u/VolkerBach

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/08/18/a-roast-chicken-mystery/

B13 To fill a chicken

If you want to fill a chicken, take 3 eggs and boil them hard. Also take parsley and mirren (myrtleberries?) and pound the parsley and mirren and egg well together. Add butter, and also take small grapes that are called rossin (raisins), and fill the chicken. Let it roast, but also add salt to the filling et caetera.

https://preview.redd.it/je1msnixk6kh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=49dffc95993bedf73a2834723f7643fbd20a21d2

Basically, this is a very familiar recipe. Filling roast chickens with boiled egg is sometimes referred to as ‘the German way’, as opposed to ‘the Italian way’ of using herbs, and it must have been much more widely known than the few recipes that survive suggest given it also shows up in literature. The basic procedure is clear: mash up boiled eggs, add herbs and salt, work in dried fruit, and fill it into the chicken. A similar set of instructions from the Kuchenmaistrey also includes mashed roast apples or pears and raw egg to hold it together, but it envisions filling a meat roast, mentioning poultry only as an afterthought.

This kind of filling would not require cooking, but could absorb meat juices and impart flavour to the bird. I am not convinced of its culinary merits, but it was practical and if you had to stretch your animal protein, it added to the portions as well. The one question that continues to vex me is the second seasoning ingredient mentioned here along with parsley.

The problem with mirren is not its obscurity; it is a common word in Middle High German. The problem is that it cannot possibly mean what it usually does. Mirren, familiar from devotional literature and sermons, is myrrh. Technically, myrrh is edible, but it is bitter and astringent and smells much better than it tastes. I used it in experiments with medieval dental hygiene remedies once and the experience of even a relatively small amount in my mouth is not something I wish to repeat. Admittedly, it is possible that people enjoyed this, of course, and even though this would be the only mention of it in a culinary context in German, the recipe may actually refer to myrrh. It is just extremely unlikely.

The most likely possibility in my opinion is that it means myrtleberry. The German words are close enough to make this confusion fairly common (having brides wear a wreath of myrrh in some poems), and unlike the bitter resin, myrtleberries actually have a history of culinary use. It is still a very uncommon condiment, 1500 is very early for it to show up, and I am not convinced it would work in this recipe. That is something I should try, though.

This leaves the question what else it could be, and at this point I am drawing a blank. It will need looking at herbals and dialect dictionaries to see what other explanations present themselves.

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.

Today, it’s back to work and with less time than I would like to, it will have to be a short recipe from the Solothurn MS. Very straightforward and manly, it looks like the breakfast of champions:

https://preview.redd.it/f768z5iwdzjh1.jpg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e3bdea8c4cff09349635ed1b44ade21466338dbd

B12 A good dish

If you want to make a good dish, take beef and boil it a little (ein wenig), and then chop it small. Then take bacon and also chop that. Lay the bacon and the meat into a cauldron and stir it well, set it over the coals and let it cook. Also add 3 eggs and good spices, mix that together and pour it in with the meat. Also add a little saffron. And let it cook well et caetera.

It is quite unusual for a recipe this basic to be recorded, but I suspect this kind of dish played a bigger role in demonstrating social distinction than almond milk or gamebirds in day-to-day interaction. It took cash and resources to produce, and it represented desirable qualities in a handy package, but it was also quick and could be realised with what you could find in the house or on any town market.

Despite it being basic, there is a fair bit more scope for interpretation than appears at first. Firstly, we do not know how much meat and bacon is called for. I assume it is not a great quantity, but that is speculation. After parboiling and chopping the beef and mixing it with bacon, it is cooked over the fire in a kessel, a metal vessel designed to be suspended rather than a standing pottery cookpot. The verb used is kochen, a very general description that suggest no additional water is involved. Depending on the length of cooking time, the amount of meat juices, and any broth that came along from the parboiling, the eggs could now become a binding agent for what is mostly a meat mixture, provide the liaison for a sauce, or make an omelet or scramble with a substantial meat component. I come down on the side of an egg dish with meat rather than a meat dish with egg, making this akin to the scrambled or solidified egg dishes found elsewhere. Imagine it served with bread and beer, it will make a rich, filling meal that reminded you of the creature comforts wealth could provide.

The 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/2026/08/17/a-meaty-omelet/

Today, it’s back to work and with less time than I would like to, it will have to be a short recipe from the Solothurn MS. Very straightforward and manly, it looks like the breakfast of champions:

B12 A good dish

If you want to make a good dish, take beef and boil it a little (ein wenig), and then chop it small. Then take bacon and also chop that. Lay the bacon and the meat into a cauldron and stir it well, set it over the coals and let it cook. Also add 3 eggs and good spices, mix that together and pour it in with the meat. Also add a little saffron. And let it cook well et caetera.

https://preview.redd.it/elmqfhpcdzjh1.jpg?width=704&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ae8c767f31d8106df862fcf596d75dc135731016

It is quite unusual for a recipe this basic to be recorded, but I suspect this kind of dish played a bigger role in demonstrating social distinction than almond milk or gamebirds in day-to-day interaction. It took cash and resources to produce, and it represented desirable qualities in a handy package, but it was also quick and could be realised with what you could find in the house or on any town market.

Despite it being basic, there is a fair bit more scope for interpretation than appears at first. Firstly, we do not know how much meat and bacon is called for. I assume it is not a great quantity, but that is speculation. After parboiling and chopping the beef and mixing it with bacon, it is cooked over the fire in a kessel, a metal vessel designed to be suspended rather than a standing pottery cookpot. The verb used is kochen, a very general description that suggest no additional water is involved. Depending on the length of cooking time, the amount of meat juices, and any broth that came along from the parboiling, the eggs could now become a binding agent for what is mostly a meat mixture, provide the liaison for a sauce, or make an omelet or scramble with a substantial meat component. I come down on the side of an egg dish with meat rather than a meat dish with egg, making this akin to the scrambled or solidified egg dishes found elsewhere. Imagine it served with bread and beer, it will make a rich, filling meal that reminded you of the creature comforts wealth could provide.

The 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.

It was said that countries had armies, but Prussia was an army that had a country. Certainly, pride in its military prowess and respect for the martial tradition behind it was a unifying thread that held the ruling classes of the disparate kingdom together. The king’s troops marched with unrivalled precision, drilled to exacting standards, trained in an exacting school to achieve great things with little in material resources, and they showed off their famous parades. It was unthinkable for a soldier to slouch in public, to miss a beat, hold his musket the wrong way around, skip down the street, or wiggle his behind against that of a comrade. But that was what the officers of the Cologne garrison were seeing in 1824. It was brazen mockery of everything Prussia stood for, and much to their regret, it was entirely legal.

https://preview.redd.it/z5df4f4ockjh1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e4d9787316306a804f80d4cf943d70dee99177c1

This may need a bit of explaining. Cologne had, after all, been a proudly independent city state for centuries. It was only after the Napoleonic Wars that the city, along with most of the middle Rhine valley, was summarily given to the king of Prussia as spoils of victory. What had once been a commercial hub was turned into a fortress city guarding the Rhine against the dreaded French, filled with Prussian officers, burdened with new military regulation, and governed by a distant provincial administration under the thumb of Berlin. After years of French occupation, they citizens had imagined liberation to feel a bit – freer.

Not that anyone could do much about this. In theory, Prussia may have been a relatively liberal place, but the government did not react well to dissent in practical matters. Thus, the wealthy families that dominated the city sought accommodation with their new ruler much as they had with Emperor Napoleon before. They styled themselves loyal subjects, haggled over royal demands, and tried to shore up local identity and their own privilege. In this new world, pride of place mattered, and Cologne with its deep religious roots played up its Catholic identity. Aside from finishing a cathedral whose construction had been put on hold around 1560 and reviving the tradition of pilgrimages, a key part of this was Karneval.

The problem with adopting this piece of historic identity was that in real, actual history, the anarchic street festival the people of Cologne traditionally indulged in the week before Ash Wednesday had scared the council to the point of banning it at several points. Thus, with the cooperation of the Prussian authorities, a novel approach was tried in 1823: Formalisation. From now on, a committee of respectable men would organise the celebrations, supported by civic associations, and presided over by a central figure, the Held Carneval (today called the Prinz). If fun had to be had, it would be within reasonable boundaries approved by the wisdom of the Obrigkeit, the governing classes.

Like any proper ruler, Held Carneval had a guard, and in 1823, the Rote Funken constituted themselves to that end. Dressed in the red uniforms of the old municipal military, they paraded in the carnival procession. At least, that was what the Prussian authorities supposed they would do. We do not know exactly how far back the various traditions of the performance go, but from the start, these men put on a display of everything a proper Prussian soldier was not. Their march was a dance, their drill a persiflage, their uniforms comically exaggerated, their commands childish. The high point of the performance since at least the later 19th century, but probably much earlier than that, was the Stippeföttche (literally ‘stick-out-booty’). In this dance performed to marching tunes, two guardsmen stand back to back, arms at mock-present, wiggling their hips and sticking out their behinds until they rub up against each other. This has by now become a central part of Rhenish identity, and membership in such guards clubs is a sought-after social distinction. Back then, it was new and provocative.

We can only imagine how people responded to seeing this. Carnival was the most public place that existed in Cologne, with everyone out in the streets to celebrate, many in outlandish costumes, masked, and using the freedom this anonymity provided for noisy, disrespectful fun. The old way had been characterised by drunkenness and mischief, and the new respectability was hard to enforce. There was still beer, there were disguises, and there were Krapfen.

