde food trends Despte heated debates about the rghts and wrongs

of fast food versus “real” food, world cusne versus “home-style” regonal

cookng, food scares, and one of the hghest standards of lvng worldwde, culnary Germany today seems to have returned to a more balanced nor-malty Ths s also reflected n the new turn ts wne ndustry has taken, uplfted by the fresh energy of a young generaton of wnegrowers from prevously overlooked regons.

Because ths book s about food culture in Germany, German emgrants

can only be brefly mentoned Slesan Lutherans, for nstance, brought poppy seed dshes to South Australa n the 1840s, just as North Amer-can beer brewng owes a lot to ts German roots—thnk of Budweser, brewed by the Anheuser famly Pennsylvana Dutch (“Dutch” s derved

from deutsch, that s, German, not from the Netherlands) cusne reflects

the hstorc cookng styles of the regons along the Rhne It has been sad that the only marked non-Brtsh early nfluence on whte Amercan cu-sne was German More than 50 German-language cookbooks appeared

n the Unted States between the mddle of the nneteenth century and

World War I, one of the most mportant undoubtedly beng the Practical

Cookbook by Henrette Davds.1

Especally n New York Cty, where German mmgrants had settled gnnng n the early days when t was stll called New Amsterdam, nfluxes

be-of German mgraton have shaped Amercan cusne The bggest wave be-of German mmgrants arrved n the 1840s and 1850s Some of them were Jews, and ther food culture later mxed wth that of the eastern European Jews who arrved n the 1880s But the cultures had mxed before Just as Yddsh, the Ashkenaz-Jewsh lngua franca (note that Ashkenaz means

“German” n Hebrew), orgnated as a thrteenth-century southern man dalect and took on ts present form n eastern Europe, where many Jews from the Rhne and Elbe regons had fled, Ashkenaz-Jewsh cusne mxed German and eastern European elements and adapted them to the detary laws of the kashruth.2

Ger-Ths partcular mx of German, Jewsh, and Yddsh cultures resulted

n what today has come to be regarded as archetypcal New York fare: pastram, chopped lver and lox, hot dogs, pumpernckel, corned beef,

and sour dll pckles Although the -essen n delicatessen does not seem

to derve from the German verb essen (to eat), as t etymologcally nated n the French délicat/délicatesse (delcate, exquste/delcacy), the

org-New York shops under that name were orgnally German Apart from fne groceres, they offered all knds of take-out food and often ncluded a restaurant Delcatessen came to stand above all for beef-based products,

n contrast to dary- and fsh-centered “appetzer” shops and restaurants The mportance of these roots for wder whte Amercan food culture can hardly be overstated

For Germans born after World War II, to walk nto any of these New York dels s to dscover a food world that s at once famlar—the salted “Dutch” herrng, pckles, smoked fsh, rye bread, and challah—and unfamlar—the matzo ball soup, knshes, geflte fsh, balys, and rugaluch It forms a facet of German food culture that today can almost exclusvely be experenced on the North Amercan contnent, as t s nearly mperceptble n Germany tself Some of t, lke bagels wth cream cheese and lox, has been “re-mported” to contemporary Ger-many as typcal Amercan food (although hardly anybody here knows the true salted lox, wth whch ths combnaton makes real sense; n-stead, smoked salmon s used) A lot has survved on Amercan ground precsely because t came to be seen as Jewsh, as opposed to German.Drawng on a wde range of sources as well as my 45 years of hands-on

experence as a Berln-born foode, Food Culture in Germany attempts to

present Germany’s food culture n all ts countless varatons It hopes to make sense of how German food s lnked to New York dels, as well as

ncorporatng French, Italan, Turksh, Russan, and many other ences Despte ths fracturng, I beleve German food frmly stands ts own ground There s more than herrng, sauerkraut, and fast food to modern

nflu-German cusne—guten Appetit!

notes

1 The followng reprnt of ths cookbook gong back to 1879 ncludes a very good ntroducton on the subject and offers a fascnatng nsght nto the food habts of one of Amerca’s largest mmgrant groups as well as an Englsh-German

lst of ktchen-related vocabulary of the tme: Henrette Davds, Pickled

Her-ring and Pumpkin Pie: A Nineteenth-Century Cookbook for German Immigrants to America (1904; rpt., Madson, WI: Max Kade Insttute, 2003).

2 For an ntroducton to the subject as well as a wealth of recpes, see Clauda

Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the

Pres-ent Day (London: Pengun, 1999).

timeline

Prehistory Skulls are used as communal drnkng vessels n the ear-

(before lest Paleolthc perod

10,000 b c ) Freplaces are used n caves or smple tents.

The gatherng of mushrooms, berres, nuts, roots, and plants

s a common way of fndng food

Huntng becomes a means of fndng food

Mesolithic Advances n fshng help to ncrease the varety of hu-

(c 10,000– Bolng food becomes an alternatve to roastng

c 5,000 b c )

Neolithic The frst settlements wth permanent dwellngs are estab-

(c 5,000– The cultvaton of plants s establshed n addton to gather-

c 3,000 b c ) ng; two of the man crops are Einkorn and Emmer.

Smple flat breads baked n subterranean dome-shaped ovens become an alternatve to gruel

The domestcaton of pgs, cattle, goats, and sheep begns

c 3,000– Copper and bronze are worked nto weapons and tools

Dary farmng s ntroduced.

A rulng class forms as they create separate settlements for themselves

51 b c Roman troops under Julus Caesar advance up to the Rhne,

brngng a monetary system, wrtng system, and state system

to the southwest of modern Germany The Romans also troduce vtculture

n-c 100 a d Roman wrter Tactus descrbes Germanc trbes n hs

Ger-mania as wld barbarans survvng on unhung fresh game, a

thn, ale-lke fermented beverage, and curdled mlk

371 Roman poet Ausonus frst descrbes vtculture n the

Mo-selle Valley n hs poem Mosella.

