u/VolkerBach

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/11/sweet-sour-chard-salad/

I got home a little earlier than expected, so here is another brief recipe from the Solothurn MS:

https://preview.redd.it/n3kcyjap4k0h1.jpg?width=404&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd7aff444d7ec1b96b411b0fc8686bccd1218ad8

A4 Cold chard as a dish

Take chard that is young, with the root attached. Boil it in a courtly fashion (brüwe es hofelich) in a cauldron or a pan, then pour it out on a sieve and let the water drain off. Take it and cut it up on a serving tray. Salt it lightly, pour on vinegar that is mixed with fresh wine, and sprinkle it with sugar. This is a lordly dish for the evening meal, the colder, the better et caetera.

This is one of the relatively rare vegetable recipes surviving, and I find it a little hard to envision, but it is interesting: Cooked chard seasoned with vinegar and sugar and served cold. The closest analogy I can think of is a salad, though it is not called that. The recipe includes both the root and the leaves which with chard, a variety of Beta vulgaris, absolutely works even with the modern versions bred to produce almost only leaves. Historically, we should probably imagine a plate full of fairly solid pieces, chopped root and thick leaf stems, to make bite-sized morsels. With a sweet-sour dressing, this seems an interesting idea.

The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.

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.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/11/sweet-sour-chard-salad/

I got home a little earlier than expected, so here is another brief recipe from the Solothurn MS:

https://preview.redd.it/yofa7iwi4k0h1.jpg?width=404&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1cc52c19abc39d5024356cd3da9bbcedafe15dce

A4 Cold chard as a dish

Take chard that is young, with the root attached. Boil it in a courtly fashion (brüwe es hofelich) in a cauldron or a pan, then pour it out on a sieve and let the water drain off. Take it and cut it up on a serving tray. Salt it lightly, pour on vinegar that is mixed with fresh wine, and sprinkle it with sugar. This is a lordly dish for the evening meal, the colder, the better et caetera.

This is one of the relatively rare vegetable recipes surviving, and I find it a little hard to envision, but it is interesting: Cooked chard seasoned with vinegar and sugar and served cold. The closest analogy I can think of is a salad, though it is not called that. The recipe includes both the root and the leaves which with chard, a variety of Beta vulgaris, absolutely works even with the modern versions bred to produce almost only leaves. Historically, we should probably imagine a plate full of fairly solid pieces, chopped root and thick leaf stems, to make bite-sized morsels. With a sweet-sour dressing, this seems an interesting idea.

The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.

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.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/10/instant-horseradish-sauce/

I’m afraid the coming week is shaping up to be extremely busy and I cannot promise any posts between now and after the coming weekend. Today; I want to at least give you a short thing, a sauce recipe from the Solothurn MS:

First page of the recipe collection

A6 To make a good sauce

Take horseradish and clean it well. Put it into a pot in a baking oven and let it become very dry. Afterwards, grind it to powder and rub it through a sieve so it becomes similar to (i.e. as fine as) flour. Then store this flour carefully until it is needed. Mix it with wine or with good broth, or with boiled almond (milk). Serve it at the table with roast dishes or fritters (gebachen oder gebraten).

This is very interesting, another addition to the list of portable sauces from medieval Germany. We have a good deal of recipes for instant sauces that could be kept until needed and then dissolved in wine, vinegar, or broth and served quickly. A well-run household could have been set up to provide a variety of condiments at short notice. I have not tried this one, but I think I will because it sounds like it could be practical as well as posing a technical challenge.

The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.

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.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/10/instant-horseradish-sauce/

I’m afraid the coming week is shaping up to be extremely busy and I cannot promise any posts between now and after the coming weekend. Today; I want to at least give you a short thing, a sauce recipe from the Solothurn MS:

First page of the manuscript

A6 To make a good sauce

Take horseradish and clean it well. Put it into a pot in a baking oven and let it become very dry. Afterwards, grind it to powder and rub it through a sieve so it becomes similar to (i.e. as fine as) flour. Then store this flour carefully until it is needed. Mix it with wine or with good broth, or with boiled almond (milk). Serve it at the table with roast dishes or fritters (gebachen oder gebraten).

This is very interesting, another addition to the list of portable sauces from medieval Germany. We have a good deal of recipes for instant sauces that could be kept until needed and then dissolved in wine, vinegar, or broth and served quickly. A well-run household could have been set up to provide a variety of condiments at short notice. I have not tried this one, but I think I will because it sounds like it could be practical as well as posing a technical challenge.

The recipe collection I am currently translating is part of a manuscript now held at the Zentralbibliothek Solothurn as S 392. The entire manuscript looks fascinating, a collection of craft recipes for things like dyes, stains, paints, vanishes, and parlour tricks, but I will limit myself to the culinary recipes in it. The majority of them are in German and were edited and published in Brigitte Weber: Die Kochrezepte der Handschrift S 293, Transkription und Untersuchung einer spätmittelalterlichen Kochrezeptsammlung aus der Zentralbibliothek Solothurn, Gießen 2026.

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.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/08/checkmating-the-diamond-duke-feeding-the-revolution-xxi/

On the evening of 7 September 1830 in Braunschweig, you could feel the tension everywhere in town. Assemblies of more than six people were officially banned. Artillery was set up on major streets and squares. 1,300 soldiers had been deployed to guard the ducal palace. As dusk fell, as crowd of townspeople gathered in front of the gates, calling for bread and work. The previous day, cavalry troops had dispersed them for making similar demands, but they were not here to humbly petition today. Many had brought axes and hammers to batter down the doors. All the ingredients for a bloodbath were in place. A few hours later, the duke had fled the country in disguise, the palace was ablaze, and the protesters had won. It was an outcome few had expected, least of all Duke Karl II of Braunschweig and Oels.

https://preview.redd.it/qm8slwzstyzg1.jpg?width=2024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ec7d78a6d06a5f94afa5a148e5391f6362f3d8cd

Karl II was certainly an interesting person. Orphaned at 10 years to inherit the dukedom after his father died in battle fighting Napoleon, he became known as the Diamantenherzog (diamond duke) for his love of luxury. Cultured, Anglophile, a grandmaster-level chess player and self-centered narcissist, he would have made perfect tabloid fodder in a later age. Unfortunately, none of this made him fit to govern a country in the midst of Europe’s last great hunger crisis. As he insisted all power should rest with him, he refused to assemble the Landtag, a kind of parliament, that had the authority to grant taxes. Instead, he opened up creative sources of revenue, starved the state and army, redirected cash to his court, and alienated senior members of his government to the point they went into exile. Between flaunting his wealth at home in lavish theatre performances and parties (his mistress was a famous opera singer), he spent a lot of his time in London or Paris where life was much more civilised and he was not constantly being bothered with talk of poor relief, taxation, or the abolition of serfdom.