All over Southern Germany, carnival is associated with deep-fried dough of various kinds. Today, supermarkets and bakery chains tend to serve up standardised Berliner, a kind of jelly doughnut, but even the earliest recipes are more elaborate than that. Cologne had its own Krapfen or Krepfel, but there seems to be no unified recipe tradition. Some descriptions suggest a yeast-leavened dough, others a choux paste, and they may or may not be filled. This could mean nothing more than that some deep-fried confection was expected, but the choice was up to the individual. Henriette Davidis, doyenne of North German (i.e. Prussian-aligned) cuisine, has two recipes for Kröpfel in her Pracktisches Kochbuch, one leavened, the other unleavened:

194: Kröpfeln

One small cup of milk, 4 Loth of butter, 3 Loth of sugar, 3 eggs, some cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom are worked into a dough with 1 pound of flour. This is rolled out thinly, cut into strips 2 fingers long and wide, these cut lengthwise three times so they just hang together, braided loosely, and fried like Mutzen.

195: Kröpfeln in a different manner

Stir one pound of flour with 1/8 Maß of milk and 3 Loth of yeast, let the dough rise, then stir in almost as much milk again, 2 eggs, 4 Loth of sugar, and the zest of one lemon. Beat the dough with a spoon until it detaches (from the bowl), then also work in 12 Loth of butter and enough flour so it can be rolled out as thick as a straw. Once this is done, cut it into pieces of whatever size and shape you please with a pastry wheel. Allow these to rise, and fry them golden brown in clarified butter.

You can also fill the Kröpfel. Roll them out thin, lay fruit between two pieces of dough, and otherwise proceed as above.

These two recipes, while sharing a name, really have very little to do with each other. The second comes close to Berliner or Mutzen as we know them today, depending on the size, while the first reminds me of medieval recipes for ‘dagged’ fritters. Both sound attractive, the first producing a rich, crunchy, spicy fritter that is made ‘short’ by frying in fat while the second, soft, fluffy and fruity, can probably also be baked in an oven. With the amount of butter worked into it, it does not need enriching. Both offer quite a bit of space for interpretation. For orientation in case you intend to duplicate the recipes exactly, Prussian measures defined the pound as 467.7 grammes and a Loth as 14.6 grammes. The Mmid-aß at this point was a conventional unit of a little over a litre, no longer part of the new standardised measures. The old Cologne Maß held 1.32 litres, but it is not certain which one Davidis refers to here.

I can imagine either treat would go down well on a cold, often wet day, as Karneval typically is in Cologne. With people lining the streets enjoying the show, street vendors made good money, and in the end, the new, organised celebration caught on, as did the antics of the princely guardsmen. The Prussian administration was in a bind. They had agreed to this, after all, not least in order to strengthen the authority of the city council against revolutionary elements. And it was legal; Technically, the dancers were representing the defunct city military; technically, their uniforms were entirely different from the Prussian ones; and technically, it had nothing to do with the present, but everyone understood who was meant. We must imagine the forced smiles as the garrison’s officers accepted invitations, their troops secured the streets, and military bands played to entertain the people.

Later generations would embrace this as a brave act of resistance. It certainly was not that. Despite the often fraught relationship with Berlin, the city government depended on the Prussian state to uphold the privileges of the rich and titled, and it was ready to submit meekly to any demand in return. Whenever genuine resistance occurred, they clamped down hard. Similarly, the organisers of the Karneval, while defending their social fiefdom vigorously, readily accepted any of the ‘suggestions’ a succession of repressive governments made to them. Still, this was a clear statement of defiance against the government’s will, an assertion of difference in a state that did not tolerate much heterogeneity. Doing small things within the confines of even a very restrictive law can be empowering when you feel little hope otherwise. And of course, the Rote Funken won. Their lampooning show remains part of the Karneval long after the Prussian army has ceased to be.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/08/15/the-booty-dance-of-the-iron-kingdom-feeding-the-revolution-xxxv/

It was said that countries had armies, but Prussia was an army that had a country. Certainly, pride in its military prowess and respect for the martial tradition behind it was a unifying thread that held the ruling classes of the disparate kingdom together. The king’s troops marched with unrivalled precision, drilled to exacting standards, trained in an exacting school to achieve great things with little in material resources, and they showed off their famous parades. It was unthinkable for a soldier to slouch in public, to miss a beat, hold his musket the wrong way around, skip down the street, or wiggle his behind against that of a comrade. But that was what the officers of the Cologne garrison were seeing in 1824. It was brazen mockery of everything Prussia stood for, and much to their regret, it was entirely legal.

https://preview.redd.it/wvy8e7f0ckjh1.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=114ac9a243975f688d5c3e258a90d81026665c43

This may need a bit of explaining. Cologne had, after all, been a proudly independent city state for centuries. It was only after the Napoleonic Wars that the city, along with most of the middle Rhine valley, was summarily given to the king of Prussia as spoils of victory. What had once been a commercial hub was turned into a fortress city guarding the Rhine against the dreaded French, filled with Prussian officers, burdened with new military regulation, and governed by a distant provincial administration under the thumb of Berlin. After years of French occupation, they citizens had imagined liberation to feel a bit – freer.

Not that anyone could do much about this. In theory, Prussia may have been a relatively liberal place, but the government did not react well to dissent in practical matters. Thus, the wealthy families that dominated the city sought accommodation with their new ruler much as they had with Emperor Napoleon before. They styled themselves loyal subjects, haggled over royal demands, and tried to shore up local identity and their own privilege. In this new world, pride of place mattered, and Cologne with its deep religious roots played up its Catholic identity. Aside from finishing a cathedral whose construction had been put on hold around 1560 and reviving the tradition of pilgrimages, a key part of this was Karneval.

The problem with adopting this piece of historic identity was that in real, actual history, the anarchic street festival the people of Cologne traditionally indulged in the week before Ash Wednesday had scared the council to the point of banning it at several points. Thus, with the cooperation of the Prussian authorities, a novel approach was tried in 1823: Formalisation. From now on, a committee of respectable men would organise the celebrations, supported by civic associations, and presided over by a central figure, the Held Carneval (today called the Prinz). If fun had to be had, it would be within reasonable boundaries approved by the wisdom of the Obrigkeit, the governing classes.

Like any proper ruler, Held Carneval had a guard, and in 1823, the Rote Funken constituted themselves to that end. Dressed in the red uniforms of the old municipal military, they paraded in the carnival procession. At least, that was what the Prussian authorities supposed they would do. We do not know exactly how far back the various traditions of the performance go, but from the start, these men put on a display of everything a proper Prussian soldier was not. Their march was a dance, their drill a persiflage, their uniforms comically exaggerated, their commands childish. The high point of the performance since at least the later 19th century, but probably much earlier than that, was the Stippeföttche (literally ‘stick-out-booty’). In this dance performed to marching tunes, two guardsmen stand back to back, arms at mock-present, wiggling their hips and sticking out their behinds until they rub up against each other. This has by now become a central part of Rhenish identity, and membership in such guards clubs is a sought-after social distinction. Back then, it was new and provocative.

We can only imagine how people responded to seeing this. Carnival was the most public place that existed in Cologne, with everyone out in the streets to celebrate, many in outlandish costumes, masked, and using the freedom this anonymity provided for noisy, disrespectful fun. The old way had been characterised by drunkenness and mischief, and the new respectability was hard to enforce. There was still beer, there were disguises, and there were Krapfen.

All over Southern Germany, carnival is associated with deep-fried dough of various kinds. Today, supermarkets and bakery chains tend to serve up standardised Berliner, a kind of jelly doughnut, but even the earliest recipes are more elaborate than that. Cologne had its own Krapfen or Krepfel, but there seems to be no unified recipe tradition. Some descriptions suggest a yeast-leavened dough, others a choux paste, and they may or may not be filled. This could mean nothing more than that some deep-fried confection was expected, but the choice was up to the individual. Henriette Davidis, doyenne of North German (i.e. Prussian-aligned) cuisine, has two recipes for Kröpfel in her Pracktisches Kochbuch, one leavened, the other unleavened:

194: Kröpfeln

One small cup of milk, 4 Loth of butter, 3 Loth of sugar, 3 eggs, some cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom are worked into a dough with 1 pound of flour. This is rolled out thinly, cut into strips 2 fingers long and wide, these cut lengthwise three times so they just hang together, braided loosely, and fried like Mutzen.

195: Kröpfeln in a different manner

Stir one pound of flour with 1/8 Maß of milk and 3 Loth of yeast, let the dough rise, then stir in almost as much milk again, 2 eggs, 4 Loth of sugar, and the zest of one lemon. Beat the dough with a spoon until it detaches (from the bowl), then also work in 12 Loth of butter and enough flour so it can be rolled out as thick as a straw. Once this is done, cut it into pieces of whatever size and shape you please with a pastry wheel. Allow these to rise, and fry them golden brown in clarified butter.

You can also fill the Kröpfel. Roll them out thin, lay fruit between two pieces of dough, and otherwise proceed as above.

These two recipes, while sharing a name, really have very little to do with each other. The second comes close to Berliner or Mutzen as we know them today, depending on the size, while the first reminds me of medieval recipes for ‘dagged’ fritters. Both sound attractive, the first producing a rich, crunchy, spicy fritter that is made ‘short’ by frying in fat while the second, soft, fluffy and fruity, can probably also be baked in an oven. With the amount of butter worked into it, it does not need enriching. Both offer quite a bit of space for interpretation. For orientation in case you intend to duplicate the recipes exactly, Prussian measures defined the pound as 467.7 grammes and a Loth as 14.6 grammes. The Maß at this point was a conventional unit of a little over a litre, no longer part of the new standardised measures. The old Cologne Maß held 1.32 litres, but it is not certain which one Davidis refers to here.

I can imagine either treat would go down well on a cold, often wet day, as Karneval typically is in Cologne. With people lining the streets enjoying the show, street vendors made good money, and in the end, the new, organised celebration caught on, as did the antics of the princely guardsmen. The Prussian administration was in a bind. They had agreed to this, after all, not least in order to strengthen the authority of the city council against revolutionary elements. And it was legal; Technically, the dancers were representing the defunct city military; technically, their uniforms were entirely different from the Prussian ones; and technically, it had nothing to do with the present, but everyone understood who was meant. We must imagine the forced smiles as the garrison’s officers accepted invitations, their troops secured the streets, and military bands played to entertain the people.