476 Germanc troops nvade Rome; cultures mngle through

com-plex mgratons all across Europe followng the collapse of the Roman Empre

736 Benedctne mssonary Bonface prohbts the eatng of

horsemeat

787 Charlemagne ssues the Capitulare de Villis, an nventory and

set of rules for the management of hs estates, emphaszng huntng, mostly a royal prvlege, and agrculture, leadng to

a general det based more on grans and vegetables

9th century The three-feld system slowly spreads n Germany; summer

and wnter grans are rotated wth root crops and fallow,

mak-ng for hgher crop yelds Ths remans the norm untl t s gven up n the eghteenth and nneteenth centures n favor

of clover and potato cultvaton

817 The frst record of vtculture n the Rhengau regon for a

hllsde that today belongs to the Schloß Johannsberg estate

843 Charlemagne’s kngdom s splt n three parts that correspond

roughly to modern Germany, France, and, n the center, Alsace/Lorrane

Wth the dmnshng nfluence of the Holy Roman Emperor over the followng centures, a multtude of kngdoms, fef-doms, and free ctes become ever stronger

Expanson and Chrstanzaton progress eastward

956 Lüneburg s offcally recognzed for ts saltworks (followed by

Rechenhall n 1163 and Halle n 1177)

1040 The monastery of Wehenstephan near Munch receves

brewng rghts

11th century Hops begn to be used for beer producton

Brewng slowly moves out of ndvdual homes to become an

ndustry organzed n gulds

1178 The word Weihnachten, n the form wihe nacht (Chrstmas), s

frst used

1240 The frst recorded trade far n Frankfurt am Man takes

place

1272 The bakers’ guld n Berln s founded, whch requres a

bak-ng test for potental members

Baked goods n Berln begn sellng at a fxed prce

1329 The frst recorded menton of Christstollen (Chrstmas yeast

cake) s found n Naumburg/Saale near Lepzg

1341 The frst recorded carnval parade n Cologne, whch goes

back to Saturnala n connecton wth the worshp of a late Roman goddess of shppng and fertlty, takes place

1348 The frst German unversty s founded n Prague, begnnng

the emergence of educated classes as a thrd power besdes church and state

1348–49 The Plague (Black Death) reduces the European populaton

by a thrd

c 1350 The oldest German cookbook, Daz buch von guter spise (The

Book of Good Food) s thought to have orgnated durng ths tme

There s a rsng awareness of regonal dfferences n food

1356 Hanse trade organzaton founded by northern German

ctes as the counterpart to the southern German trade companes

15th century The patrcan famly Fugger of Augsburg bulds elaborate

trade systems wth the South and Orent through Venetan and Arab traders

Fuggers becomes the most mportant European banker and

mports spces from East Inda by sea

1435 The Reslng grape s recorded for the frst tme at

Rüs-selshem, near the eastern end of the Rhengau regon

xv Tmelne

1437 After devastatng frosts, vtculture n Germany recedes

south, whch untl then had been common as far north as East Prussa

1485 The frst prnted German cookbook, the Kuchen maysterey, s

publshed n Nuremberg

1516 The German Reinheitsgebot (purty law) for beer orgnates

n a Bavaran law only allowng Hopfen (hops), Gerstenmalz (barley malt), and Wasser (water) n beer producton.

1517 Theologan Martn Luther’s declaraton of Protestant theses

aganst the Catholc church provokes dvson of faths and mgratons across Europe, eventually leadng to the Thrty Years’ War (1618–48), furtherng the separaton of Austra from Germany, and accentuatng food dfferences between north and south

1539 As a result of a ban on brewng beer durng the summer

be-cause of fre rsk, beer gardens around Munch become lar as brewers start to sell a specal beer brewed n March drectly from ther premses

popu-The frst Chrstmas tree n Strasbourg cathedral s recorded

1573 The frst German sugar refnery s establshed n Augsburg

16th century Lemons, caulflower, savoy cabbage, and salad are ntroduced

from Italy

Buckwheat s ntroduced from Russa, possbly lnked to the

mportant cattle mports comng from there

In arstocratc crcles, nfluences from Polsh, Boheman, and Turksh cusne jon those from Italy and Span

1580 French phlosopher and poltcan Mchel de Montagne

passes through Lndau on Lake Constance and remarks vorably on the cookng

fa-Dutch weavers settle n the Spreewald area southeast of ln and start cultvatng cucumbers

Ber-1581 Marx Rumpolt publshes what s probably the frst German

potato recpe n hs Ein New Kochbuch, the frst prnted gude

for professonal cooks, but the new crop catches on very slowly

1609 The frst regular weekly newspapers appear n Augsburg and

Strasbourg

1679 The frst German coffeehouse opens n Hamburg and

al-though very expensve, coffee proves hghly popular among all classes

1685 Persecuted French Huguenots are welcomed n Prussan

Ber-ln followng the abolton of Edct of Nantes

1688 The frst monovaretal Reslng vneyard s recorded n

Ger-many, the Löhrer Berg n the Nahe regon, whch belonged

to the bshop of Manz at the tme

1710 Kng August the Strong of Saxony sets up porcelan

manufac-ture n Meßen

1720 Prussan Kng Frederck Wllam I ntroduces potato

cult-vaton n Brandenburg Later on hs son Frederck II (the Great) heavly promotes the same

1726 The frst menton of the vneyard ste on a German wne

label (Marcobrunn of Erbach/Rhengau) s recorded

1751 A huge wne barrel s bult n Hedelberg, contanng about

58,653 gallons

1755 The last wld Wisent (local bson) s shot n East Prussa.

1770 The frst coffee surrogate s produced from roasted chcory

root

1771–72 Famnes caused by bad gran harvests make for the rapd

spread of potato cultvaton, frst as poor person’s food and anmal feed, but soon also leadng to the producton of nex-pensve sprts

1775 At Schloß Johannsberg/Rhengau, fnal proof s procured

that better-qualty wne results from late pckng, endng long dsputes on ths matter

1797 Soup ktchens servng Rumford soup are set up n Munch

for poor people By 1800 there are also soup ktchens n Berln

from 1803 on Under Napoleonc nfluence, the wdespread secularzaton

of church property begns The property s splt up among German rulers as compensaton for the losses caused by the French annexatons on left sde of the Rhne Ths, n tan-dem wth the geographc reshufflng after Napoleon’s defeat

n Russa, leads to the end of extreme terrtoral ton n Germany

fragmenta-from 1804 on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe regularly has hs frend Carl

Fredrch Zelter, the composer and founder of the Berln Choral Academy, send hm bushels of Teltow turnps n Wemar

1806–13 The Contnental System (Napoleon’s trade embargo aganst

England), ndrectly leads to the nventon of mock turtle

xx Tmelne

soup n German Lower Saxony, where a rch peasant’s cook

s sad to replace the embargoed turtle meat wth a calf’s head

so as to serve her master’s favorte dsh

1810 The frst freedom of trade s decreed and a general trade tax

s ntroduced n Prussa, allowng new structures and free change between ctes and countrysde

ex-The frst Oktoberfest, or Wiesn, takes place n Munch on the

occason of the Bavaran crown prnce marryng Prncess

Therese The celebraton ncludes a horserace on the

There-sienwiese.