The people who presented him with a humble petition to call the Landtag on 1 September were still the sort who would attend operas along with their ruler and snack on grouse and quail eggs. Those who came to his palace a week later were unlikely to ever have seen an opera house from the inside. They were the urban poor and those struggling to stay above the poverty line, people whose livelihoods were threatened by the economic upheaval of industrialisation and whose meagre incomes, already squeezed by rising prices, were taxed and fined in increasingly creative ways to fund the lavish lifestyle of their ruler. Many had purchased their release from serfdom at ridiculously inflated prices payable to the duke’s private fisc. Their daily meals, if things went well, would consist of bread and butter or cheese (never both, what a wasteful indulgence) or flour soup of the kind the Dresdner Kochbuch describes:

Roux Soup / Potage aux roux brun, ou aux pauvres gens

Twelve Loth of butter are heated, four or five tablespoons of flour added, and it is slowly cooked to light brown. Then you add a Kanne of warm water, it is dissolved and brought to a boil while stirring attentively, and two Kannen of boiling water are added. The whole is salted and a pinch of pepper and a generous tablespoon of strong caraway added, everything is boiled for half an hour and poured over thin, toasted bread slices through a sieve.

This soup can be rendered more delicious by adding an onion, two carrots, two parsley roots cut in slices, and a bunch of green parsley. In this case, the soup must boil for at least one hour. It is also served with poached eggs.

In middle-class households (bürgerlich), a few eggs are broken into the soup tureen, the soup is poured over them and the whole stirred gently.

This was still quite common well into the twentieth century. I remember the taste well, smooth, thick and salty, served with boiled potatoes. We did not think we were poor, but if you ate like this regularly, you were definitely not rich. Not even if you could afford the poached eggs.

“Not rich” described a lot of people in the early 19th century well. This was the period called Biedermeier in German, and it is becoming quite fashionable again in some quarters for its twee little houses, its plain but elegant interior design, and its charmingly human literature and art. Of course the houses were small and the furniture simple because few people could afford anything more, and people read books about charmed love, fantastic medieval adventures, and humorous anecdotes because you could go to prison for writing anything political. Germany was living in the long economic shadow of the Napoleonic wars, the tail end of the Little Ice Age, and the concerted effort of its rulers to make the years between 1789 and 1815 not have happened.

This had not meant a return to the old Reich with its fragmented, deeply traditional system of government. People lived in thoroughly modern states with standing armies, a secret police, and cross-border cooperation in press censorship, but they were governed by kings, princes, and the occasional city council who basically did as they pleased. Even without widespread poverty, this was bound to create opposition. In 1830, inspired by the July Revolution in Paris, public anger erupted into protests all over Germany. People took to the streets, confronted police and military, and badly scared the upper classes. Braunschweig with its unpopular duke, the weakened apparatus of state, and grievances to unite much of the populace, was the one place where they successfully toppled a monarch.

Duke Karl II had no intention of giving in. The artillery on the streets was not decorative, and a day before his hurried departure, he had discussed major military operations to quell the protest. If we can trust later accounts, he was talked into leaving the country to defuse tensions, expecting to return once his generals had put things to right. Having fled the palace in disguise, he must have been quite shocked when his government immediately appointed his brother Wilhelm regent and, soon after, duke.

The new government, technically a continuation of the old one, sat uneasily with its revolutionary roots. All through the German Confederation, the established rulers managed to head off revolution by a variety of remarkably modern means. In some places, naked military force intimidated protesters, but this was flanked by a press campaign designed to ridicule them as brutish, ignorant, and dangerous. Extreme or incomprehensible demands were highlighted, or possibly just invented, by the newspapers. At the same time, a growing number of xenophobic and antisemitic publications appeared. Riots targeting the homes and businesses of Jews or immigrants occurred in many towns and were often given less attention by the authorities than people throwing stones at the windows of government buildings or demanding higher wages from their employers. Where concessions were necessary, they were made cautiously – new laws, loosened restrictions, or the dismissal of some unpopular officials. In the end, little enough changed for the whole scene to replay itself in 1848 on a greater scale.

Duke Karl II never gave up his claim to being the rightful ruler of Braunschweig. After his death in Swiss exile, his estate turned out to include thousands of uniforms for an army he had hoped to lead in his triumphant return. Luckily for his duchy, even the most boneheaded legitimists among the German princes realised that putting a vengeful narcissist back in charge of a country he had done such damage to the first time around was not a good idea.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/08/checkmating-the-diamond-duke-feeding-the-revolution-xxi/

On the evening of 7 September 1830 in Braunschweig, you could feel the tension everywhere in town. Assemblies of more than six people were officially banned. Artillery was set up on major streets and squares. 1,300 soldiers had been deployed to guard the ducal palace. As dusk fell, as crowd of townspeople gathered in front of the gates, calling for bread and work. The previous day, cavalry troops had dispersed them for making similar demands, but they were not here to humbly petition today. Many had brought axes and hammers to batter down the doors. All the ingredients for a bloodbath were in place. A few hours later, the duke had fled the country in disguise, the palace was ablaze, and the protesters had won. It was an outcome few had expected, least of all Duke Karl II of Braunschweig and Oels.

https://preview.redd.it/8rgq3acotyzg1.jpg?width=2024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5ea64be7da903c5219100986099e438022ce430b

Karl II was certainly an interesting person. Orphaned at 10 years to inherit the dukedom after his father died in battle fighting Napoleon, he became known as the Diamantenherzog (diamond duke) for his love of luxury. Cultured, Anglophile, a grandmaster-level chess player and self-centered narcissist, he would have made perfect tabloid fodder in a later age. Unfortunately, none of this made him fit to govern a country in the midst of Europe’s last great hunger crisis. As he insisted all power should rest with him, he refused to assemble the Landtag, a kind of parliament, that had the authority to grant taxes. Instead, he opened up creative sources of revenue, starved the state and army, redirected cash to his court, and alienated senior members of his government to the point they went into exile. Between flaunting his wealth at home in lavish theatre performances and parties (his mistress was a famous opera singer), he spent a lot of his time in London or Paris where life was much more civilised and he was not constantly being bothered with talk of poor relief, taxation, or the abolition of serfdom.