Later generations would embrace this as a brave act of resistance. It certainly was not that. Despite the often fraught relationship with Berlin, the city government depended on the Prussian state to uphold the privileges of the rich and titled, and it was ready to submit meekly to any demand in return. Whenever genuine resistance occurred, they clamped down hard. Similarly, the organisers of the Karneval, while defending their social fiefdom vigorously, readily accepted any of the ‘suggestions’ a succession of repressive governments made to them. Still, this was a clear statement of defiance against the government’s will, an assertion of difference in a state that did not tolerate much heterogeneity. Doing small things within the confines of even a very restrictive law can be empowering when you feel little hope otherwise. And of course, the Rote Funken won. Their lampooning show remains part of the Karneval long after the Prussian army has ceased to be.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/08/13/the-rent-was-too-damn-high-feeding-the-revolution-xxxiv/

One of the best investments you could make in early twentieth century Germany was rental properties, and one of the best places to do this was Berlin. The city’s Mietskasernen (literally: barracks-for-rent) were as infamous for their lightless backyards and mouldy apartments as the ever increasing rents owners could charge for any kind of living space in the growing capital. In better neighbourhoods, the quality of the housing was higher, but the relentless rise in rent applied everywhere. Even in good times, working-class people found it difficult to afford a home, and the early 1930s were not good times.

A backyard in Berlin during the rent strike. The graffiti on the wall in the background reads “Food first, rent next!” Swastikas have been covered up due to overzealous social media censorship. Courtesy of wikimedia commons (original with Nazi flags)

The Great Depression hit Germany harder than most European countries, and its government response was about as hapless as any in the world. A state scarred by memories of runaway inflation and steeped in market ideology pursued cuts across the board in an effort to balance its books, reducing already meagre unemployment and welfare payments the moment millions more people needed them, often for the first time in their lives. As the crisis burned its way through the working classes well into the middle class, previously respectable people in what used to be secure occupations faced a stark choice – homelessness or hunger.

Failing to pay rent meant eviction, but often enough, doing so simply left no money for anything else. Welfare cuts inflicted this on the families many unemployed workers immediately while it crept up inexorably on working and middle class renters, but all knew it was coming. Violence in response was not new – in fact, there had been massive riots two generations before – but the organised response that it met with this time was.

Germany, of course, is infamous for being organised, but in the early twentieth century, the reputation was entirely justified. The Berlin rent crunch was met by a concerted effort by Communist and anarchist organisations, to the shock of the landlords. Most of our records come from party papers which are unfortunately untrustworthy, but police reports agree that attempting an eviction in working-class areas often drew large, threatening crowds immediately. Being unemployed, many men had little else to do, and even if you had police on hand, throwing a family out on the street in front of hundreds of angry, silent observers carrying sticks and bricks would take more courage than most Gerichtsvollzieher (bailiffs) had. The vocal anger in the landlords’ paper suggests this put significant pressure on their profits; One article described the situation as “untenable” as “…so-called tenants’ councils (Mieterräte) and housing protection squadrons (Hausschutzstaffeln) threatened property owners, forcing them to abandon an eviction even under the very eyes of the police…” which they saw as failing “…in a downright embarrassing manner.”

Even if the evictions were carried out, the crowd frequently proceeded to break the police seals on the door and take the evictees’ furniture back inside, daring anyone to stop them. Legally, neither had any standing, of course, but in practice, these confrontations often ended in compromises where outstanding debts were cancelled, rents lowered, or overdue repairs promised.

Of course, this kind of thing was not easily arranged in the greener, less crowded middle-class neighbourhoods new to the experience. Here, a different approach was often taken: tenants, either singly or, more effectively, as a group, withheld part or all of their rent. This Mietstreik (rent strike) put pressure on the landlord to negotiate. A respectable approach was to place the withheld funds in an escrow account pending an agreement. In an age when even well-off people often did all their business in cash, this called for organisation and support that often came from cooperative savings banks and activist lawyers. The effort was considerable, and the networks involved in it often successful at least in the short term.

To many middle-class Kleinbürger, this was an entirely new experience. Germany’s shopkeepers, artisans and clerks had enjoyed a protected status in return for their political support to the Wilhelmine order that ended with the economic shocks of the war and depression. Many blamed the new democratic institutions, but socialists and anarchists were now hoping to make inroads in a class that had been almost impossible to recruit by fostering grassroots self-help efforts.

They certainly had reason to hope. Middle-class Germans had seen the lifestyle they traditionally aspired to disappear out of reach. Servants, homeownership, investments, respectable clothing and food all became unaffordable on a workshop’s profits or an office salary. If the working-class missed a time when their wages bought small pleasures, these people had lost a lifestyle and the respect that went with it. A meal in a petit bourgeois home had been a ritual, three or maybe four courses, with a meat dish at its centre, and usually prepared by, or at least with the assistance of, a maidservant. By the early 1930s, when the Berlin electric company BEWAG published its famous ‘blue book’ Das elektrische Kochen to instruct urban housewives in the use of the new electric stoves, the recipes included main dishes such as this:

371. Spinach Casserole (Spinatauflauf)

750g spinach

1 tbsp butter, some onions, chives, salt, 1 tbsp flour

3-4 pancakes

1/4 litre sour milk or cream, 1 entire egg, 1 tbsp grated cheese, salt

2 tsp grated white bread, 2 tsp grated cheese, butter dabs

Wilt the spinach in an open pot without water, but do not boil it. Pass it through (a grinder opr foodmill – durchdrehen) and sautée it in the butter with onions and flour. Season to taste with salt and chives. + Prepare pancakes from the stated ingredients. You may stack them in the casserole layered with spinach or or you can roll them up, spread thickly with spinach, cut them in slices, and arrange them in the dish. + Pour the sour cream beaten with egg, cheese, and salt over it, sprinkle it with grated bread and cheese, and dab it with butter. This casserole can also be prepared from leftover spinach combined with other leftovers.

Setting: Place on a grille at middle level

Bake: 1.2kW oven, 25-30 min. 3/3, 10 min 0/0; 1.4-12.5 kW oven: 20-25 min 3/3, 15 min 0/0

To be observed: If the spinach is too thin, stir in some grated bread

The pancakes required are described elsewhere:

263 Pancakes

4 tbsp flour, 1 pinch baking powder, 1 pinch salt, 2 eggs, 1/8 litre milk, 1/8 litre water

Sift the flour into a bowl with the baking powder, beat the eggs with the milk, water, and salt, and gradually stir the liquid into the flour, ideally with a whisk, to produce a smooth batter. Preheat the pan at setting 3, then fry thin pancakes at setting 2, the final one with no further electricity + These can be rolled up filled with jam, meat, or vegetables. This batter will yield five.

For the expense of three eggs and some assorted dairy, a meal for the family is created from what more comfortable times considered side dishes. Such recipes had existed before, of course, but they were not celebrated in public. This was the reality of a lifestyle that desperately clung to the final shreds of respectability – a proper home-cooked meal, a housewife not having to work for wages, clean shirts and a three-piece suit – to stave off the slide into proletarianism. Every piece of effort that went into processing and adorning the meal, carefully binding the spinach into a roux-stabilised filling, rolling it up in pancakes arranged in a decorative pattern, and topping it with a crust of cheese and breadcrumbs, showed the disposable labour of a Hausfrau, and we can only hope that both the budget and her culinary skill extended to the nutmeg this recipe really needs.

Nutmeg, like many other imported spices, disappeared from many cookbooks because they cost hard currency which the Reich could ill afford. The futility of this gesture is hard to overstate given the scale of other imports, but it was considered patriotic. Spicing was a private pleasure, not mentioned in polite company.

These people needed organisation and self-help to save themselves. We will probably never know how many homes the rent strikes of the early 1930s saved, but the number was not zero. Each instance helped. Unfortunately, the project ultimately failed. Germany in 1930, though technically a Republic, was already run by an authoritarian cabal deeply suspicious of all forms of self-organisation. The majority of the petit bourgeois shared their outlook and were happy to blame outsiders – foreign powers, women voters, jazz musicians, Marxists, and Jews – for the loss of the status and comfort they considered their due. The Nazi party was happy to accommodate this view. Many were leery of limiting landlords’ rights because in a properly run world, they would be owning rather than renting property, and they hoped that once Hitler was in power, that happy state could return. The Nazis quickly shut down any form of tenant organisation as well as any reporting of a housing crisis, so everything was clearly fine from that point onwards.

In the end, you could say this led to the tenant organisations achieving their goals: Postwar German governments imposed draconian housing regulation on the burned-out ruins of their cities and launched a vast public building programme. The result was a brief phase during which housing ceased to be a problem, home ownership expanded to unprecedented level, and affordable apartments were easily found. This experience continues to distort an older generations’ perception while a generation of neoliberal policy has ensured the actual urban housing market looks more like the 1870s than the 1970s today. Berlin today has no organised housing protection squadrons or rent strike committees, but its citizens voted in a 2021 referendum to expropriate housing held by large private equity investors. As of today, this has yet to be implemented or even attempted.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/08/12/two-sauces-from-the-solothurn-ms/

I am finally back home just in time to watch the eclipse and can return to my recipes. Today, there is time only for a brief post. These are two basic, but interesting sauce recipes:

B9 A good sauce

If you want to make a good sauce, take almonds and pound them well. Add sweet mustard to it and a glass full of verjuice, and grind it in (lit.: through) a mustard mill. Then let it boil briefly on the coals.

B10 A green sauce

If you want to make a green sauce, take good herbs and chop them well. Then pound them well and toast the crumb of bread over the coals. Pound it together and grind it in a mustard mill.