1811 Almost all Rhengau vneyards are pcked late; the wnes of

ths Jahrhundertjahrgang (vntage of the century, also called

Kometenwein) make for a quantum leap n German wnes’

n-ternatonal reputaton

1812 Jewsh emancpaton declared by Prussan decree

1815 Congress of Venna followng defeat of Napoleon leads to

a Germany composed more or less of the Länder (states) of

today (although Slesa and East and West Prussa today are part of the Czech Republc and Poland, respectvely, whereas the Saar regon back then belonged to France)

1818 Berln’s frst Lese-Conditorei (lterally, readng pastry shop,

where patrons could read newspapers whle havng coffee and cake) opens

1822 Karl Fredrch von Rumohr’s Geist der Kochkunst (The

Es-sence of Cookery) s publshed

1823 Frst Rosenmontag (lterally, Rose Monday, the Monday

be-fore Ash Wednesday) parade takes place n Cologne

1827 Karl Baedeker establshes a publshng house for travel

books

1833 Berln café Kranzler offers the cty’s frst smokng room

1839 The frst German long-dstance ralway (Dresden to Lepzg)

opens; mddle classes ncreasngly take to travelng by ral.Frst German chocolate factory opens n Cologne

1843 Frst German jam factory opens n Dresden

1845 Frst edton of Henrette Davds’s hugely popular Praktisches

Kochbuch (Practcal cookbook) s publshed; thereafter,

nu-merous new edtons appear untl 1963

1848 General socal unrest leads to a revoluton and the abolton

of all feudal laws

1851 Frst Chrstmas trees arrve by ralway n Berln.

1860 Gas for lghtng and cookng arrves n German households

(runnng water does not become wdely avalable untl the begnnng of the twenteth century)

1862 Kempnsk Wenstube opens on Fredrchstraße n Berln

1864 The foundng of Schrebergärten-Vereine (assocaton of

allot-ments/communty garden owners) n Lepzg

The frst commercal producton of Lebg’s meat extract appears

1871 Foundaton of German Empre wth the captal n Berln and

Prussan Kng Wllam I as emperor follows vctory n the Franco-German war

Germany has 41 mllon nhabtants (n 1841, 33 mllon, n

1933, 66 mllon)

State decree allows free movement and settlement for all German ctzens, makng possble huge mgratons followng new ndustres, manly toward the west and south

1872 Krebspest, a crayfsh dsease, destroys all German freshwater

crayfsh

1874 Frst refrgeraton machne developed by Carl von Lnde;

combned wth rapdly expandng ralway system, ths leads

to wder food dstrbuton

1879 Frst state legslaton and nspectons ntroduced for mlk,

beer, and meat

Frst German market hall opens n Frankfurt am Man

1887 The general pasteurzaton of mlk s ntroduced

1888 Wllam II (“Kaser Bll”), grandson of Wllam I, becomes

Kaser, leadng to a rse n natonalsm and neobaroque pomp

as well as aggressve global poltcs

1889 Kneipp-Kaffee, a coffee surrogate made from roasted malted

barley, s produced commercally for the frst tme

1892 The last German cholera epdemc n Hamburg

The frst German wne law seeks to combat Kunstwein

(artf-cal wne), but nstead acheves the opposte

early 1890s frst cannng factory for sausages n Frankfurt am Man

opens

xx Tmelne

1895–1915 German wnes are hghly esteemed nternatonally and

frequently more expensve than those from top Bordeaux châteaus

1898 Deutscher LandFrauenverband (German Countrywomen’s

So-cety) founded n East Prussa

1901 The term Naturwein (natural wne) s ntroduced, referrng to

a monovaretal wne wth natural alcohol content and from a sngle vneyard and vntage

1902 State law for compulsory nspecton of all slaughtered pork

for trchnoss s ntroduced

1907 German grocery stores form the shoppng cooperatve Edeka

(today a supermarket chan)

1908 Frst Magg soup stock cubes ntroduced to the publc

1909 Sektsteuer (sparklng wne tax) ntroduced to fnance natonal

fleet, whch s stll n place today

Legal protecton of vneyard names s ntroduced, now ted to actual geographc locatons

1914 Sterle fltraton s developed to supply solders wth clean

drnkng water

1916 Durng World War I, food ratonng starts wth meat, ntally

at 0.55 lb weekly per person

1916–17 Rübenwinter: very severe cold wnter temperatures combned

wth nsuffcent food provsons (due to the faled potato crop and general unpreparedness for the long war) neces-state that rutabagas (swedes), untl then consdered cattle feed, are eaten as a last, scarce resort

1918 The concept of equal rghts s ntroduced, wth women

gan-ng the rght to vote as well as elgblty for poltcal offce However, household work remans ther unpad, legal duty, and husbands are stll seen as provders who rule over any legal and fnancal decsons

1919 Treaty of Versalles s mposed followng German defeat n

World War I; the vctors demand very hgh reparaton ments as well as the return of Alsace and Lorrane to France

pay-1922 Gummibärchen (gummy bears) nvented n Bonn.

1923–24 Wth nflaton, a large part of the mddle class loses ther

sav-ngs or becomes mpovershed

1925 Das Reformhaus, a monthly newspaper promotng a healthy

lfe-style, s frst publshed as part of the Lebensreform movement

that began as a counterreacton to ndustralzaton, advocatng natural food and lfestyle snce 1860s.

1926 Frankfurter Küche desgned by Vennese archtect Margarete

Schütte-Ltotzky, commssoned by Frankfurt cty councl for new apartments

1927 Frst general German food law s enacted

1928 Die Ernährung nutrton show s n Berln.

1930 Electrcty arrves n German households

Offcal legslaton accepts technologcal progress n the form

of sterle fltraton for wne, whch leads to the producton of

Süßreserve (sterle, fltered grape juce used to sweeten wne)

and stopped wne fermentaton, resultng n sweet wnes;

both methods are legally accepted for Naturwein.

1932 Sterlzaton method for pckled cucumbers s ntroduced,

en-ablng ndustral-scale producton of Spreewald pckles and shpments over longer dstances

Ffty-two percent of fat used n Germany s mported

1933 Adolf Htler s elected chancellor; sx months later Germany

becomes a one-party state

Emgraton numbers jump up; about half the Jewsh laton (about a half mllon n 1933) emgrate by 1939;

popu-ncludng many leadng artsts, engneers, scentsts, and tcans

pol-1935 Naz Hermann Görng s made Reichsjägermeister (the Rech’s

huntng master)

1936 Germany revves whalng ndustry n search of self-

suffcency

November 9, On Reichskristallnacht (nght of the broken glass), the per-

1938 secuton of Jews by the Naz dctatorshp enters ts savage

phase Jewsh emgraton accelerates Durng the followng sx and a half years, Germany systematcally eradcates al-most all ts Jewsh populaton, and wth t a vtal facet of ts culnary dentty

