I am changing to a new computer and a Linux-based operating system (something those of us outside the USA should consider due to geopolitical risk, and those within to minimise personal risk). Getting used to the different surface and learning its peculiarities is a challenge, so there is no long article today. I’ve not given up on ‘Feeding the Revolution‘, but today, I have just a short set of recipes from Balthasar Staindl’s cookbook:
(Pea soup) In a different way
When you boil the peas soft, pass some of them through, but so that it is not too thick. Only take pea broth, no water. And if you want to have it good and it should be white, take a good amount (eerlich) of good white cream. But if you colour it yellow, do not use too much cream. When you want to make it white, it is quite as good as almond soup.
A different soup of chickpeas (Zyßerle)
Zyserel are long peas, all white. Boil them as well and pass them through with their own broth and a good amount of cream. Serve it on toasted semel bread (with) raisins.
Lentil soup
cclvii) Boil the lentils very slowly and fry onion into it (i.e. add pan-fried onions). Sour it, spice it, add raisins, and serve it on toasted bread and as an evening meal (nacht essen).
This is part of the chapter on soups, but it looks a lot more substantial than what we consider a soup today. Dried legumes were a staple, much more prevalent than the relatively few surviving recipes suggest, and this is a refined method of serving them. Mashed peas or chickpeas – available in Southern Germany, but not a common crop – with cream and spices served over toast make a lovely dish for a chill, wet and dark evening. The lentils, seasoned with vinegar and topped with onions fried soft in butter or lard, are more robust, but equally attractive. These were the ways money and skill made winter bearable and even enjoyable, and best of all, these were permitted during Lent after the Empire obtained the requisite blanket indulgence in 1490.
Balthasar Staindl’s 1547 Kuenstlichs und nutzlichs Kochbuch is a very interesting source and one of the earliest printed German cookbooks, predated only by the Kuchenmaistrey (1485) and a translation of Platina (1530). It was also first printed in Augsburg, though the author is identified as coming from Dillingen where he probably worked as a cook. I’m still in the process of trying to find out more.