The first recipe is an interesting combination of sweet, sharp, sour, and unctuous. Almonds, ground to a paste, are combined with sweet mustard and verjuice. The sweet mustard probably means mustard made with honey – we have a number of surviving recipes for this. The almonds are ‘pounded well’, which most likely means processed in the customary way. They are blanched and pounded or ground to a paste with a cautious addition of water to prevent the oil from separating out. That is also how you prepare them for almond milk, marzipan, and many other recipes. It produces a rich, smooth paste that will soften the impact of the heat and sweetness in the mustard. Adding the sourness of verjuice – the juice of unripe grapes also known as agresta – rounds out what really sounds like an interesting combination, almost like a modern sandwich sauce. Getting the balance right might prove tricky.

The second looks like another iteration of the ubiquitous ‘green sauce’ of herbs, vinegar, and a binder, in this case toasted bread. This is attested just about anywhere, often with complex combinations of herbs, and seems to have been universally popular. It was also well known, so no exact description is needed here. Basically, herbs, either fresh or dried, were ground up with a binding agent, usually grated bread, and made into a sauce with vinegar, verjuice, or wine. Here, fresh herbs are intended, and the liquid is omitted. Everyone knew you needed it.

What stands out most in both recipes is the admonition to grind the sauces in a mustard mill, that is, to process them very finely. Mustard needed to be ground to a fine powder between stones, not just pounded in a mortar, and treating a sauce this way would produce a homogenous liquid, not a chunky paste. It suggests this quality was prized.

The 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.

First page of Solothurn S 392

I am finally back home just in time to watch the eclipse and can return to my recipes. Today, there is time only for a brief post. These are two basic, but interesting sauce recipes:

B9 A good sauce

If you want to make a good sauce, take almonds and pound them well. Add sweet mustard to it and a glass full of verjuice, and grind it in (lit.: through) a mustard mill. Then let it boil briefly on the coals.

B10 A green sauce

If you want to make a green sauce, take good herbs and chop them well. Then pound them well and toast the crumb of bread over the coals. Pound it together and grind it in a mustard mill.

The first recipe is an interesting combination of sweet, sharp, sour, and unctuous. Almonds, ground to a paste, are combined with sweet mustard and verjuice. The sweet mustard probably means mustard made with honey – we have a number of surviving recipes for this. The almonds are ‘pounded well’, which most likely means processed in the customary way. They are blanched and pounded or ground to a paste with a cautious addition of water to prevent the oil from separating out. That is also how you prepare them for almond milk, marzipan, and many other recipes. It produces a rich, smooth paste that will soften the impact of the heat and sweetness in the mustard. Adding the sourness of verjuice – the juice of unripe grapes also known as agresta – rounds out what really sounds like an interesting combination, almost like a modern sandwich sauce. Getting the balance right might prove tricky.

First page of Solothurn S 392

The second looks like another iteration of the ubiquitous ‘green sauce’ of herbs, vinegar, and a binder, in this case toasted bread. This is attested just about anywhere, often with complex combinations of herbs, and seems to have been universally popular. It was also well known, so no exact description is needed here. Basically, herbs, either fresh or dried, were ground up with a binding agent, usually grated bread, and made into a sauce with vinegar, verjuice, or wine. Here, fresh herbs are intended, and the liquid is omitted. Everyone knew you needed it.

What stands out most in both recipes is the admonition to grind the sauces in a mustard mill, that is, to process them very finely. Mustard needed to be ground to a fine powder between stones, not just pounded in a mortar, and treating a sauce this way would produce a homogenous liquid, not a chunky paste. It suggests this quality was prized.

The 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.

This is a short post, because life has been leaving me little time for long ones. I will be very busy for the coming week and a half, and not sure I will be able to post anything, but here at least is a recipe from the Solothurn MS:

B7 A yellow pepper sauce

If you want to make a yellow pepper sauce (to serve) over fish, take bread and grate it on an iron grater. Lay it in warm water to soften it and pass it through a cloth. Then take pepper and saffron and add it, and set it on the coals. Stir it continuously and add a glass of verjuice so it turns sour, or use vinegar.

If we go by surviving recipes and mentions, bread-bound pepper sauce was the ketchup of medieval German upper-class cooking. Everybody knew how to make it, and it went with just about anything. There is considerable variety in the recipes though, so we may really be talking about a broad category of sauces. This recipe adds an interesting detail about the preparation process: The bread is first soaked and strained, then added to the other ingredients and boiled. This is likely to improve consistency, removing the gritty feel many modern eaters dislike about bread-bound foods. Other than that, this is as unexcitingly ubiquitous as it gets.

I hope to be back with stories about making fun of Prussian officers when I am back at my keyboard reliably. Until then, I must ask for your patience.

The 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://preview.redd.it/bwadk46780hh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c02b5c58fe8c5b811963de262d38758585a06c3

This is a short post, because life has been leaving me little time for long ones. I will be very busy for the coming week and a half, and not sure I will be able to post anything, but here at least is a recipe from the Solothurn MS:

B7 A yellow pepper sauce

If you want to make a yellow pepper sauce (to serve) over fish, take bread and grate it on an iron grater. Lay it in warm water to soften it and pass it through a cloth. Then take pepper and saffron and add it, and set it on the coals. Stir it continuously and add a glass of verjuice so it turns sour, or use vinegar.

If we go by surviving recipes and mentions, bread-bound pepper sauce was the ketchup of medieval German upper-class cooking. Everybody knew how to make it, and it went with just about anything. There is considerable variety in the recipes though, so we may really be talking about a broad category of sauces. This recipe adds an interesting detail about the preparation process: The bread is first soaked and strained, then added to the other ingredients and boiled. This is likely to improve consistency, removing the gritty feel many modern eaters dislike about bread-bound foods. Other than that, this is as unexcitingly ubiquitous as it gets.

I hope to be back with stories about making fun of Prussian officers when I am back at my keyboard reliably. Until then, I must ask for your patience.

The 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://preview.redd.it/6pvbux4z70hh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=6bbcc0a0b811dce734cf73a7ef721c57c4e4eea5

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/30/revolt-of-the-dinner-clubs-feeding-the-revolution-xxxiii/

Anyone who mattered agreed that running a large city took personal qualities gained through upbringing and tradition. That was really true of any large polity. A village headman or ship’s captain might be chosen from the common run, but for anything really significant, you needed to call on people from the right families. Yes, there might be disagreements, even violence, but how was that different from what happened among kings and lords? That very likely was the attitude Konstantin von Lyskirchen, head of the faction of ‘friends’ and senior court official of the city of Cologne, took. The patrician families might fight amongst each other, but barely a generation ago, they had come together to bloodily show the uppity weavers’ guild who was in charge. Buoyed by a recent victory against the rival ‘griffin’ faction and this certainty, he may have been a little forceful in dissolving a gathering of Gaffel members, civic associations of the more common kind. But he had a meeting to go to, and this sort of thing needed discouraging.

He was probably quite surprised when, later that day, he and 100 fellow patricians found their gathering disturbed by hundreds of artisans and merchants. They had fetched their arms, brought the city’s war banner, and took the opportunity to lock up most of their natural governing class conveniently assembled in one place. It was 18 June 1396, and for Konstantin and his fellow Geschlechter, nothing would ever be the same again.

Germany is a country of innumerable cities, all of them with their own history and distinct traditions. Some are famous for their ancient roots, their ecclesiastical glory, or their association with powerful rulers. Others are known as centres of art or industry, learning or trade, remembered for their artisans’ skill or the acumen of their merchants. With Cologne, it is ‘And’.

Founded by a Roman emperor, the city is roughly a millennium older than Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, or Frankfurt. Its archiepiscopal see was one of the oldest in the Empire and included electoral rank, which meant its holder was one of just seven princes who chose a new emperor. The shrine of the Magi drew pilgrims from all over Christendom to its grand churches. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas had taught at its cathedral school. As the final port on the Rhine seagoing ships cold reach, it was a major commercial hub, trading wine, timber, and fish, and exporting the famous Cologne grey cloth the thousands of weavers in its oldest guild produced. When its merchants first attended an assembly of the Hanseatic League in 1383, they immediately demanded recognition as its leaders. For most of the medieval period, Cologne was the largest German-speaking city in existence, and it had an ego to match.

That was not to say its rise had been easy of peaceful. Much of its recorded history were dominated by the citizens’ struggle to escape the domineering power of their archbishops, and when they finally achieved this in 1258, urban self-government passed into the hands of the Geschlechter, the grand patrician families. Their club, the Richerzeche (literally ‘guild of the rich’) was treated as a de-facto organ of government. They dominated the economy, monopolised positions of authority, and created a convoluted system of decisionmaking that ensured little cold be done without every family agreeing. As far as it went, this was not an uncommon arrangement in larger cities, and it was very lucrative as long as there was no serious conflict among the Geschlechter.

Of course there was. We are not far off imagining the patrician families as a cross between noble hoses and mafia clans, and without external threats, they descended into internecine squabbles. In the meantime, the great majority of citizens outside this charmed circle were asked to support their decisions and finance the whole thing through their taxes. They, too, had their organisations. Artisans were assembled in craft guilds (called Ämter in Cologne, as in most Hansa towns) which were allowed some limited political role and strictly policed. When the butchers’ guild staged a protest in 1348, the council simply dissolved it.

Another form of organisation that shows up in the record in the 14th century were the Gaffeln. The name means ‘fork’ (Gabel in modern German), and it was a direct reference to their ostensible purpose: Sharing meals. That was not an unusual thing. Eating together – commensality if you are unlucky enough to have to do academic writing – established and strengthened social bonds and entrenched hierarchies. The word lord is etymologically related to bread, as is the word companion. One encapsulates the hierarchical order – the lord gives bread, the servant receives it – the other the egalitarian one – companions share bread. The Gaffeln were of the latter kind.

Named after the carving fork they used to serve portions of meat – forks were not commonly used for eating until the seventeenth century in Germany – these clubs united artisans and merchants, including many who had become wealthy, but were excluded from patrician circles. A Gaffel would establish itself in a given neighbourhood, draw on local people for membership, and effectively become a local community organisations. These were not charities; Members had to fund their meals, after all. But many more could afford to join them than the Richerzeche, and the Gaffel was open to all.