1939 The nvason of Poland by German troops leads to the

begn-nng of World War II

Untl the German defeat n sprng 1945 the cvlan ton s provded wth food partly through the radng of n-vaded countres

popula-xxv Tmelne

Raton cards for food and clothng are ntroduced

One thousand nne hundred fve mles of Autobahn

(hgh-way) are fnshed, wth 1,149 more under constructon

1945–46 A hunger wnter; for the urban populaton of Germany the

food supply remans erratc untl 1949–50

1946 Amercan CARE parcels sent to Germany

1947 Black market prces n Berln: 20 Amercan cgarettes, 150

Rechsmark (RM); 2.2 lb coffee, 1,100 RM; 1 egg, 12 RM;

1 box of matches, 5 RM

Setz of Bad Kreuznach/Nahe launches the frst affordable

sterle flter, enablng the Süße Welle, a wave of sweet

Ger-man wne whch quckly grows n scale after 1960

1948 Deutschmark (DM) ntroduced by Western Alled forces,

1 DM = 1 RM (n 1950 1 DM n West Germany corresponds

to about 5 Mark n East Germany)

The frst state-run HO-grocery stores open n East Berln and East Germany (n 1950 prvate stores are down to 52%)

June 1948– Sovet blockade of West Berln, wth cty survvng thanks to

May 1949 Luftbrücke (arlft) Food and coal s flown n by so-called

Rosi-nenbomber (lterally, rasn bombers), Western Alled planes

land up to every 3 mnutes On the busest day 896 planes fly

n about 7,716 tons of goods; n total 274,718 flghts cover almost 100 mllon mles and brng n over 2.2 mllon tons of supples

May 1949 Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republc of Germany, or

West Germany) founded

Onset of Wirtschaftswunder (economc mracle), whch lasts

untl 1967, the frst year of zero growth of the gross natonal product

1949 Deutscher Hausfrauen-Bund (German Housewves’ Allance)

founded

September 4, Ths day s commonly beleved to be the date of nventon of

1949 the Currywurst (curred sausage) by a certan Herta Heuwer

at her food stall on the Kantstrasse n Berln However, some clam Hamburg and an earler date n 1947 as the startng pont for ths hghly popular snack

October 1949 Foundng of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German

Democratc Republc, or East Germany) In East Germany equal rghts for women are part of the consttuton from the start: “Through the Republc’s rghts the necessary nsttutons

wll be created whch guarantee that a woman can reconcle her tasks as ctzen and worker wth her dutes as woman and mother” (paragraph 18).

1950 Food ratonng and prce controls are abolshed n West

Ger-many, endng the black market

1951 A West German worker needs to work 240 mnutes to buy

2.2 lb butter, an Amercan needs to work only 68 mnutes

1952 There are now 200,000 tractors n Germany (n 1949, 75,000)

and 1.36 mllon horses (n 1950, 1.57 mllon)

1953 Long-dstance water ppes are bult from Lake Constance to

Stuttgart to satsfy ncreasng water needs

1954 Brtsh chan Wimpy ntroduces West Germans to hamburgers.

1955 Frst Wienerwald opens n Munch, a fast-growng chan of

take-out food outlets sellng grlled chcken It also doubles as

a famly restaurant

West Germany becomes a member of NATO

Consumers strke because of rsng mlk prces

Levels of unemployment n West Germany reach ther lowest snce the war (about 495,000 people are unemployed n West Germany and 115,900 n West Berln)

1952 Frst German pzzera, Sabbe d Capr, opens n Würzburg

June 17, 1953 Workers’ revolt n East Berln s put down by Sovet tanks

1955 The frst Italan guest workers arrve n Germany

1958 Food journalst Wolfram Sebeck wrtes hs frst artcles n

the magazne Twen.

East Germany abolshes food ratonng (although t s partly rentroduced n 1961)

The restructurng of West German food law ntroduces bans and requres labelng of addtves

1959 The begnnng of the European Common Market

August 13, East Germany bulds the Berln Wall, sealng off West Berln

1961

1963 Mlk prce ncreases n West Germany

Followng the example of the Unted States, the frst png centers and supermarkets open n West Germany

shop-1969 West German labor market reaches a record hgh wth only

861,000 vacances, more than 1.5 mllon foregn workers, and 0.5% unemployment

Germany’s frst McDonald’s opens n Munch.

The new German wne law, a so-called modernzaton, ables mass producton and the marketng of wnes under the famous vneyard names of neghborng vllages (so-called

en-Großlagen).

1972 Frst German food magazne for the general publc, the monthly

essen & trinken (eatng and drnkng), begns publcaton.

1973 Ol crss shakes West Germans’ belef n unlmted

technol-ogy-based progress

Because of the energy crss, recrutment of foregn workers stops (then about 2.6 mllon n West Germany, of whom about 0.5 mllon are Turksh)

The legal blood alcohol lmt for drvng set to 0.8 per thousand

Trimm Dich-Bewegung (offcal ftness campagn) ncreases

the popularty of hkng

mid-1970s Oyster farmng rentroduced to sland of Sylt

1975 Nonsmokers start to be respected n publc gatherngs and

spaces

1977 Through legal reforms n West Germany, male domnance

s replaced by the prncple of partnershp, and a marred woman no longer needs permsson from her husband to take

a pad job outsde the household

The end of the fshng treaty wth Iceland leads to fsh cty n West Germany

scar-West German sparklng wne consumpton has quadrupled snce 1957 to more than 7.4 pnts per capta

1978 Bonn restaurateur Karl Henz Wolf starts hs frm Rungs-

Express, regularly mportng French gourmet food products from the Pars wholesale market and dstrbutng them among hs colleagues n Germany

West German narcotcs law strctly lmts poppy (papaver

somniferum L.) cultvaton to scentfc purposes; any poppy

seeds for culnary purposes are mported, mostly from Turkey, later also from Austra and Hungary

1979 Eckart Wtzgmann becomes the frst chef n Germany wth

three Mcheln stars

1980 The poltcal party Die Grünen (the Greens) founded.

Record hgh of alcohol consumpton n West Germany most 27 pnts per capta per year); 1.5 mllon people are est-mated to be alcoholcs

(al-1981 Commercal use of Waldmeister (woodruff) offcally banned

because of rsk of toxcty from ts cumarn content

Food-related economy s the strongest ndustry n West many, wth 140 bllon DM (n 1970, 66 bllon)

Ger-West German potato producton down to 8.37 mllon tons (from 27 mllon n 1953)

1984 West German parlament decdes on “mlk penson” to

em-1985 Meat consumpton n West Germany stands at 221.6 lb per

capta per year (n 1960, 143.3 lb.)

A wne scandal breaks out when dethylene glycol s found n Austran (and subsequently German) wnes

1986 The cost of lvng n West Germany s lower than n prevous

year for the frst tme snce 1949 (by 0.2%)

Nuclear catastrophe n Chernobyl n the Ukrane provokes lastng anxety among Germans; consumers are concerned about the safety of mlk, wld mushrooms, and frut as well as game meat

1987 European law forces Germany to open ts market to foregn

beer not brewed accordng to Reinheitsgebot.