The people who presented him with a humble petition to call the Landtag on 1 September were still the sort who would attend operas along with their ruler and snack on grouse and quail eggs. Those who came to his palace a week later were unlikely to ever have seen an opera house from the inside. They were the urban poor and those struggling to stay above the poverty line, people whose livelihoods were threatened by the economic upheaval of industrialisation and whose meagre incomes, already squeezed by rising prices, were taxed and fined in increasingly creative ways to fund the lavish lifestyle of their ruler. Many had purchased their release from serfdom at ridiculously inflated prices payable to the duke’s private fisc. Their daily meals, if things went well, would consist of bread and butter or cheese (never both, what a wasteful indulgence) or flour soup of the kind the Dresdner Kochbuch describes:

Roux Soup / Potage aux roux brun, ou aux pauvres gens

Twelve Loth of butter are heated, four or five tablespoons of flour added, and it is slowly cooked to light brown. Then you add a Kanne of warm water, it is dissolved and brought to a boil while stirring attentively, and two Kannen of boiling water are added. The whole is salted and a pinch of pepper and a generous tablespoon of strong caraway added, everything is boiled for half an hour and poured over thin, toasted bread slices through a sieve.

This soup can be rendered more delicious by adding an onion, two carrots, two parsley roots cut in slices, and a bunch of green parsley. In this case, the soup must boil for at least one hour. It is also served with poached eggs.

In middle-class households (bürgerlich), a few eggs are broken into the soup tureen, the soup is poured over them and the whole stirred gently.

This was still quite common well into the twentieth century. I remember the taste well, smooth, thick and salty, served with boiled potatoes. We did not think we were poor, but if you ate like this regularly, you were definitely not rich. Not even if you could afford the poached eggs.

“Not rich” described a lot of people in the early 19th century well. This was the period called Biedermeier in German, and it is becoming quite fashionable again in some quarters for its twee little houses, its plain but elegant interior design, and its charmingly human literature and art. Of course the houses were small and the furniture simple because few people could afford anything more, and people read books about charmed love, fantastic medieval adventures, and humorous anecdotes because you could go to prison for writing anything political. Germany was living in the long economic shadow of the Napoleonic wars, the tail end of the Little Ice Age, and the concerted effort of its rulers to make the years between 1789 and 1815 not have happened.

This had not meant a return to the old Reich with its fragmented, deeply traditional system of government. People lived in thoroughly modern states with standing armies, a secret police, and cross-border cooperation in press censorship, but they were governed by kings, princes, and the occasional city council who basically did as they pleased. Even without widespread poverty, this was bound to create opposition. In 1830, inspired by the July Revolution in Paris, public anger erupted into protests all over Germany. People took to the streets, confronted police and military, and badly scared the upper classes. Braunschweig with its unpopular duke, the weakened apparatus of state, and grievances to unite much of the populace, was the one place where they successfully toppled a monarch.

Duke Karl II had no intention of giving in. The artillery on the streets was not decorative, and a day before his hurried departure, he had discussed major military operations to quell the protest. If we can trust later accounts, he was talked into leaving the country to defuse tensions, expecting to return once his generals had put things to right. Having fled the palace in disguise, he must have been quite shocked when his government immediately appointed his brother Wilhelm regent and, soon after, duke.

The new government, technically a continuation of the old one, sat uneasily with its revolutionary roots. All through the German Confederation, the established rulers managed to head off revolution by a variety of remarkably modern means. In some places, naked military force intimidated protesters, but this was flanked by a press campaign designed to ridicule them as brutish, ignorant, and dangerous. Extreme or incomprehensible demands were highlighted, or possibly just invented, by the newspapers. At the same time, a growing number of xenophobic and antisemitic publications appeared. Riots targeting the homes and businesses of Jews or immigrants occurred in many towns and were often given less attention by the authorities than people throwing stones at the windows of government buildings or demanding higher wages from their employers. Where concessions were necessary, they were made cautiously – new laws, loosened restrictions, or the dismissal of some unpopular officials. In the end, little enough changed for the whole scene to replay itself in 1848 on a greater scale.

Duke Karl II never gave up his claim to being the rightful ruler of Braunschweig. After his death in Swiss exile, his estate turned out to include thousands of uniforms for an army he had hoped to lead in his triumphant return. Luckily for his duchy, even the most boneheaded legitimists among the German princes realised that putting a vengeful narcissist back in charge of a country he had done such damage to the first time around was not a good idea.

There are actual recipes linked, this post focuses on the table settings. I hope it is still okay.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/06/three-meals-with-jesus/

So, after another long hiatus, I’m back not with a recipe, but with museum pictures. I apologise. Times have been exceedingly busy and promise to stay so for a bit, but I will do my best to serve the blog more regularly again.

As to those pictures; While visiting a dear friend in the Netherlands to prepare plans for the next big history-themed feast (after Burgundian), I had a day to explore the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and of course I brought pictures. Today, I want to share a lovely set of painted wooden sculptures that were made for an altar around 1520 in Ulm in Southern Germany. Unusually, they retain their original paint, so we have the colour as well as the shape. They show three occasions of Jesus sharing a meal with people.

https://preview.redd.it/r0o63cl48kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=97af37c0341de8a2773771ba59f051f2a80ac854

The first scene shows Jesus at the house of Mary and Martha, welcomed as an honoured guest. A group of four people are seated around an intimate table while Martha brings in a covered dish with the main course.

https://preview.redd.it/91y0tri58kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72845b677c5f304c44a76a4d4f50f9cd578a0d61

This is the kind of intimate meal we would expect to see in a well-to-do home in sixteenth-century Germany: There is bread – Jesus is shown breaking the loaf to distribute pieces around the table – there are drinking cups, and a small dish, perhaps a soup, stewed meat, or a bird is served to accompany it. We can only guess at the content of the cups, but I would expect it to be beer. Note the number of trenchers does not match that of diners – this table was not formally set. The meal can still begin with the customary blessing expected of the most senior person present, which in this case clearly is Jesus.

https://preview.redd.it/od25byi68kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62fd2e8111d3bf1ab5113e069196601b89f416c0

The second scene shows the Last Supper, precisely the moment Jesus passes the morsel dipped in wine to Judas. This table is larger, more crowded with all the disciples and busy through trying to include all relevant iconography. John is leaning against Jesus’ chest, Judas, holding the money bag, receives the morsel, and Peter pushes into the foreground to emphasise his fidelity, soon to be tested severely.

https://preview.redd.it/eynd7hn78kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=38fa88a34145725c1ab6683ab23c22a3144896a8

The scene is another fairly good representation of a meal in sixteenth-century Germany, though this is a communal occasion with the diners crowding benches around a cluttered table. There is a central meat dish served on a large platter, accompanied by a bowl of dipping sauce, a small bread loaf, and a jug of what looks like strong beer with a good head of foam, and a smaller one that may be meant to hold wine. The animal on the platter was cooked whole and probably is meant to represent a lamb. Renaissance artists interpreted the Last Supper as a Passover seder that would include lamb, wine, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. It is unlikely that the artist based his interpretation on actual observation, though. There were few Jewish communities left in Germany in the 1520s to observe after all. More likely, it is based on artistic tradition that in turn was based on reading the Latin Bible. Certainly, the bread is leavened, which may be a deliberate choice to de-emphasise the Jewish tradition of the meal, but more likely is simply what bread looked like to the carver. Whole animals brought to the table were not unusual especially for festive occasions, so this may actually be an impression of an Easter Sunday feast of the kind a wealthy German household might serve.