I know of no meal plans for the Gaffeln of the 1390s surviving, but regulations for similar organisations from cities throughout Germany still exist, and the picture is relatively homogenous. The food signalled status, not luxury, but it was never cheap. Often, dishes were defined precisely to ensure members could not compete for leadership by giving more than the rules stipulated. Hosts were elected or determined by rote, and their status was limited to the meal they gave.

The key element in a proper meal was meat or, if the rules of the church did not allow it, fish. In Cologne, there was both locally caught freshwater fish and preserved sea fish like herring, cod, and sole brought in for trade. The market also provided locally butchered beef, pork, and mutton. For both fish and meat, roasted was considered the best, to the point that the word braten came to mean a main dish in general. A roast of meat was also what you used the carving fork on and why it had more symbolic power than a spoon or a bowl. In addition, there was always fine bread and drinks, wine, beer, or both, depending on geography. Cologne had both a brewing tradition and access to wine in large quantities. Butter and salt would accompany every such meal unless it was a strict fast day, and often there was cheese, fruit, and condiments like vinegar, mustard, and other sauces. Side dishes of vegetables are rarely specified, but probably also existed.

After the meal, people lingered to drink, talk, and nibble on snacks such as fritters, nuts, and fruit. One such dish that is still popular in winter, but really good throughout the year, is roast apples. Today, they are known as Bratapfel. Many surviving recipes are very complex, but there is one from a manuscript produced in the Rhineland in 1444 that resembles the modern version and probably also comes closer to what the non-rich were eating:

65 Take figs, raisins and honey. Chop it together with spices and other good things, fill it into apples and close them again with a wooden skewer. Bake them in a thick-walled container (degel) with wine, that turns out courtly.

We know of similar treats from stories, often made very basically by roasting apples or pears in the ashes. Some surviving recipes tend towards the other extreme with parti-coloured fillings and dough or batter coatings for apples deep-fried whole. Simply filling one with dried fruit, spices, and honey represents a happy medium. It would have been affordable to the Gaffel members and also fit their idea of respectable wealth without excess.

From sharing the food to seating and speaking order, an egalitarian ethos suffused every aspect of such gatherings. This was a place where you could talk among equals, air grievances, and possibly hatch plans. We do not know how far the revolt of 1396 was planned. Later historians claimed it was spontaneous, and that is not impossible; citizens had weapons in their homes to defend the city if needed, and the numbers and spaces were small enough you could communicate by running and shouting. But it seems unlikely nobody ever at least considered the possibility.

In the event, things ended reasonably well for everyone involved. The patricians got to keep their heads, their citizenship, and their property, which was remarkably generous all things considered. The government of the city was re-ordered, the privileges of the Geschlechter revoked, and the new system was based on 22 Gaffeln. Some of them were simply the old craft guilds while others represented neighbourhoods. All citizens were required to enroll in one. The Gaffel organised defence and civic obligations, and elected representatives to the council, as well as an expanded advisory body for special cases because in the old Empire, simple government was just unthinkable. The councillors had term limits of one year and were paid in wine. They elected two mayors and two Rentmeister finance officials, also limited to one year in office. It was designed deliberately to ensure nobody got to monopolise power again.

Success was limited, but real. It turned out that rich and connected people had a way of getting into positions of power more often than statistically likely and would help each other stick to their respective seats. Soon enough, old patricians managed to rotate between terms as mayor and Rentmeister, freezing out the rest. In 1481 and again in 1512, there were violent uprisings against these machinations, and in each case the constitution was amended. But in principle, it worked, and until the end of its independence in the Napoleonic wars, Cologne remained a city governed by civic dinner clubs. There surely were worse ways of doing that.

https://preview.redd.it/ws1lbmttmfgh1.jpg?width=841&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=33ec2e9790b9d4818d334221c90f78baa72f2e89

https://preview.redd.it/uerm77cumfgh1.jpg?width=2451&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef0e829d573993167565124886c020d753b56159

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/30/revolt-of-the-dinner-clubs-feeding-the-revolution-xxxiii/

Anyone who mattered agreed that running a large city took personal qualities gained through upbringing and tradition. That was really true of any large polity. A village headman or ship’s captain might be chosen from the common run, but for anything really significant, you needed to call on people from the right families. Yes, there might be disagreements, even violence, but how was that different from what happened among kings and lords? That very likely was the attitude Konstantin von Lyskirchen, head of the faction of ‘friends’ and senior court official of the city of Cologne, took. The patrician families might fight amongst each other, but barely a generation ago, they had come together to bloodily show the uppity weavers’ guild who was in charge. Buoyed by a recent victory against the rival ‘griffin’ faction and this certainty, he may have been a little forceful in dissolving a gathering of Gaffel members, civic associations of the more common kind. But he had a meeting to go to, and this sort of thing needed discouraging.

He was probably quite surprised when, later that day, he and 100 fellow patricians found their gathering disturbed by hundreds of artisans and merchants. They had fetched their arms, brought the city’s war banner, and took the opportunity to lock up most of their natural governing class conveniently assembled in one place. It was 18 June 1396, and for Konstantin and his fellow Geschlechter, nothing would ever be the same again.

Germany is a country of innumerable cities, all of them with their own history and distinct traditions. Some are famous for their ancient roots, their ecclesiastical glory, or their association with powerful rulers. Others are known as centres of art or industry, learning or trade, remembered for their artisans’ skill or the acumen of their merchants. With Cologne, it is ‘And’.

Founded by a Roman emperor, the city is roughly a millennium older than Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, or Frankfurt. Its archiepiscopal see was one of the oldest in the Empire and included electoral rank, which meant its holder was one of just seven princes who chose a new emperor. The shrine of the Magi drew pilgrims from all over Christendom to its grand churches. Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas had taught at its cathedral school. As the final port on the Rhine seagoing ships cold reach, it was a major commercial hub, trading wine, timber, and fish, and exporting the famous Cologne grey cloth the thousands of weavers in its oldest guild produced. When its merchants first attended an assembly of the Hanseatic League in 1383, they immediately demanded recognition as its leaders. For most of the medieval period, Cologne was the largest German-speaking city in existence, and it had an ego to match.

That was not to say its rise had been easy of peaceful. Much of its recorded history were dominated by the citizens’ struggle to escape the domineering power of their archbishops, and when they finally achieved this in 1258, urban self-government passed into the hands of the Geschlechter, the grand patrician families. Their club, the Richerzeche (literally ‘guild of the rich’) was treated as a de-facto organ of government. They dominated the economy, monopolised positions of authority, and created a convoluted system of decisionmaking that ensured little cold be done without every family agreeing. As far as it went, this was not an uncommon arrangement in larger cities, and it was very lucrative as long as there was no serious conflict among the Geschlechter.

Of course there was. We are not far off imagining the patrician families as a cross between noble hoses and mafia clans, and without external threats, they descended into internecine squabbles. In the meantime, the great majority of citizens outside this charmed circle were asked to support their decisions and finance the whole thing through their taxes. They, too, had their organisations. Artisans were assembled in craft guilds (called Ämter in Cologne, as in most Hansa towns) which were allowed some limited political role and strictly policed. When the butchers’ guild staged a protest in 1348, the council simply dissolved it.

Another form of organisation that shows up in the record in the 14th century were the Gaffeln. The name means ‘fork’ (Gabel in modern German), and it was a direct reference to their ostensible purpose: Sharing meals. That was not an unusual thing. Eating together – commensality if you are unlucky enough to have to do academic writing – established and strengthened social bonds and entrenched hierarchies. The word lord is etymologically related to bread, as is the word companion. One encapsulates the hierarchical order – the lord gives bread, the servant receives it – the other the egalitarian one – companions share bread. The Gaffeln were of the latter kind.

Named after the carving fork they used to serve portions of meat – forks were not commonly used for eating until the seventeenth century in Germany – these clubs united artisans and merchants, including many who had become wealthy, but were excluded from patrician circles. A Gaffel would establish itself in a given neighbourhood, draw on local people for membership, and effectively become a local community organisations. These were not charities; Members had to fund their meals, after all. But many more could afford to join them than the Richerzeche, and the Gaffel was open to all.

I know of no meal plans for the Gaffeln of the 1390s surviving, but regulations for similar organisations from cities throughout Germany still exist, and the picture is relatively homogenous. The food signalled status, not luxury, but it was never cheap. Often, dishes were defined precisely to ensure members could not compete for leadership by giving more than the rules stipulated. Hosts were elected or determined by rote, and their status was limited to the meal they gave.

The key element in a proper meal was meat or, if the rules of the church did not allow it, fish. In Cologne, there was both locally caught freshwater fish and preserved sea fish like herring, cod, and sole brought in for trade. The market also provided locally butchered beef, pork, and mutton. For both fish and meat, roasted was considered the best, to the point that the word braten came to mean a main dish in general. A roast of meat was also what you used the carving fork on and why it had more symbolic power than a spoon or a bowl. In addition, there was always fine bread and drinks, wine, beer, or both, depending on geography. Cologne had both a brewing tradition and access to wine in large quantities. Butter and salt would accompany every such meal unless it was a strict fast day, and often there was cheese, fruit, and condiments like vinegar, mustard, and other sauces. Side dishes of vegetables are rarely specified, but probably also existed.