In November the frst reports about bovne spongform cephalopathy (BSE) n the Unted Kngdom reach Germany

en-1988 The use of growth hormones n meat producton banned n

Germany

November 9, Followng months of socal unrest and demonstratons n

1989 East Germany (most mportantly the

Montagsdemonstra-tionen [Monday demonstratons] n Lepzg), the Berln

Wall falls, nternal German border opens, and untold

xxv Tmelne

thousands of East Germans pour over the border for a taste

of the West

1990 A German health nspector dscovers frst ndcatons of BSE

n Germany but loses her job after she reports her fndngs to the publc

On October 3, German reunfcaton s declared, wth Berln

as the captal

1993 Frst good vntage for East German wne regons followng

reunfcaton

1996 Dresdner Christstollen (Chrstmas yeast cake from Dresden)

recognzed wth a European Unon Protected Geographcal Indcaton (PGI) seal

1997 Preemptve cullngs of cattle for fear of BSE take place n

Germany, wth government offcals nsstng that Germany

s BSE-free and at no rsk

1999 European PGI seal granted to pckled Spreewald cucumbers

2000 Germany has to admt ts frst offcal BSE case, whch s

fol-lowed by a total ban on usng meat and bone meal for anmal feed, as well as natonwde tests of all anmals slaughtered at under 24 months of age

Frst sgns that a new generaton of wnegrowers s tonzng German wne, wth whole regons comng out of the shadows (Rhensh Hessa, Francona)

revolu-2001 Because of the BSE crss and the rresponsble handlng of

t, several mnsters have to leave offce, and Renate Künast

(of Die Grünen) takes over as Federal Mnster for Nutrton,

Agrculture, and Forestry, whch was subsequently re-named the Mnstry for Consumer Protecton, Nutrton, and Agr-culture; she helps organc products acheve wder acceptance, leadng to the frst organc supermarkets

January 1, New European currency, the Euro, ntroduced n Germany

2002

2004 Stargarder Land north of Berln s declared an offcally

rec-ognzed German wne regon

2005 Frst Gammelfleisch (lterally, rotten meat) dscovered at a

German wholesaler, then natonwde

2006 Angela Merkel elected chancellor; she s the frst woman and

the frst East German to hold the job

September 1, Smokng n publc spaces banned by federal law

2007

or-to about a century earlier in England), the effects were far-reaching In the process agrarian Germany was quickly and thoroughly urbanized and came to rely more and more on “modern” food industries.

Origins

The further one goes back in time, the more difficult it is to separate specifically the area that is Germany today from the development of cen-tral Europe in general In fact, not until the eleventh century did anyone eating and drinking between the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Alps refer

to themselves as German at all

 Food Culture in Germany

Apart from some human skulls that have been found, which were ably used as communal drinking vessels, very little is known from before the Paleolithic period about humans in this region The vessels belonged

prob-to Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (Neanderthals), named after the

loca-tion near Düsseldorf where archaeologists first found their traces They apparently had fireplaces in their caves or simple tents, collected all kinds

of mushrooms, berries, nuts, roots, and plants, and hunted reindeer, elk, bear, wild horse, bison, mammoth, rhinoceros, wild donkey, and deer.Around 0,000 b.c the method of boiling food became an alternative

to roasting: smallish holes in the ground were sealed and filled with water, which was then heated by adding hot stones from the fire—the first soups might have been eaten using this technique At around the same time advances were made in fishing

During the Neolithic period Middle Europeans started to settle down, build permanent dwellings, and cultivate crops instead of merely collect-

ing plants The main crops were two primitive wheat varieties, Einkorn and Emmer (both of which are seeing a revival today within the organic

movement) Grain was dried for better conservation, then ground and baked into simple flat breads in subterranean dome-shaped ovens The

ancient meal of Grütze (gruel), however, continued to play an important

role—in certain rural areas it continued as a typical dish up until the twentieth century Peas and lentils were cultivated, as were linseed and poppy seed for oil Pigs, cattle, goats, and sheep were kept near the dwell-ings and regularly slaughtered Around 4,000 b.c naked barley and dwarf

wheat yielded more reliable crops New baking and roasting methods

be-came possible during this period because of advances in pottery

However, the most important changes of the Neolithic era came with the ability to work metal—first copper and bronze, then, beginning around

800 b.c., iron This happened several thousand years after the same opment in Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers With more effective weapons and tools made from metal, cultivation was easier and more efficient, enabling higher crop yields Sourdough from finely ground, bran-free grain was used to make bread Meat was preserved by smoking, and at the same time chicken, goose, and duck became part of the protein menu In addition to apples, pears, plums, and sweet cher-ries were cultivated more easily With improved animal husbandry, milk began to play a more important role as well New trades and trading goods developed, which increased commerce and enabled the birth of a ruling class who did not cultivate their fields themselves These elite members

devel-of society lived in separate settlements and might have enjoyed different foodways as well

rOmans and germans

The military advances of Julius Caesar and his Roman troops into Gallic territory and up to the Rhine (5 b.c.) brought a monetary system, writing system, and state system to what is now southwestern Germany The Ro-mans were unable to realize their plans to push the border of their empire all the way to the river Elbe due to their inability to conquer the people living there The belligerent Nordic tribes continually tried to enter Gaul from across the Rhine These tribes, which included the Angles, Saxons, Vandals, Goths, Franks, Teutons, and Swabians, to name only a few, were known as “Germans,” a word the Romans adopted from the Gauls (the

“French” Celts) Julius Caesar correspondingly called the area beyond the

Rhine and the Danube Germania—but these Germans were not aware of

themselves as such

The Roman historian Tacitus (c a.d 55–c 5), in his work

Ger-mania, provides the only written evidence of the food habits of these

“wild” German tribes He was mostly interested in showing his nate, degenerate compatriots an unspoiled, naturally strong people Ac-cording to Tacitus the Germans survived on wild fruits, game meat that was fresh and had not been hung (a serious sign of lack of civilization from

effemi-a Romeffemi-an point of view), effemi-and leffemi-ac concretum (curdled milk or queffemi-ark) Pigs

fattened in the oak woods, as well as fish, certainly played an important

role in the German diet but were not discussed in Germania However,

Tacitus does mention the cultivation of fields and a wine-like beverage made from fermented barley

Clean, fresh water was a precious commodity at that time, especially in larger cities The Romans built long and costly aqueducts Cologne from the first century a.d was supplied with water from the Eiffel Mountains about 56 miles away Viticulture made significant progress in the Roman territories In contrast with today’s preferences, wine was often mixed with spices, honey, or resin For the lower classes, vinegar was mixed with water,

or Lora was made by soaking skins and seeds in water, producing a drink

that was only slightly alcoholic but at least somewhat lower in germs The

latter was also true for beer, a kind of ale made from barley or Emmer.