https://preview.redd.it/x5jkxwp88kzg1.jpg?width=689&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4bbe8baf85c4c14e99c9c61c6df96bee17e34fc6

The third scene depicts resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples at Emmaus. This is the moment Jesus, having broken the bread, blesses the meal (the missing right hand was raised in the requisite gesture) and the disciples recognise him.

https://preview.redd.it/j8kn7eh98kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=72c942aff32611b3f90a1916a3bc7b927df5eb18

The meal shown here is less cluttered than that served for the Last Supper, but richer than that Martha has set up. It looks like someone was expecting company. There are two small bread loaves, a bowl of dipping sauce, beer, and a large serving bowl filled with a meat dish – one that looks remarkably like pork boiled with some vegetable. One piece appears to have rib bones in it, a reminder that when we look at historical records of meat portions, the weight would have included a fair bit of bone on most cuts.

Obviously, all these table settings are not strictly realistic. The table surface is too small in relation to the people around it, so there is not enough room for everything that would have been placed on a real one: no cutlery, too few drinking vessels, and no sign of napkins. Still, it seems that the artist was trying to convey a realistic scene and made a conscious distinction between the three occasions. What we see here matches other descriptions and depictions of the time.

One observation that will immediately resonate with everyone in living history or culinary historic recreation is how brown everything is. Many otherwise excellent historic recipes produce an endless variation of shades of brown food, often delicious, but visually boring. We are constantly tempted to enliven it by decorative flourishes, herbs, fruit, vegetables, or flowers, but this really was what it often looked like.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/06/three-meals-with-jesus/

So, after another long hiatus, I’m back not with a recipe, but with museum pictures. I apologise. Times have been exceedingly busy and promise to stay so for a bit, but I will do my best to serve the blog more regularly again.

As to those pictures; While visiting a dear friend in the Netherlands to prepare plans for the next big history-themed feast (after Burgundian), I had a day to explore the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and of course I brought pictures. Today, I want to share a lovely set of painted wooden sculptures that were made for an altar around 1520 in Ulm in Southern Germany. Unusually, they retain their original paint, so we have the colour as well as the shape. They show three occasions of Jesus sharing a meal with people.

https://preview.redd.it/wbxhaqyd7kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e43ba1045bd73622cfeda6bf6116071559a103d

The first scene shows Jesus at the house of Mary and Martha, welcomed as an honoured guest. A group of four people are seated around an intimate table while Martha brings in a covered dish with the main course.

https://preview.redd.it/f3qoy5ye7kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c3e62c938d457400f16089256380604d9e22bbf

This is the kind of intimate meal we would expect to see in a well-to-do home in sixteenth-century Germany: There is bread – Jesus is shown breaking the loaf to distribute pieces around the table – there are drinking cups, and a small dish, perhaps a soup, stewed meat, or a bird is served to accompany it. We can only guess at the content of the cups, but I would expect it to be beer. Note the number of trenchers does not match that of diners – this table was not formally set. The meal can still begin with the customary blessing expected of the most senior person present, which in this case clearly is Jesus.

https://preview.redd.it/x7i7bw6g7kzg1.jpg?width=1225&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c43452f82acd1727d8b2b7e7b98bdb8ed0c2372c

The second scene shows the Last Supper, precisely the moment Jesus passes the morsel dipped in wine to Judas. This table is larger, more crowded with all the disciples and busy through trying to include all relevant iconography. John is leaning against Jesus’ chest, Judas, holding the money bag, receives the morsel, and Peter pushes into the foreground to emphasise his fidelity, soon to be tested severely.

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The scene is another fairly good representation of a meal in sixteenth-century Germany, though this is a communal occasion with the diners crowding benches around a cluttered table. There is a central meat dish served on a large platter, accompanied by a bowl of dipping sauce, a small bread loaf, and a jug of what looks like strong beer with a good head of foam, and a smaller one that may be meant to hold wine. The animal on the platter was cooked whole and probably is meant to represent a lamb. Renaissance artists interpreted the Last Supper as a Passover seder that would include lamb, wine, unleavened bread, and bitter herbs. It is unlikely that the artist based his interpretation on actual observation, though. There were few Jewish communities left in Germany in the 1520s to observe after all. More likely, it is based on artistic tradition that in turn was based on reading the Latin Bible. Certainly, the bread is leavened, which may be a deliberate choice to de-emphasise the Jewish tradition of the meal, but more likely is simply what bread looked like to the carver. Whole animals brought to the table were not unusual especially for festive occasions, so this may actually be an impression of an Easter Sunday feast of the kind a wealthy German household might serve.

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The third scene depicts resurrected Jesus appearing to his disciples at Emmaus. This is the moment Jesus, having broken the bread, blesses the meal (the missing right hand was raised in the requisite gesture) and the disciples recognise him.

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The meal shown here is less cluttered than that served for the Last Supper, but richer than that Martha has set up. It looks like someone was expecting company. There are two small bread loaves, a bowl of dipping sauce, beer, and a large serving bowl filled with a meat dish – one that looks remarkably like pork boiled with some vegetable. One piece appears to have rib bones in it, a reminder that when we look at historical records of meat portions, the weight would have included a fair bit of bone on most cuts.

Obviously, all these table settings are not strictly realistic. The table surface is too small in relation to the people around it, so there is not enough room for everything that would have been placed on a real one: no cutlery, too few drinking vessels, and no sign of napkins. Still, it seems that the artist was trying to convey a realistic scene and made a conscious distinction between the three occasions. What we see here matches other descriptions and depictions of the time.

One observation that will immediately resonate with everyone in living history or culinary historic recreation is how brown everything is. Many otherwise excellent historic recipes produce an endless variation of shades of brown food, often delicious, but visually boring. We are constantly tempted to enliven it by decorative flourishes, herbs, fruit, vegetables, or flowers, but this really was what it often looked like.

During my dive into the drinking and singing traditions of the Wilhelmine officer corps, I came across a good deal of musical heritage including one song that could be sung in a similar rhythm and state of inebriated camaraderie, but comes from very much the opposite social sphere. It also feels particularly apposite in our current situation. This is the Lied der Petroleure.

It is not really funny. If the venerable Krambambuli of Prussian military distinction can be read as a humorous take on severe alcohol dependence, this is a jocular celebration of political arson. That part may need a bit of explaining. During the Paris Commune uprising of 1871, a legend was spread in the press that the revolutionaries planned to destroy the city using petrol bombs. This was nonsense, but the story spread beyond France’s border and attached to wider and wilder imaginings of what the Socialist and Anarchist underground might be up to. In 1881, the Social Democratic journalist Jacob Audorf wrote a mocking song about this spectre of terror that stayed popular through the pre-WWI years.