After the meal, people lingered to drink, talk, and nibble on snacks such as fritters, nuts, and fruit. One such dish that is still popular in winter, but really good throughout the year, is roast apples. Today, they are known as Bratapfel. Many surviving recipes are very complex, but there is one from a manuscript produced in the Rhineland in 1444 that resembles the modern version and probably also comes closer to what the non-rich were eating:

65 Take figs, raisins and honey. Chop it together with spices and other good things, fill it into apples and close them again with a wooden skewer. Bake them in a thick-walled container (degel) with wine, that turns out courtly.

https://preview.redd.it/tr1u8iodmfgh1.jpg?width=841&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c89f2cc2c148d13c0fe3195cef35c9ea8d4507be

https://preview.redd.it/k7bgaz5emfgh1.jpg?width=2451&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=afbfa22364d0a323214f36c73999dbed6dac7792

We know of similar treats from stories, often made very basically by roasting apples or pears in the ashes. Some surviving recipes tend towards the other extreme with parti-coloured fillings and dough or batter coatings for apples deep-fried whole. Simply filling one with dried fruit, spices, and honey represents a happy medium. It would have been affordable to the Gaffel members and also fit their idea of respectable wealth without excess.

From sharing the food to seating and speaking order, an egalitarian ethos suffused every aspect of such gatherings. This was a place where you could talk among equals, air grievances, and possibly hatch plans. We do not know how far the revolt of 1396 was planned. Later historians claimed it was spontaneous, and that is not impossible; citizens had weapons in their homes to defend the city if needed, and the numbers and spaces were small enough you could communicate by running and shouting. But it seems unlikely nobody ever at least considered the possibility.

In the event, things ended reasonably well for everyone involved. The patricians got to keep their heads, their citizenship, and their property, which was remarkably generous all things considered. The government of the city was re-ordered, the privileges of the Geschlechter revoked, and the new system was based on 22 Gaffeln. Some of them were simply the old craft guilds while others represented neighbourhoods. All citizens were required to enroll in one. The Gaffel organised defence and civic obligations, and elected representatives to the council, as well as an expanded advisory body for special cases because in the old Empire, simple government was just unthinkable. The councillors had term limits of one year and were paid in wine. They elected two mayors and two Rentmeister finance officials, also limited to one year in office. It was designed deliberately to ensure nobody got to monopolise power again.

Success was limited, but real. It turned out that rich and connected people had a way of getting into positions of power more often than statistically likely and would help each other stick to their respective seats. Soon enough, old patricians managed to rotate between terms as mayor and Rentmeister, freezing out the rest. In 1481 and again in 1512, there were violent uprisings against these machinations, and in each case the constitution was amended. But in principle, it worked, and until the end of its independence in the Napoleonic wars, Cologne remained a city governed by civic dinner clubs. There surely were worse ways of doing that.

Not very old, but definitely history.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/28/the-village-of-forest-guardians-feeding-the-revolution-xxxii/

On 9 June 2026, the state government of North Rhine-Westfalia announced its intention to extend environmental protections to a forested area near Aachen. This administrative act, in itself unremarkable, marks the end of one of the more memorable battles over environmental policy in recent German history – the occupation of the Hambacher Forst (unrelated to the other Hambach). Between 2012 and 2020, this confrontation between mining giant RWE and a disparate band of environmentalists had captured the headlines, embarrassed state politicians, and turned ‘Hambi’ into a living legend well beyond the borders of the state.

To understand how this standoff could take on so much symbolic significance, we need to look to German history and culture. First, Germany’s industrial development largely depended on the country’s rich coal deposits. The Ruhr area especially was shaped by the culture of coal mining with tens of thousands of men employed in the pits at its height. Their mines went deep into the rock, following seams more than a kilometre underground. The coal for which the Hambacher Forst was to be destroyed is a different kind – lignite. It is soft, sulphurous, crumbly stuff known as Braunkohle (brown coal) in German, its seams lying close to the soil, and burning it creates acrid smoke.

Lignite is mined in open-cast pits, and from an engineering perspective, the process is very impressive. Enormous digging machines on tracks chew their way through thick layers, literally remaking the landscape. The process is also enormously destructive, removing the topsoil, leaving deep scars in its wake. East Germany depended on lignite because there was no other coal on its territory. West Germany mined it because it was cheap. Because of its centrality to the country’s economy, mining long enjoyed state protections. Lignite mines displaced entire village communities through forced purchase and relocation. Ignoring the objections of the local people had a long tradition in the business.

That is not to say it was ever easy. At the risk of sounding cynical, Germany has no indigenous people to displace. The people who lived in the villages chewed up by the diggers spoke the same language and looked the same as everyone else. Neither does it have a lot of space to spare. At 233 people per square kilometre, it is less densely populated than the Netherlands or Belgium, but still comparable to Massachusetts, and unlike many other European countries, it has no capital city forming a centre of gravity. Most of the population is distributed across the country in small and medium-sized cities. While there are some relatively empty regions, there is almost nowhere where nobody lives.

Thirdly, the people who live there tend to be very attached to their landscape. Germans love trees. This is so stereotypical that it is almost a joke, but it is true. Forests have had deep symbolic significance since at least the Romantic era, and they still draw millions of people out on walks and bike rides every weekend. German law requires even private woodlands to be accessible to the public for recreation. Foraging for berries and mushrooms is a popular hobby. It was never easy for people who had grown up in that culture to just move somewhere else, leaving behind all their familiar spaces.

By the 2010s, the power to make them move was no longer at the mining companies’ command without question. After an unconscionably long time, Germany had decided releasing unlimited carbon and toxic smoke into the atmosphere was not a good idea. Winding down the coal industry was a long and expensive process, and for reasons that are not entirely logical, lignite mining remained the last kind operational. At the same time, Germany’s environmental movement was galvanised by concern over climate change, leading to some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the country. You could not expect these people to stand by as a coal mining conglomerate set about obliterating a forest that had been in municipal management since the middle ages to produce the dirtiest, most polluting fuel you could legally burn.

Resistance started, as it usually does, locally, with a church community whose service was promptly invaded by miners. However, coal mining had long been on the radar of environmental activist groups and they were ready to join the fight. With legal avenues exhausted, the best way of protecting the forest from destruction was to start living there. This approach has a long local tradition, and activists knew how to make themselves hard to remove. In the end, they had constructed an entire Ewok village of treehouses accessible only via rope ladders to be difficult for the police to reach. For a while, the Hambacher Forst became a destination for young activists from all over Europe. There were different levels of risk, from participating in legal demonstrations and protest camps outside the forest to becoming part of the treehouse community. Some even ran sabotage missions against mining equipment.

Feeding such heterogenous groups of often very committed environmentalists is a challenge, but there are actually dedicated groups of volunteers who do exactly that. Many of them come from the Volxküche movement. Named after the 19th-century Volksküchen catering to the urban working class, these organisations are a fascinating example of mutual aid in practice. They use cheap ingredients, often rescued from destruction as food waste, to make cheap or free food they distribute to homeless and poor, fellow activists, and anyone else who is interested. They often make vegan foods both for ethical reasons and to ensure everyone can share. One of the older ones, the Hannebambel in Aschaffenburg, actually published its Volxküche de luxe bulk cooking cookbook in 2011. The recipes are organised into vegan, vegetarian, and meat dishes to minimise environmental footprint. One favourite is spinach lasagna:

Lasagna: 2 kg lasagna sheets, 5 kg chopped frozen spinach, 2-3 litres cream, 500g ricotta, 1 kg grated gouda, 1 kg parmesan, 3 usuallylarge onions (Metzgerzwiebeln), 2 cloves garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, starch to bind the sauce, cooking oil.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel and finely cube onions and garlic, sautée in a pot with oil. Add spinach and briefly sautée along with the onions. Add the cream and ricotta and bring to a boil while stirring continually. Season assertively, and bind lightly with starch. Layer the spinach sauce with the lasagna sheets on baking sheets three layers deep, sprinkle with cheese and bake for about 40 minutes.

Tomato sauce: 850g tomato paste, 2650g pureed peeled tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, 2 large onions (Metzgerzwiebeln), oregano, basil, sugar, salt, pepper, olive oil.

Peel and finely chop the garlic and onions and sautée in a pot with oil until they turn glassy. Add peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, and a little water. Season and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve separately along with the lasagna.

Making it began: Omit gouda and parmesan on the lasagna. Replace cream and ricotta with 4 litres unsweetened soy milk or cream from the Reformhaus. Cover the top layer of lasagna sheets with an extra laver of soy cream to prevent it from hardening as it bakes.

This is actually delicious and adapts to even larger larger quantities easily. There are two interesting points to it. The first is the Metzgerzwiebel, literally a butcher’s onion. These are large onions that, u8nlike the more common large Gemüsezwiebel, are intensely flavourful. They used to be mainly added to sausages and meatballs, which is where they get their name from, and are sadly more widespread in South Germany than where I live. The second is the Reformhaus, in 2011 the most plausible source of soy milk. These are a loose association of shops dedicated to conscious, healthy, environmentally attuned living in the tradition of the Lebensreform movement. Along with organic, vegetarian and vegan foods and nutritional supplements, they typically carry cosmetics, household products, and often also various esoteric nostrums. Of course, by now soy milk is a supermarket staple which just goes to show that the crunchier kind of counterculture often has a pretty good handle on solutions for the future that take the mainstream much longer to embrace.

The Hambacher Forst did not have an easy resolution. By 2017, the rhetoric on both sides was heating up and violent confrontations with police increased. Mining executives called the occupants terrorists, and the police made exaggerated claims about explosives and plans for deadly traps, and some activists stepped up sabotage and violent confrontations. In 2018, a court seized on one of those clever legal wheezes that authorities like to resort to when they cannot simply use force: Instead of deciding on the legality of the occupation, they declared the treehouses buildings. This meant that, regardless of the legality of their presence, they were subject to the building code which they, of course, violated in all kinds of ways. They were condemned and their demolition ordered. The police and fire services thus moved into the forest not for an eviction, which still had not been permitted, but on an extended rescue mission to evacuate the occupiers from their unsafe environment.

It did not reduce the violence of the following confrontations. Over weeks, one treehouse after another was invaded, emptied, and destroyed. In the course of these operations, a journalist fell to his death from a rope bridge, but this was not directly due to police action. The authorities were genuinely trying to avoid injuries and largely succeeded. By October, the forest camps had been destroyed. It was just in time for a court order stopping the intended clear-cutting over environmental concerns. Shares in RWE plummeted, and the company effectively gave up its plans for the Hambacher Forst. The woodlands remained accessible to the public and on 6 October, about 50,000 protesters gathered to listen to speeches and see bands perform.