During the complex migrations all over Europe from the end of the fourth century on, various Germanic tribes were pushed west by the Huns, who were followed by Slavs The more rustic culinary habits of the east met the gourmet world of sophisticated Romans like Decimus Magnus Ausonius (c 30–c 394), a Roman patrician from Aquitaine living in Trier who described the wealth in fish and wine along the Moselle River

in his poem Mosella (written in 37).

4 Food Culture in Germany

The immoderate consumption of their simple alcoholic brew, according

to Tacitus, ought to have made it easy for the Roman troops to conquer the uncivilized Germans Actually the opposite happened Some of the belligerent “Barbars” who constantly pushed over the Limes, the border wall the Romans had built to protect their empire, had been allowed to serve as border troops, as well as being granted Roman citizenship Even-tually, they deposed the ever-weaker emperor (a.d 476) and took over Traditional ways of trading, food culture, commerce practices, and related social rules perished with the fall of the Roman Empire In addition, cli-matic conditions worsened

agriculture and Hunting under cHarlemagne

during tHe middle ages

The Frankish Carolingian king Charlemagne (747–84) sought to reunify the vast Holy Roman Empire, which stretched from the Pyr-enees south to Rome and north to Denmark, including all of France and almost all Germanic kingdoms and duchies The territory reached the Elbe and Saale rivers in the east, as well as the borders of the “pagan” Slav kingdoms

At the same time he sought to build up the economy With the

Ca-pitulare de Villis, an inventory of his estates, Charlemagne issued precise

rules on all aspects of agriculture for the running of the royal estates

A shared meal had strong symbolic meanings under his reign, often ing the place of today’s written and signed treaties The turbulent early Middle Ages, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, had led to a relapse toward hunting and gathering for common people Hunting, however, was very important to Charlemagne His primary aim was to protect game,

tak-the object of his passion The Capitulare Missorum (80) elevated royal

hunting rights over individual hunting rights The high status venison enjoys in Germany today can be traced back to these hunting laws Under Roman law hunting had not been regulated But with Charlemagne the

Wald (wood) became Forst (managed forest), and its use was determined

by royal decree rather than by legal ownership Even woods held nally could be reclaimed for the king’s hunting enjoyment, and common folk were required to provide hunting services to the king, such as the maintenance of the royal hunting grounds and the keeping of hunting dogs for the king’s use

commu-Social differentiation was clearly mirrored in food practices Higher status was defined in terms of the quantity of meat one could consume However, under Charlemagne grains and vegetables came to play a more

important role Especially in the north, new grains such as oats, millet, and rye (the latter formerly regarded as a weed) had joined the various kinds

of wheat and barley As for meat, beef gained in popularity over pork Fish played a role as well, but the well-managed carp ponds of Roman times only lived on in monasteries The same was true for the abundant use of herbs: sage, fennel, chervil, pennyroyal, lovage, mint, and celery are still familiar today, but monasteries also cultivated more exotic-sounding va-rieties such as horehound, rue, catnip, asafoetida, agrimony, betony, and wormwood Walahfrid Strabo’s poem (written in 87) on the cultivation

of gardens at his abbey on the island of Reichenau is even more telling

in terms of German food culture of that time than the often quoted plan

of the St Gall kitchen garden published in 80 (although Reichenau is admittedly on the southern edge of Germany and very much favored by the special climate of Lake Constance) Strabo mentions a wide variety

of vegetables in his poem, among them red chard, radishes, broad beans, cucumbers, and gourds, which might have included marrows and water-melons. Similarly, Roman viticulture survived thanks to monasteries en-dowed with vineyards that were tended by local peasants.

The majority of the population lived in small rural settlements tied to a feudal system in which they were required to hand over a large percentage

of their crop They subsisted on what they cultivated themselves, mostly grain eaten in the form of gruel Food shortages and famines induced by war, crop failures, or the lack of exchanges between regions were com-mon Hunger and subsequent epidemics were mostly regarded as divine punishment for human sins and often seen in connection with extraor-dinary natural phenomena such as solar and lunar eclipses, or the appari-tion of comets The monasteries represented, at least for some, a kind of social welfare system in hard times and also often acted as hospitals and medical centers for those in need Another form of medieval welfare was

the practice of the Almusfass, still present in the word Almosen (alms): a

barrel used to collect leftover food for distribution to the poor

Medicine and food were inextricably linked during this time, mostly based on the ancient holistic system of the Greek physician Galen (prob-ably 9–99) and later the Salerno school The system centered around the four elements: fire, water, earth, and air (corresponding to heat, hu-midity, dryness, and cold), which had their equivalents in the human body with the four fluids, humors, or temperaments: choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic, and sanguine The goal was to achieve balance between the elements and the humors Thus, health was attainable through the con-sumption of the right foods Each plant and food item itself had certain humoric qualities, that is, was hot or cold, dry or humid, depending on its

6 Food Culture in Germany

provenance, color, and texture Coloring a dish with saffron, for instance, was not simply done to please the eye but was thought to have a certain medical quality Good food was therefore balanced or “tempered” food, and one’s health depended on it In that sense, food was the best doctor Major advocates of this doctrine in Germany later on were the Bene-dictine abbess Hildegard von Bingen (098–79) and the Dominican scholar Albertus Magnus (c 00–80) Some seemingly obvious modern food combinations go back to that time Hildegard, for instance, tempered the strong (harmful) coldness of green salad with vinegar, dill, or leek.From the early Middle Ages on, fasting was a church-mandated part of virtuous Christian life, and it started to influence the greater food culture Meat, milk, butter, cheese, and eggs were not permitted during Lent, the

40 days preceding Easter, as well as on numerous other days and periods throughout the year.3

expansiOn tO tHe east and tHe crusades

Following Charlemagne’s death in 84, his kingdom in 843 was divided into western and eastern parts, roughly coinciding with modern France and Germany Originally there was a third part in the center of the king-dom, Lotharingia (present-day Alsace and Lorraine), which was soon annexed by the eastern part; since then, this territory has many times been the cause of aggressive encounters and has often changed sides The Main Franks, Saxons, Frisians, Thuringians, Bavarians, and Swabians in the east formed a rather loose German Reich and as such were part of the Holy Roman Empire, with the emperor as the single focal point With-out any fixed capital, this empire slowly lost power over the centuries, in favor of regional rulers Territorialization advanced with a multitude of kingdoms, fiefdoms, and free cities The more efficient three-field system that rotated summer and winter grain with root crops and fallow, led to enhanced productivity and economic growth