Wir sind die Petroleure
Das weiß wohl jedermann
Drum tun wir alle Ehre
Dem Petroleum an.
Und weil´s so schön zum Brennen ist
Und uns viel Licht verschafft,
Sei auch Petrol zu dieser Frist
Uns edler Gerstensaft!

Hier Petroleum, da Petroleum
Petroleum um und um!
Laßt die Humpen frisch voll pumpen:
Dreimal hoch — Petroleum!

Philister rümpft die Nase
Und meint, es riecht nicht gut
Schimpft hinter seinem Glase
Uns „Sozialistenbrut“
Er liest im Geldsacksblatt sich dumm,
meint was er liest, sei wahr
Brenn heller, lieb Petroleum
Mach ihm den Standpunkt klar!

(refrain)

Schon brennt es in den Städten
So licht und frank und frei
Man spürt, daß es vonnöten
Auch auf den Dörfern sei
Es leuchtet in dem Heere schon
Man ist vor Staunen stumm
Trotz Sub- und Ordination
Hell das Petroleum!


(refrain)


Und ob auch trüb die Zeiten
Wir wollen treu vereint
Stets mutig vorwärts schreiten
Ist mächtig auch der Feind
Und sperrt der Bruder Staatsanwalt
Auch einmal einen ein
Kriegt´s Petroléum mehr Gehalt
Und brennt noch mal so rein!

(refrain)

Petroleum-Genossen
Ihr Brüder, wanket nicht!
Tu´ jeder unverdrossen
Die Petroleuren-Pflicht!
Wir kümmern uns den Kuckuck um
Die schwarze Stöckerei
Das Wahlrecht und Petroleum
sei unser Feldgeschrei

(refrain)

We are the petroleurs
As everybody knows
So we hold in high honour
Petroleum (i.e.kerosene)
Because it burns so well
And gives us much light
Let petroleum be to us today
Our noble beer!


Petroleum here, petroleum there
Petroleum all about
Let us fill the beer mugs afresh
Three cheers for petroleum!

The philistine sneers
And says it smells unpleasant
Behind his glass, he insults
Us as "Socialist rabble"
He reads himself stupid in his millionaire newspaper
Thinks what he reads is true
Burn brighter, dear petroleum
Make our position clear to him

(refrain)

It's already burning in the towns
Bright and free
You feel it is also needed
In the villages
It's already lighting up the army
We are stunned into silence
Despite sub- and ordination
Petroleum's burning bright

(refrain)

And though the times are dark
We will always stay united
Steadily going forward
Though the enemy is mighty
And though brother prosecutor
May lock up someone sometimes,
The petroleum is the stronger
And burns all the purer for it!

(refrain)

Comrades in petroleum
Brothers, do not falter
Let every man unfailingly do
His petroleering duty
We do not care a button for
"Black Stöcker" policies
The vote and petroleum
Will be our battlecry!

(refrain)

It actually scans pretty well and sings easily, as in this later recording.

As an explanatory aside, the German word Petroleum
corresponds roughly to what the Victorians called kerosene, common lamp
and household stove fuel. In an age before cars, that was how people
encountered distilled crude oil. The Stöcker referenced in the fifth
stanza is Adolf Stöcker, an early exponent of popular antisemitism and conservative outrage politics.

Illustration of an entrance to a Kneipe in Berlin by Heinrich Zille courtesy of wikimedia commons. The publican is pictured with the quote: “My sausage is good. Where there is no meat, there is blood. Where there is no blood, there is bread. You can’t criticise my sausage!”

Unlike the drinking ritual of military officers or student fraternities, this songh had no specific location or time. It could be sung in the company of Social Democrats and their political fellow travellers, which would usually mean a drinking place, a Kneipe. To this day, in the face of competition from bars, bistros, and clubs, the oldfashioned Kneipe has retained a place in Germany’s culture. It is where you go to drink with friends, a traditionally (but never exclusively) masculine space for beery companionship and conversation. The typical aesthetic of today is a brewery-sponsored post-WWII phenomenon, though. Working class Kneipen before 1918 were often extremely basic. They were also known hotbeds of sedition and revolution, monitored closely by the undercover police. Richard Evans turned those files into an absolutely fascinating book, Kneipengespräche im Kaiserreich.

This was a very different place to an Offizierskasino. Barriers to entry were few. The people here had nothing to defend by exclusion – they gained strength from unity and had little beyond numbers on their side, after all. Keeping up appearances was not a full-time occupation, though masks of masculinity and good cheer were uniquitous in Wilhelmine Germany. You could still be unwelcome, but it would be by appearing to look down on them. Subject to daily humiliation, working class men could be a prickly lot.

What these places had in common was alcohol and music, the universal social lubricants of pre-modern Germany. Officers might have pianos, fine wines and cuisine bourgeoise while workers made do with draught beer and Schmalzbrot, but this part was the same: Men sang together, they drank together, swaying to the rhythm, built social bonds and identities. We can still see this in football (soccer) fandom or the Oktoberfest. It used to be universal. There were teetotal Socialists, but it was no easy path to tread.

Many of the songs were the same, fashionable ditties and folk tunes, but as for the student fraternities and the military, there was a distinct corpus of working-class songs, many of them overtly political. Singing them was not without risk. There was no such thing as ‘illegal music’ in Wilhelmine Germany, but on a bad day, the authorities could still nab you for anything from public nuisance to incitement to riot. That said, the law had considerable latitude and people used it to the hilt.

That is where songs like this fit in. You could sing about the great tomorrow, poke fun at the police and the clergy, or versify the political struggles of the day, but there was an anarchic joy in associating with this brand of violent activism. Of course the people who sang this were not arsonists. The whole point of the song was the absurdity of the idea that working class associations were some kind of dark international cabal dedicated to the destruction of civilisation. Even anarchists who might be open to some incendiary ‘propaganda of the deed’ were a vanishingly small percentage of the movement. But if you spent you days organising people into committees and mutual aid organisations, holding debates, struggling endlessly over incremental progress, and suffered the disdain of the establishment for it, imagining a different kind of revolutionary power must have been a balm. What would it be like, to actually be the people the bourgeoisie imagined and feared? What if you had the power to simply burn it all down?