The confrontation did not end so much as peter out. RWE organised a demonstration of miners that threatened known local activists in their homes on 17 October. Environmentalists occupied some empty houses in a nearby evacuated village to set up a new protest camp. In the end, RWE quietly shelved the idea of eradicating the forest and announced this to the public in early 2019.

The story of the Hambacher Forst has a strong sense of inevitability about it in retrospect. Everybody must have known that coal simply had no future. On the ground at the time, though, there was no such feeling. The activists in their tents and treehouses were facing an overwhelming force of police and corporate security ready to do violence whenever the courts would permit it. RWE had far greater resources both to litigate and campaign. Much of the conservative press was eager to see the forest go, even as polls showed 70% of conservative voters opposed the destruction. When victory came, it was unexpected. This often happens; Powerful opponents dominate the playing field until, suddenly, they don’t. Certainties evaporate, new rules apply almost overnight, and what seemed the terrifying anger of giants looks more like the tantrum of a living fossil.

https://preview.redd.it/mi9y8ke5c1gh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=703ca72017d6269de26347bcec5c6eab57865c64

https://preview.redd.it/kj4jg916c1gh1.jpg?width=4608&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e378e503122f7552ca72f2d5e289a5259510fde5

Not very old, but definitely history.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/28/the-village-of-forest-guardians-feeding-the-revolution-xxxii/

On 9 June 2026, the state government of North Rhine-Westfalia announced its intention to extend environmental protections to a forested area near Aachen. This administrative act, in itself unremarkable, marks the end of one of the more memorable battles over environmental policy in recent German history – the occupation of the Hambacher Forst (unrelated to the other Hambach). Between 2012 and 2020, this confrontation between mining giant RWE and a disparate band of environmentalists had captured the headlines, embarrassed state politicians, and turned ‘Hambi’ into a living legend well beyond the borders of the state.

To understand how this standoff could take on so much symbolic significance, we need to look to German history and culture. First, Germany’s industrial development largely depended on the country’s rich coal deposits. The Ruhr area especially was shaped by the culture of coal mining with tens of thousands of men employed in the pits at its height. Their mines went deep into the rock, following seams more than a kilometre underground. The coal for which the Hambacher Forst was to be destroyed is a different kind – lignite. It is soft, sulphurous, crumbly stuff known as Braunkohle (brown coal) in German, its seams lying close to the soil, and burning it creates acrid smoke.

Lignite is mined in open-cast pits, and from an engineering perspective, the process is very impressive. Enormous digging machines on tracks chew their way through thick layers, literally remaking the landscape. The process is also enormously destructive, removing the topsoil, leaving deep scars in its wake. East Germany depended on lignite because there was no other coal on its territory. West Germany mined it because it was cheap. Because of its centrality to the country’s economy, mining long enjoyed state protections. Lignite mines displaced entire village communities through forced purchase and relocation. Ignoring the objections of the local people had a long tradition in the business.

That is not to say it was ever easy. At the risk of sounding cynical, Germany has no indigenous people to displace. The people who lived in the villages chewed up by the diggers spoke the same language and looked the same as everyone else. Neither does it have a lot of space to spare. At 233 people per square kilometre, it is less densely populated than the Netherlands or Belgium, but still comparable to Massachusetts, and unlike many other European countries, it has no capital city forming a centre of gravity. Most of the population is distributed across the country in small and medium-sized cities. While there are some relatively empty regions, there is almost nowhere where nobody lives.

Thirdly, the people who live there tend to be very attached to their landscape. Germans love trees. This is so stereotypical that it is almost a joke, but it is true. Forests have had deep symbolic significance since at least the Romantic era, and they still draw millions of people out on walks and bike rides every weekend. German law requires even private woodlands to be accessible to the public for recreation. Foraging for berries and mushrooms is a popular hobby. It was never easy for people who had grown up in that culture to just move somewhere else, leaving behind all their familiar spaces.

By the 2010s, the power to make them move was no longer at the mining companies’ command without question. After an unconscionably long time, Germany had decided releasing unlimited carbon and toxic smoke into the atmosphere was not a good idea. Winding down the coal industry was a long and expensive process, and for reasons that are not entirely logical, lignite mining remained the last kind operational. At the same time, Germany’s environmental movement was galvanised by concern over climate change, leading to some of the largest demonstrations in the history of the country. You could not expect these people to stand by as a coal mining conglomerate set about obliterating a forest that had been in municipal management since the middle ages to produce the dirtiest, most polluting fuel you could legally burn.

Resistance started, as it usually does, locally, with a church community whose service was promptly invaded by miners. However, coal mining had long been on the radar of environmental activist groups and they were ready to join the fight. With legal avenues exhausted, the best way of protecting the forest from destruction was to start living there. This approach has a long local tradition, and activists knew how to make themselves hard to remove. In the end, they had constructed an entire Ewok village of treehouses accessible only via rope ladders to be difficult for the police to reach. For a while, the Hambacher Forst became a destination for young activists from all over Europe. There were different levels of risk, from participating in legal demonstrations and protest camps outside the forest to becoming part of the treehouse community. Some even ran sabotage missions against mining equipment.

Feeding such heterogenous groups of often very committed environmentalists is a challenge, but there are actually dedicated groups of volunteers who do exactly that. Many of them come from the Volxküche movement. Named after the 19th-century Volksküchen catering to the urban working class, these organisations are a fascinating example of mutual aid in practice. They use cheap ingredients, often rescued from destruction as food waste, to make cheap or free food they distribute to homeless and poor, fellow activists, and anyone else who is interested. They often make vegan foods both for ethical reasons and to ensure everyone can share. One of the older ones, the Hannebambel in Aschaffenburg, actually published its Volxküche de luxe bulk cooking cookbook in 2011. The recipes are organised into vegan, vegetarian, and meat dishes to minimise environmental footprint. One favourite is spinach lasagna:

Lasagna: 2 kg lasagna sheets, 5 kg chopped frozen spinach, 2-3 litres cream, 500g ricotta, 1 kg grated gouda, 1 kg parmesan, 3 usuallylarge onions (Metzgerzwiebeln), 2 cloves garlic, salt, pepper, nutmeg, starch to bind the sauce, cooking oil.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Peel and finely cube onions and garlic, sautée in a pot with oil. Add spinach and briefly sautée along with the onions. Add the cream and ricotta and bring to a boil while stirring continually. Season assertively, and bind lightly with starch. Layer the spinach sauce with the lasagna sheets on baking sheets three layers deep, sprinkle with cheese and bake for about 40 minutes.

Tomato sauce: 850g tomato paste, 2650g pureed peeled tomatoes, 2 cloves garlic, 2 large onions (Metzgerzwiebeln), oregano, basil, sugar, salt, pepper, olive oil.

Peel and finely chop the garlic and onions and sautée in a pot with oil until they turn glassy. Add peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, and a little water. Season and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve separately along with the lasagna.

Making it began: Omit gouda and parmesan on the lasagna. Replace cream and ricotta with 4 litres unsweetened soy milk or cream from the Reformhaus. Cover the top layer of lasagna sheets with an extra laver of soy cream to prevent it from hardening as it bakes.

This is actually delicious and adapts to even larger larger quantities easily. There are two interesting points to it. The first is the Metzgerzwiebel, literally a butcher’s onion. These are large onions that, u8nlike the more common large Gemüsezwiebel, are intensely flavourful. They used to be mainly added to sausages and meatballs, which is where they get their name from, and are sadly more widespread in South Germany than where I live. The second is the Reformhaus, in 2011 the most plausible source of soy milk. These are a loose association of shops dedicated to conscious, healthy, environmentally attuned living in the tradition of the Lebensreform movement. Along with organic, vegetarian and vegan foods and nutritional supplements, they typically carry cosmetics, household products, and often also various esoteric nostrums. Of course, by now soy milk is a supermarket staple which just goes to show that the crunchier kind of counterculture often has a pretty good handle on solutions for the future that take the mainstream much longer to embrace.

The Hambacher Forst did not have an easy resolution. By 2017, the rhetoric on both sides was heating up and violent confrontations with police increased. Mining executives called the occupants terrorists, and the police made exaggerated claims about explosives and plans for deadly traps, and some activists stepped up sabotage and violent confrontations. In 2018, a court seized on one of those clever legal wheezes that authorities like to resort to when they cannot simply use force: Instead of deciding on the legality of the occupation, they declared the treehouses buildings. This meant that, regardless of the legality of their presence, they were subject to the building code which they, of course, violated in all kinds of ways. They were condemned and their demolition ordered. The police and fire services thus moved into the forest not for an eviction, which still had not been permitted, but on an extended rescue mission to evacuate the occupiers from their unsafe environment.

It did not reduce the violence of the following confrontations. Over weeks, one treehouse after another was invaded, emptied, and destroyed. In the course of these operations, a journalist fell to his death from a rope bridge, but this was not directly due to police action. The authorities were genuinely trying to avoid injuries and largely succeeded. By October, the forest camps had been destroyed. It was just in time for a court order stopping the intended clear-cutting over environmental concerns. Shares in RWE plummeted, and the company effectively gave up its plans for the Hambacher Forst. The woodlands remained accessible to the public and on 6 October, about 50,000 protesters gathered to listen to speeches and see bands perform.

Lignite mining near the Hambacher Forst

Treehouses in the Hambacher Forst

The confrontation did not end so much as peter out. RWE organised a demonstration of miners that threatened known local activists in their homes on 17 October. Environmentalists occupied some empty houses in a nearby evacuated village to set up a new protest camp. In the end, RWE quietly shelved the idea of eradicating the forest and announced this to the public in early 2019.