Expansion toward the east made lasting progress from the twelfth tury on Smaller western Slavic tribes living between the Baltic Sea and the eastern Alps beyond the river Elbe were assimilated through fighting,

cen-politics, and religion The Deutscher Orden (Order of German Knights) as

well as the Cistercian order played an important role in that process The Cistercian order had developed at the beginning of the twelfth century out of the reforms and restraints St Bernard de Clairvaux saw necessary for the wealthy Benedictines Cistercians were permitted only two meals daily of coarse bread plus vegetables seasoned with oil This meant that they were well prepared for mission life in the most unwelcoming areas For

instance, in 80 the Margrave of Brandenburg called on the Cistercians

to found a monastery in Lehnin just south of Berlin During the following centuries rye, barley, buckwheat, linseed, millet, and hops were cultivated there; later crops included tobacco and potatoes along with sheep flocks for wool production Linguistic and cultural assimilation of the Slavs was furthered by settlers from the Rhine, Flanders, and Thuringia Very few cultural islands have persisted, like the Lausitz southeast of Berlin, where the Sorbs, a Slavic minority, have cultivated their original customs and language until today

The Crusades (eleventh through thirteenth centuries) increased tact with the Islamic and Oriental world Whoever was lucky enough to return safely brought back hitherto unknown sweets and spices that are still strongly reflected in the Christmas baking of today

con-First Wave OF urbanizatiOn

The population grew steadily, and most of the modern German cities were founded between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries About one-fifth of the population lived in one of the 4,000 towns, which ranged in

size from small Ackerbürgerstädte (towns whose inhabitants mostly

sub-sisted on the food grown on their smallholdings) to larger cities izing in some trades, for instance, the ever-important mining industry Cologne was the largest city, with around 40,000 inhabitants, followed by Prague and Lübeck All of them were small compared to Paris, which had about 00,000 inhabitants during this period, but in the German context, Cologne was a true hub and a center of innovation Wares of all possible origins were on offer here

special-As more people, especially in the cities, bought their food instead of producing it themselves, famines were now not only referred to (in Latin)

as fames but often caristia (rise in prices) That did nothing to diminish

their effects When the plague arrived in 348–49, the population was weakened from several years of hunger and one-third succumbed to the Black Death Meat consumption rose sharply again, as many fields lay fal-low and were used for grazing

In 348 the first university in the German countries4 was founded in Prague (whereas France already had five universities by 300) However, many students of the “German nations” attended the universities in Paris, Bologna, and Salamanca Cultural influences left their mark on German culture—the land at the center absorbed culture from the south and west and passed it on to the east A bourgeois class started to form in the cities,

a third power besides church and state

8 Food Culture in Germany

Regional food habits became more distinctive As paper became more widely available and affordable, it was also used for writing down recipes

The oldest example of a German cookbook, Daz buch von guter spise (The

book of good food, c 350) gives a glimpse of how the urban upper class in

Würzburg saw themselves foodwise: getting “great meals from many small things,” one of the book’s tenets, points to thrift as a virtue Time is mea-sured by paternosters (Lord’s Prayers), and recipes named after specific places indicate contact with the wider world White bread and saffron demonstrate a certain degree of wealth, whereas local vegetables such as beets, beans, cabbage, peas, leeks, and turnips play only a minor role, as they were generally regarded as peasant food The frequent mentioning of chicken for meat is evocative of the urban setting—they were the easiest

to raise in crammed surroundings.5 Together with an abundance of herbs many familiar ingredients are found in this ancient cookbook Very few ingredients, such as heron, are considered inedible today

transnatiOnal trading and FurtHer sOcial diFFerentiatiOn

Sugar slowly replaced honey in the fourteenth century, and the sion of spices,6 rice, and almonds7 in the diet was based on the elaborate trade system that had been formed with the south and Orient via Venetian and Arab merchants Rich patrician families like the Fuggers in Augsburg ran vast and highly capitalized trading companies with offices in all the important European commercial centers Their dealings later extended as far as the Americas and the West Indies They also acted as house bankers for the emperor and the pope Besides these families, numerous southern German cities created their own trading companies Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt an der Oder, and Leipzig in central Germany emerged as the most important fairs

inclu-The Hansa trade organization was officially founded in 356 by merchant trading groups in northern German cities on the Baltic and North seas, most prominently Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg, to create a counterpole in the north The Hansa cities first concentrated on the exchange of local wares but gradually extended their trade as a privileged alliance of German mer-

chants abroad, establishing Kontore (offices) in other important cities like

London and Novgorod Their ships traveled through the English Channel, along the French coast, down to Spain, and up to Norway, reaching as far

as Moscow Their wares included raw material from the east as well as fined products of the west, thus dealing in wool, fur, leather, grain, linen, herring, salt, wine, and beer, as well as tools and timber.8

re-With urban growth, clean water again became a problem, as garbage was commonly disposed of in the streets and next to wells Monasteries, districts, and churches often had their own cisterns Poisoning of wells was part of war strategies As the connection between polluted water and epidemics became more obvious, accusations flew as to who was respon-sible Misplaced accusations concerning the poisoning of wells were an early reason for the persecution of Jews.

As for beer, there now was a choice between grutbier (the cheaper, light

ale-like drink of ancient style, which was made with herbs and spices, sometimes even resin) and the new stronger ones made with hops These were also more stable and could be traded over longer distances, so that re-gional specialties became known Vines were widely planted in the north, much farther than what is considered the limit for viticulture today.9 But for the upper classes the preferred wines came from the Rhine, Moselle, and Alsace regions, as well as dessert wines from southern Europe

Communal storage systems and early attempts at municipal provisioning for the poor meant that hard times were no longer a matter of sheer star-

vation Food was divided into gemein (common) for the laborers and gute

spise (good fare) for the higher classes and nobles As for food preparation,

smokefree rooms and fireplaces with brick chimneys became the norm The amount of meat one could afford continued to be an indicator of

social standing (bread and/or gruel, often geschmaltzt [enriched with lard],

were more affordable alternatives) Fat meat was valued more highly than lean, and roasting more highly than boiling Spoiled meat was a common problem, increasingly tackled with local legislation In most cities it was forbidden to slaughter sick animals, and fresh meat could only be offered over a limited period of time Although offenders were severely punished,

as were all kinds of food adulterers, bad meat seemed to appear again and again, one reason certainly being the anonymity of urban living

As in Charlemagne’s times, meals and representations of status were closely linked in the sixteenth century Food—often enormous quanti-ties of it—was served to demonstrate economic and political power In