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/04/25/flaming-drinks/

For a break in the long-form narratives, I want to return to the collection of military alcoholic drinks I introduced earlier and pick apart one particular recipe. Among many locally and socially specific recipes, the 1910 manual on bowls and punches for field and exercise use in the German army (Bowlen und Pünsche für den Manöver- und Feldgebrauch der Deutschen Armee) includes this version of a favourite wintertime tipple:

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Füretangbowle, second type

(communicated by the Grand Ducal Mecklenburg Jäger Battalion Nr. 14)

You heat three bottles of red wine in a cauldron, remove the same from the fire, and set it down on the table. A piece of sugar the size of a strong man’s fist is wedged into a cleaned pair of fire tongs, good arrack poured over it (one bottle, by swigs, poured from the serving spoon, not from the bottle) and set alight. The sugar is left to burn until it has entirely melted into the cauldron. The drink can be given a spicy flavour (würzigen Geschmack) by adding some bitter orange peel and a few cloves, but you must refrain from adding any water as it is spoiled by the slightest addition of this. After the flame dies, the drink is filled into cups (Obertassen) which each participants sets onto a saucer sprinkled with spirit-infused salt. After all lamps in the room are extinguished, this is set alight and the Crambambulilied is sung.

As a recipe, this is not extraordinary at all. It’s a version of Feuerzangenbowle, a mulled wine prepared with flambé sugar that is still a popular wintertime treat and showpiece at many Christmas markets. The unusual-looking name is simply the Low German version of that word. Neither is it particularly strong. The preceding recipe combines a bottle of rum with one of strong red wine for a much more potent mix. What makes this particular recipe interesting is the ritual and cultural associations it has. Let’s go on a bit of a dive.

We can easily imagine the effect of setting alight every single cup in a darkened room with eerie blue flame. If we briefly put on our anthropology thinking caps, it is not that unusual for warrior societies to share psychoactive drugs as part of a group ritual enhanced by fire, light, shadow, and chants. Here, then, we see the chosen young Germans inducted into their role as warleaders in a secret nighttime ceremony, their minds opened by the drug consumed jointly as part of an elaborate ritual, bodies synchronised through sacred chanting…

But seriously, there was something like that going on. Our first pointer is the choice of a specific song and its social context. The author of the recipe clearly expects the reader to know the Crambabulilied, and it is easy enough to identify: It is a humorous paean written in 1745 by Christoph Friedrich Wedekind, the original runs to 102 stanzas and celebrates Krambambuli, a specific kind of liquor made in Danzig (today Gdansk in Poland). This was coloured a bright red with juniper berries and shows up surprisingly consistently in German culture, given how niche it was in culinary terms. The name seems to have stuck in people’s minds, leading to it becoming the title of a famous novella and no fewer than five movie versions as well as a shorthand for just about any strong, red alcoholic drink, but above all mulled wine, in student parlance.

The song, shortened to a more practical length (here with an English translation), was set to a jaunty, easily manageable tune and recordings are fairly easy to find even today. It’s the kind of thing you can probably still manage a few beers in and does not require any great vocal range or lung capacity. Neither is it maudlin or festive, and certainly not mystical. Crashing mugs on the table to its quick rhythm seems entirely fitting for red-faced, swaying students to do. This was the music schunkeln was invented for.

Students are also the reason people still know the song, or more specifically, German student fraternities, the Corps or Burschenschaften. These organisations were the backbone of university social life in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, and they largely revolved around nationalism, athletics (often swordplay), and alcohol. The Crambambulilied was not a folk song, not something you would expect just anyone to know, but it became part of the ‘Kommers‘, the drinking rituals of these fraternities and thus familiar to everyone in their penumbra.

And that is how it ends up being performed in an officers’ mess in 1910. Not any officers’ mess, by the way. It fits this particular one fairly well. The Großherzoglich Mecklenburgisches Jäger-Bataillon Nr. 14, for all its grand-sounding title, was not really very fashionable or traditional. Its pedigree went no farther back than 1821, constituted to give the short-lived German Confederation a shadow of an army, and though it was provided with a grand ducal association and integrated into the Prussian military, it was not properly either of these things. Neither was it a traditional regiment. An independent battalion without a proper colonel was not where you really wanted to be in the complex, creaking edifice we call the ‘German army’ (there was no such thing in reality). Between 1868 and 1882, while garrisoned in Schwerin, its officers were even forced to live in a local hotel as more senior and connected units turfed them out of overcrowded army facilities. By 1910, when the recipe was recorded, the unit had been posted away from its traditional recruitment area to Colmar, an unusual thing for German units.

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Normally, military units in the German Empire were formally under the command of the respective member states and stationed in their territory. This did not apply in the Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine annexed from France after Franco-Prussian war in 1871. The government did not trust the locals there to not wish the French back. As a result, the area was directly ruled by the Empire (it did not go well) and had no military of its own, its recruits posted away from home and its garrisons filled by mostly Prussian units. Though close to the French border and thus likely to see action early if the war everyone expected actually came, this was not a prestigious or desirable posting.

That was the kind of unit the Jäger-Bataillon Nr 14 was. It did not have young men of ancient pedigree clamour to fill its ranks, but it would certainly attract the upwardly mobile, men from families who had to work for careers and live on what they made at the end. A military career could be attractive if it succeeded, but it was a risk. Life as a junior officer cost more than it brought in pay. University – law, economics, medicine or public administration – was a safer bet. Many had relatives there.

Another connection between the worlds was a peculiarity of the German militaries, the Einjährig Freiwillige (one-year volunteers). This was a kind of unpaid military internship open to the educated classes. Instead of being conscripted for a regular turn of two or three years, they served only one, but had to pay for their own equipment, accommodation, and food. During this time, they were selected for leadership training and, crucially, unlike all other enlisted men, had access to the officers’ mess.

The officers’ mess, slightly confusingly known as the Kasino in contemporary parlance, was basically a shared household in which the officers of a unit ate and slept, but in social terms it was much more than that. An Offizierskasino developed its own, secluded social space, access guarded jealously. Its rituals could be obscure to outsiders, used to mark belonging and strengthen bonds between officers. What they were not was hermetically sealed. The Prussian army especially used them to create a large cadre of reserve officers by passing crowds of one-year volunteers through them. Just out of school and on their way to university and civilian careers, these men coveted the military association to boost their status and opportunities. Some stayed on, becoming career officers with the approval of the unit’s officer corps, but many more left, taking with them a uniform they would proudly display every Sedantag and a handful of friendships and connections that might help them in the future.

This is where student life bleeds into military culture. Career or reserve, these were young men of a kind: clannish, snobbish, intensely ambitious and driven. Both the Prussian military and its academic professions were very competitive. Young men with no secure position defended the social status that afforded them the opportunity to enter the race jealously. Knowing their shibboleths and rituals, sharing their stories, and not least jointly finding release from the intense pressure in alcohol made you part of this world. It’s a lot to find in a silly ditty and a bit of stage lighting effect, but food history can be like that.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/04/24/freiheit-gleichheit-kaffezeit-feeding-the-revolution-xx/

When it was invaded, the city of Paderborn had more glorious history than present attraction. Once an imperial residence of Charlemagne and archepiscopal see for much of central Germany, it had been reduced to a middling territory of the Holy Roman Empire under the governance of its prince-archbishop, still burdened with debt from the Seven-Years’ War and struggling to modernise its economy. In 1781, hostile troops entered its gates with loaded muskets to impose the law of their commander and break the resistance of the hapless citizenry.

Well, sort of. They had muskets. And intimidation had probably been the idea when they settled into their occupation, though the fact that people played mocking music in the background probably did not help matters. Or that the soldiers left the city every evening to return to quarters, only to march back in every morning. Really, it was the kind of vaguely silly spectacle that the Old Empire excelled at producing, and the start of it had been the most German of occasions, a Kaffeeklatsch.

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The 1780s were not, by most objective measures, good times in Europe. It wasn’t just bad weather – though the tail end of the ‘Little Ice Age’ bit badly enough to produce a measurable dip in height records reflecting widespread malnutrition. Part of it was actually innovation: growing cities and increasingly streamlined production meant that more people could be employed at ever shrinking wages while the agricultural revolution made sure a steady stream of unemployed rural workers were available. And this innovation, a growth in pre-industrial productivity through what is sometimes called the ‘Industrious Revolution‘, produced winners, especially among the educated and wealthy middle classes.

They enjoyed all kinds of newfangled luxuries – sheet music, novels and poetry, fashionable clothing, new kinds of tableware, and new foods and drinks to go with it. Cookbooks proliferated, new recipes, usually labelled in French, spread, but above all, colonial imports were added to the table. In Germany, as throughout Europe, sugar consumption rose drastically, though it was still far from modern levels, and an increasing number of people also made coffee part of their daily diet.

Not everybody liked it. Brewers worried it would endanger their livelihood. Physicians were concerned about the possible effect on drinkers’ health. Johann Sebastian Bach, who drank coffee, thought it was all a bit ridiculous. But nothing could stop the rise of coffee from an exotic luxury served in coffee houses in Bremen and Hamburg in the 1670s to a regular article of consumption for the moderately wealthy a century later. Nothing, that is, except the mighty Prussian East India Company and its main import article. Despite all efforts to make them abandon the habit, the famously Nederlandophile people of Emden and East Frisia remain dedicated tea drinkers to this day, something that should be worth its own article at some point. The rest of the country fell in love with the brew.

Any drink this popular generated a wealth of opinions about how it should be prepared and enjoyed, and coincidentally, an entire book was published on the subject in 1781 by a physician named Franz Joseph Hofer. He describes the process as follows:

…If the coffee is to be enjoyed profitably, the unnecessary watery parts must first be removed by roasting or burning, the oil is made suitable through activation of its salt, and the phlegmy parts allowed to unite with the water without reducing the useful gummy, earthy, and nutritious parts to ash by excessive heat, driving out the etheric oil, and render the resinous element sharp and empyreumatic. If, on the contrary, the beans are not roasted enough, much remains that detracts from the flavour, scent, and potency of the coffee. It is always better to roast it less than too much.

The best degree of roasting is when the coffee beans take on a violet colour and exude a pleasant, scented oil. This roasting or burning commonly takes place in an iron vessel. Usually, it is a closed vessel so that not as much (of the aroma) is wafted away. Yet it is better done in a glazed earthen vessel (Tigel) in which the beans are stirred with a wooden spatula until all have attained a light brown colour. Then, they should be poured into a cloth and left in it until they are cold. The same (the people who do this) also advise to pound the beans in a mortar rather than grind them in a common mill. The reason for both is obvious: Iron, once heated, changes the beans far more than earthenware and the mortar is far less heated by pounding than the mill by grinding. You should also not roast and grind more beans at once than you intend to use, because the best and most efficacious oil is lost from ground coffee.

However, if you do prepare more powder in one go, you should keep it in a well-closed tin or glazed earthen vessel. Krüger (a medical writer) advises to pour olive oil on the surface of the coffee powder which prevents its oils from evaporating while not rendering the coffee disgusting.

From these properly ground beans prepared in one of the ways described above, coffee is again prepared by various methods.

Some pour boiling water onto a coffee powder contained in a funnel or pointy cloth bag and rejoice to receive a clear, brown and pleasant-smelling tincture which contains only the finest oil with the most easily soluble gummy and resinous parts, thus passes through the veins more easily and heats the body less.

Others treat is they do tea: They prepare an infusion (Anguß) of boiling water and leave it to simmer gently on a coal fire in an earthen pot. If they then filter it, it is to be preferred to the above. Those who let their coffee boil strongly deceive themselves if they think that their coffee, for being more bitter, thicker, and stronger, is also more virtuous. If you want to prepare coffee a la mode de France, I will give you the recipe here: Throw the coffee powder into boiling water. If it is driven to the top and the edges by the boiling, move it to the centre with a spoon and stir until it settles to the bottom. This motion is intended to reduce waste and improve the coffee. After the coffee has then been boiled up and again allowed to settle a few times, you taker it off the fire and leave it to stand covered until you can pour off the clear liquid, unless you want to filter it. But it should not be left standing for too long because the water would extract more resinous components. For this reason, coffee (the beverage) does not tolerate boiling well, and one can imagine how much to expect from coffee that has been boiled again.

I do not condemn the habit of adding hartshorn (ammonium carbonate) or isinglass (dried swim bladder used as a gelatin source) to coffee in order to clarify it in that these ingredients are, in part, innocent and, in the other, contain some nutritive power. Yet this addition greatly reduces the pleasure to be had from the coffee. If you simply pour on cold water, you receive it as clear and with no such loss.

Preparation also requires a dosage. Blankard believed he was preparing a properly flavourful coffee by mixing a teakettle or two Maaß (about 2 litres) of water, depending on whether he wanted it strong or weak, with one or one and a half Loth (16-24 grammes) of coffee powder.

Such a brew makes my stomach cramp. Mr Spielmann advises 6 ounces (Unzen – approx. 200ml) of water to two Loth (approx. 32 grammes) of coffee powder.

This is likely too strong for many. But if you take, for a good Schoppen (approximately 0.4-0.5 litres) of water, a Loth (approx. 16 grammes) of coffee powder, boil it as described above and filter it, you have a moderate coffee that can be served medice (with no concern for health). The beans, the roast, the temper, and the additives … shall teach everyone how strong they may prepare their coffee.

(…)

So far, we have spoken of coffee with no admixtures, but it is commonly drunk with sugar, milk, or cream, along with which many also enjoy bread. The Arabs and Turks are said to take it without sugar or milk, and some Germans copy the Turks …

In many places, especially where there are coffee houses, a special kind of bread is baked. Without doubt, this bread, which is similar to biscuit (Zwieback), is healthier than that for which butter and eggs are used. Sugared (bread) (Zucker-) or other similar baked goods are unhealthy.