57, a Cologne councilman gave a dinner for seven officials on the casion of being accepted among the city’s standard-bearers It began with baked ham surrounded by beef, mutton, tongue, chicken, boiled meat, Bingen sausage, sauerkraut, and lamb pie The second course consisted of roast hare, leg of venison, and wild boar, accompanied by rabbit, capon, chicken, snipe, and quails Pastries followed, together with crayfish, pike, carp, marzipan, and headcheese The meal concluded with almonds, dates, pears, aniseed, cinnamon sticks, and other sweets Wine from silver flagons was served throughout the meal

oc-0 Food Culture in Germany

In the sixteenth century lemons, cauliflower, and savoy cabbage creasingly found their way from Italy over the Alps, as did the idea of salad, that is eating cold raw leaves and vegetables dressed with oil and vinegar Only the upper classes could afford to prepare it with olive or nut oil, whereas ordinary people used vinegar and meat broth Another stream

in-of culinary influence began to flow from the east Buckwheat from Russia became an important crop in the northeast of Germany until it was re-placed by the potato.0 Cattle for slaughter were imported in large num-bers from eastern Europe as well Food words of Slavic origin appeared,

such as Bemme (bread spread with butter), Graupen (pearl barley), Gurke (cucumber), and Jause (snack). Many of these words are still used In aris-tocratic circles, Polish, Bohemian, and Turkish cuisines seem to have had

an important influence in addition to the already celebrated Italian and Spanish ones

However, for the majority of the growing population, life was nated by subsistence farming Regardless of the region there were two main meals per day, around nine o’clock in the morning and five o’clock

domi-in the afternoon They consisted of warm dishes, often from a communal bowl, with occasional bread-based meals in-between Beer—mostly made from barley—was the most popular drink after water Breweries started in the monasteries, often combined with bakeries, and monastic beer spread

to the villages

In the west and southwest of what is Germany today, inheritance laws divided property between all the successors Therefore, families settled in the same area in order to receive their inheritance, and villages formed with families as the smallest social units The families usually ate at home but celebrated as a village on special occasions In the north, in Westphalia, and in the newly assimilated east, however, Saxon inheritance laws passed entire property holdings to one person Large feudal estates became the dominant social structures in these areas Workers shared their meals with the estate owner on workdays, just as in cities, craftsmen and apprentices (organized in trade guilds) shared homes and meals with their master and his wife

Further regional differences emerged In the north, buttered bread played

an important role for ordinary people, so much so that it had already made its way into the common language The first meal of the morning was

called morgenbrot (morning bread) It was combined with herring, simple

cheese, lard, or groat sausage In central Germany, unbuttered bread companied the main meal or was eaten with cheese and/or a beverage as

ac-a snac-ack In the south, however, gruel ac-and soup still dominac-ated, ac-and breac-ad was seldom eaten

Despite all the progress, the food supply in general was unstable, and times of scarcity alternated with times of abundant feasting for most re-gions Meat was more abundant in the autumn and winter, after slaughter-ing On fast days and meat-free Fridays, fish, either fresh or dried, was the most common meal The highest-prized fish were fresh salmon and cray-fish from local streams In addition, numerous fishponds were installed in

a wide belt reaching from Bohemia, Silesia, and Poland to Württemberg and Lorraine

enligHtenment and reFOrmatiOn

In spite of the first written imperial constitution in 356, the small doms, self-governing territories, and cities grew ever more independent The unquestioning subservience expected by old structures was met with increasing rebellion, civil wars, and voices critical of the church, among them Martin Luther (483–546) Luther, a theologian from Wittenberg, challenged the pope’s primacy and infallibility In spite of threats and risks

king-to his own person he developed a new, reformed, sober version of anity Protestantism was devoid of all pomp, and the church no longer was the sole mediator between God and humankind The Reformation also prompted regional changes in territories that did not convert to Protes-tantism Subjects generally had to follow their ruler’s religion but at least had the right to migrate to a territory where their chosen belief was prac-ticed This migration led to religious homogenization within regions The division between faiths roughly divided north from south, within Germany

Christi-as well Christi-as in the whole of Europe The staunchly Catholic Hapsburg peror gradually withdrew to his Austrian home territory during this period, which initiated the separation of Austrian from German history

em-Food differences between the north and south became ever more centuated In the south, with the population numbers growing due to immigration, meat became scarcer As food prices rose, in the sixteenth century a whole culture of dishes with a simple flour base developed The

ac-famous Mehlspeisen (flour dishes) of southern Germany and Austria

in-clude dumplings, pancakes, and noodles in endless variety, savory and sweet In the northwest, however, cattle breeding flourished and even replaced the imports from eastern Europe, so that there was no scarcity

of meat but rather a certain affluence among the peasants and the meat dealers There was a clear distinction between lordly and lowly meats, the latter comprising offal (variety) meats, sausage, or tough, old beef Even today, offal meats are seen as less desirable in northern Germany and are seldom eaten

 Food Culture in Germany

bOOks

Thanks to the development of a new printing technique by Johannes Gutenberg (400–468), Martin Luther was able to print his translation of the Bible from Latin (only understood by scholars) into the popular Saxon-German From the first edition in 534 the new Bible became an absolute best seller, and it was followed by a stream of other manuscripts and au-thors The reading public grew rapidly, above all in Protestant areas The German language quickly gained ground, not the least with cookbooks

Marx Rumpolt’s Ein New Kochbuch (A New Cookbook, Frankfurt am Main,

58) is one of the most prominent examples Books on behavior wise flourished Until then there had not been much social differentiation

like-in table manners Emperors as well as peasants used a personal knife and bread to eat from a communal dish, and a personal spoon was dipped into

a communal bowl—only the material of the knives and spoons varied The use of personal forks, hitherto used primarily for serving and carv-ing, spread slowly from Italy around the seventeenth century, eventually trickling down to the lower classes As changes took place in all levels of society and areas of life, advice was needed, such as not to put one’s hand into the communal bowl first, not to put back what one had already had in one’s mouth, and not to blow one’s nose with the tablecloth.

tHe tHirty years’ War and neW inFluences

Following the Reformation, the Huguenot wars in France and the Civil War in England widened into the Thirty Years’ War (68–48) through-out Europe War casualties, marauding soldiers, devastation, famine, and epidemics reduced the population from 7 to 0 million Many of the common people were completely uprooted from their homes and origins.World trade shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, with the Netherlands and England as the two leading trading nations Germany had no access to the Atlantic world trade and, with the (unsuccessful) ex-ception of Brandenburg, no colonies On top of that capital was generally lacking, so that the economy stagnated The extreme territorial fragmen-tation also meant an abundance of customs barriers: a merchant taking his wares down the Rhine from Basel to Cologne had to stop about every

0 kilometers (about 6 miles) at a customs house

The German states and their nobility were a colorful mix of cal and secular They followed the examples of Versailles and Vienna in all issues pertaining to taste In the north and the west, they also began

ecclesiasti-to look ecclesiasti-toward French cuisine Searching for more refinement in their