Yet often, one can have neither biscuit not butter or egg bread because the bakers, by ancient tradition, may bake no bread other than what our wise ancestors, who did not drink coffee, also ate, and such policy is praiseworthy. What a piece of black beggars’ bread (Bettelbrot) tastes like with coffee, I do not know – yet I witnessed that it appeared to go together quite well.

This may not sound too appealing to modern coffee drinkers, but it is at least interesting that some Germans already enjoyed filtered coffee. It is still the most common kind and today generally thought to have been invented by Melitta Bentz. The nibbles served with it may be more appealing.

Zwieback is a little problematic because the words covers so much ground, but at least it is fairly unlikely to be the hardtack called Schiffszwieback today. This was usually called Schiffsbrot until the 19th century. I would place it closer to what we call by that name today, and there are some recipes that support this. The 1723 Brandenburgisches Koch-Buch (a pirated copy of the earlier Die wohl-unterwiesene Köchin by Maria Sophia Schellhammer which was first published in 1692) has several recipes, with this one the most likely:

To bake common or plain Zwieback

You take 2 Maaß of wheat flour and half a pound of fine sugar along with a Loth of anise, fennel, half as much aniseed, and 6 spoonfuls of yeast. Then you boil half a Maaß or a little more of water, add a quarter pound of butter to it, or a little more, let it stand for a while until it cools, and then mix it all very thoroughly until it is as thick as a semmel dough. Let it stand for a while until it rises from the yeast, then roll it out quite thin, brush it with butter, and bake it in an oven that is not heated too strongly.

(p.355)

Oddly, the Maß was not officially a measure used in Brandenburg in 1723, but it usually came to a little over a litre and that does not seem too off the mark here. The Loth, 1/32 of a pound, was 14.6 grammes in Brandenburg at the time, and around that level elsewhere. The result is a yeast-leavened, slightly sweet and notably spicy, thin cookie, probably baked to a dry crisp. This should go well with tea also.

The Zuckerbrot Hofer disapproves of, on the other hand, seems to have been a much daintier confection. Marcus Looft’s Nieder=sächsisches Koch=buch of 1758 has a detailed recipe:

Zucker=Brodt

Take eight good, large, fresh eggs, only the yolks beaten together, then stirred small (i.e. until they are a cohesive liquid) and one pound of grated sugar gradually worked in by handfuls so it becomes quite thick. Then also add a spoonful of rosewater, cardamom, and cinnamon, and stir all together thoroughly. Then beat the egg whites to a stiff foam and add them along with half a pound of fine flour and half a pound of fine, sifted, white starch that is stirred in skilfully at the very end. Then have small, elongated tin moulds first brushed with butter and then put it in them and bake it. If you have no tin moulds, you can make little paper boxes, half a sheet in size, and also brush them with butter, and bake it in them. When it is done, cut it in pieces as you wish to have it, dry it a little, and store it.

On the whole, this does not sound too unpleasant, either, though I can see how it would feel decadent. But altogether, a pleasant, invigorating drink, sweet nibbles, and pleasant conversation, what could be the problem? In a word, money.

Coffee, after all, did not grow in Germany, a problem that generations of German governments would face through modern history. In the 1780s, most of it was imported from the French colony of St Domingue (today Haiti) and thus produced profit for France, not the local economy. By eighteenth-century economic orthodoxy, this was an intolerable state of affairs. The strength of an economy was measured in the products it put out and the influx of gold and silver it created. To that kind of thinking, an outflow of cash was intolerable. Something needed to be done.

Paderborn was far from the only place where government measures bit in the late 18th century. Prussia imposed high tariffs to boost local substitutes. Hesse-Kassel actually banned coffee entirely. Both countries for a time commissioned veterans as Kaffeeriecher, bounty hunters who would smell out roasting beans and deliver the culprit to the authorities (the histpry of coffee in Germany gets wild). Prince-Archbishop William Anthony was not ready to go to such extreme lengths. Sagely, he decided not to impose a complete ban. Instead, he decreed that the lower orders would be forbidden from wasting their hard-earned money on the frivolous enjoyment of coffee for their own protection, or that of their taxable incomes. The nobility and clergy, naturally, could be trusted with so problematic a substance.

Nobody is entirely sure what he expected the response to be, but when a city official responsible for enforcing the ban found his wine cellar inexplicably flooded one morning, it was clear to all observers that it was not positive. People protested. There was public talk of clandestine, nightly coffee feasts and invitations passed from hand to hand. On 12 August 1781, people gathered in the streets to drink coffee, play music, and generally have fun in defiance of the rules. Official documents speak of rowdy drunkenness, but we have no eyewitness accounts and no record of damage or injuries. It was probably just a street party.

Two days later, the grenadiers moved into town. Paderborn actually had a garrison of regular infantry, but they had not intervened. The authorities apparently felt that the situation required more troops on hand. The local population met them not with resistance, which even a small force would have easily broken, but with mocking songs. City officials wrote letters of protest against this unwarranted punishment. At any rate, there wasn’t enough room in town, so the soldiers would march back to quarters every evening. One can only guess how they felt about the whole thing. After some back and forth and an exchange of legal rescripts, the daily army commute ended. Things quieted down. On paper, nothing had changed. No judgement was passed, the archbishop remained in power, the coffee ban on the books. It was simply no longer enforced, flouted in private, then increasingly in public, until Napoleon casually ended the archbishopric’s existence as a sovereign state and made coffee the least of everyone’s problems. Big politics had arrived.

All of this sounds silly and a bit twee to us, and the nineteenth-century historians we often depend on certainly share that perspective. It is very important to remember that the people in government did not see it that way. They were entirely serious about the laws they passed, their legal disputes and threats of force, and they had a point. If it had come to violence, people would have been just as dead from the tiny Paderborn grenadier company’s ragged musketry as from any of the more famous militaries of the age.

The silliness was deliberate. It was a tactic of resistance. An official could fight violence or sabotage, but an improvised statue depicting him on donkey-back appearing in the town square was another matter. Troops found it hard to intimidate people who deployed choirs mocking them with religious hymns wherever they marched. The government had no way to stop this short of shooting people, and to the credit of the men in charge, they did not.

A lot of protest in the preindustrial world revolved around symbolic gestures, around claiming public space and breaking with custom. This mattered a lot, and it still does. The exercise of power depends on people following customary rules. Refusing to do so – no longer giving deference, keeping quiet, or giving way – can make the mighty look like fools, and that alone is a mighty weapon. Do not underestimate the power of a defiant street party. And if you still have to storm the Bastille later, at least you had some good coffee beforehand.