The story of the Hambacher Forst has a strong sense of inevitability about it in retrospect. Everybody must have known that coal simply had no future. On the ground at the time, though, there was no such feeling. The activists in their tents and treehouses were facing an overwhelming force of police and corporate security ready to do violence whenever the courts would permit it. RWE had far greater resources both to litigate and campaign. Much of the conservative press was eager to see the forest go, even as polls showed 70% of conservative voters opposed the destruction. When victory came, it was unexpected. This often happens; Powerful opponents dominate the playing field until, suddenly, they don’t. Certainties evaporate, new rules apply almost overnight, and what seemed the terrifying anger of giants looks more like the tantrum of a living fossil.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/20/herring-and-kaiser-in-a-pickle-feeding-the-revolution-xxxi/

It was July 1917, in the middle of the First World War, and SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, the newest of the German navy’s Kaiser-class battleships, lay immobile in the middle of the Kiel canal. Germany’s most strategic waterway was blocked, and the stokers were adamant: They were going nowhere until they received decent rations – specifically with no maggots.

For all the great expectations it had started out with, the German navy had had a lousy war. Bottled up in the North Sea and Baltic by the Royal Navy, it was unable to break the blockade that starved Germany of critical overseas imports or assist its allies in the Mediterranean. Though it claimed the sole major battle it fought in 1916 as a victory based on the fact that it had sunk more British ships than they had German ones, the situation was unchanged. Ships were sitting in port, crews growing frustrated, and the only glory, such as it was, accrued to the submarine service.

Meanwhile, the blockade that the navy was unable to break choked off Germany’s economy, leading to massive food shortages in 1916/17. The word Steckrübenwinter (turnip winter) is a remarkably cutesy name for a famine that killed an estimated 800,000 civilians. The effort of the state to enforce price limits, rationing, and adequate supplies were piecemeal and often counterproductive, leading to widespread disgust with the authorities and the wealthy. A host of off-ration goods and a flourishing black market ensured that especially the owners of arms businesses, whose profits were barely taxed, could continue to live in their accustomed comfort while working-class children starved in droves.

The situation in the fleet was less dramatic, but equally infuriating. Rations were short and increasingly of poor quality, and though officers were required to taste the food issued to the ratings, they were not required to share it. Daily, then, the sailors would watch their first officer make a show of enjoying their fare, then disappearing into the wardroom where meat, coffee, and alcohol – strictly forbidden on board otherwise – were served.

The difference this could make even at the best of times is illustrated by the fate of a North German staple, pickled herring. Both the North Sea and the Baltic had thriving herring fisheries which made that fish an affordable staple anywhere near the coast. At least since the 1500s, there was a tradition of pickling it in vinegar to produce a salty, acidic snack that could be served with bread or potatoes to satisfy the appetite and stimulate thirst. The pre-war Rendsburger Kochbuch (c. 1900) instructs us:

22. Marinated herring, to be prepared from fresh as well as salt herring. You gut them, first washing the salt off the salted ones, set aside the milt, and place the herrings in a deep bowl. If using salt herrings, you leave them and the milt to steep in fresh cow milk for at least 24 hours before.

The milt is chopped finely and stirred to a thick sauce with good wine vinegar. To the herrings, laid in a deep porcelain bowl or stoneware pot, you add finely diced sour apples, slices of salt- or vinegar-pickled cucumbers, many finely sliced onions, a few capers, a little bay leaf, peppercorns, and a few slices of lemons. You pour the milt mixture over it, cover it tightly, and leave it to steep in a cool place. Fresh herring are ready to serve after 36 hours, salt ones after 2-3 days. Before serving, a teaspoonful of Provencal olive oil can be added to the sauce for a pleasant, mild flavour. They are served with buttered bread or with hot boiled potatoes with the skin on.

Compare this with the recipe from a 1915 Kriegskochbuch published in Hamburg:

Salt herring in white sauce with boiled potatoes

2-3 herrings, 1/8 litre of vinegar, some mustard, 1 large onion, pepper, some salt

The herrings are skinned, washed, and cut in pieces. The sliced onion is boiled in the vinegar together with the spices and cooled. The milt is stirred thoroughly with the mustard and spices, mixed into the vinegar, and poured over the herring.

In case this still sounds too appealing as a meal for a family, it needs to be said that even the economical recipes of 1915 were largely fiction by 1916. If people remembered the Wilhelmine era with undeserved nostalgia for a long time, it was because the gute alte Zeit had offered modest culinary delights beyond the reach of rationing bureaucrats and industrial adulteration. It would be many years before most people would again have what the Rendsburger Kochbuch lists after its recipe for plain marinated herring:

23. Salt herring marinated. The herrings are prepared as above, but it is better to cut them open along the back and remove the heads. They must not be cut entirely through, but stay connected by the skin along the thin side (i.e. the belly side). You now spread them open, brush the flesh side with fine salad oil, sprinkle them with mustardseeds, best white ones, cover them with long, very thinly sliced strips of onion, strips of vinegar-pickled gherkins, and capers, sprinkle some pepper over them, and roll them up tightly. In order to prevent anything from falling out, tie them shut with thread. – These herrings are better yet if you first brush them with fine salad oil and roast then to golden brown on a griddle. A pan can be used if it is unavoidable, but you must prevent them from sticking with a pancake knife. Then, the herrings are spread thinly with mustard, but no mustardseed is used. Otherwise proceed as above.

Once all rolls are complete, you prepare a pickle as for marinated herring No. 22, but add neither apples nor cucumbers. Instead, add a little tarragon and stir in a few spoonfuls of sour cream.

The rolls must steep in this marinade for several days before they are ready to serve.

This is colloquially known as Rollmops and is still extremely popular up and down the coast (there is even a song about it). Most modern recipes are extremely simplified by comparison, though. Back in the days of Vorkriegsqualität, a sailor could get one of these at a waterfront restaurant and wash it down with good beer. The memory was fresh enough to rankle in 1917.

However understandable to us, going effectively on strike was an extremely risky thing to do. The sailors were subject to the infamously strict military discipline of the Kaiserreich, after all, and their officers were not the forgiving kind. Still, the initial response was remarkably restrained. The crew was even allowed a voice in managing their rations through a joint Menagekommission of officers and men. Their complaints were, after all, understandable and, that dreaded German word, unpolitisch.

This needs to be understood in the context of its time: The German high command was terrified of losing control. There had been strikes in factories all over the country earlier in the year. As yet, the military was unaffected, but across the borders they could see the French army dealing with widespread mutinies while the Russian one was effectively dissolving in an epidemic of insubordination. That was why, when they could not bring the protests in the fleet under control with disciplinary measures quickly, the navy high command turned to brutal repression. They feared – not without reason – that Socialist and democratic ideas were spreading among the men and demands for better food and service conditions could turn into calls for peace and political reform. The question how to end the war was controversial, and the left wing of the Social Democratic party gained support for its peace policy.

The crackdown was brutal and targeted. Men who had participated in strikes and walkouts were arrested by army reserve troops and put on trial. Those deemed ringleaders were sentenced to death, two sentences carried out by the army in Cologne, far from the navy base. Others were imprisoned or demoted and sent to the front as naval infantry. The admiralty further mandated vaterländische Erziehung throughout the fleet; Officers would school the men in patriotic thinking to counter Socialist subversion. There were further attempts to organise protests, but whenever they were caught, punishments were severe.

As far as the navy’s leadership was concerned, that was it, and they could get on with the business of winning the war. Had they managed that, it might have been. That was not how history went, though. The German battlefleet turned out for one more successful operation against Russia before rotting in port again. It was not until October of 1918 that the prospect of action returned. The admiralty wanted to sabotage peace negotiations with a final suicide mission to force a decisive battle against the Royal Navy. The crews refused, and the commanders transferred the mutinous ships away from the North Sea ports to Kiel, where they felt secure enough to arrest ringleaders and basically replay the successful procedure of 1917. On 1 November, 150 men were taken off the ships by the army. Their comrades protested, marching into town to call for their release. On 3 November, they were joined by workers from the dockyards and factories. That day, shots were fired by a shore patrol.

On 4 November, the navy base was under the control of a revolutionary sailors’ and workers’ council.

By 9 November, the emperor abdicated.

Nobody had actually prepared for this. There had been no deep conspiracy, no foreign interference like there had been in Russia., There are just limits beyond which you push people at your own risk. Few sailors and workers had been democrats or Socialists before the war, but now they found that the Socialists were talking sense. In improvised meetings, the voted on demands, elected spokespeople, and sent out delegates to other military bases where similar organisations mushroomed. The apparatus of repression – officers, military police, prosecutors and courts-martial – watched helplessly as it turned out there was nobody they could trust to follow their orders. The revolution took a week, and when it was over, there were no kings or princes left in the country.

We know there was no happy end to this. Germany had still lost a war, and the price of defeat would be steep. The blockade continued until 1919, putting the country through another Hungerwinter as the economy collapsed. Discontent with the democratic government that ultimately had to shoulder the burden of territorial losses and reparations undermined the republic from the start. But none of this was foreordained. What happened in 1918 stands as a lesson to autocrats in what can happen once they lose the trust of their people. Not every regime goes down in the flaming ruin of their capital. Often, they simply disappear because people no longer believe in them.

Post-revolutionary postcard honouring the mutineers. The caption reads: “The world belongs to the brave”, the rising sun is labelled “Kiel” and “Liberty”. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons.

It was July 1917, in the middle of the First World War, and SMS Prinzregent Luitpold, the newest of the German navy’s Kaiser-class battleships, lay immobile in the middle of the Kiel canal. Germany’s most strategic waterway was blocked, and the stokers were adamant: They were going nowhere until they received decent rations – specifically with no maggots.

For all the great expectations it had started out with, the German navy had had a lousy war. Bottled up in the North Sea and Baltic by the Royal Navy, it was unable to break the blockade that starved Germany of critical overseas imports or assist its allies in the Mediterranean. Though it claimed the sole major battle it fought in 1916 as a victory based on the fact that it had sunk more British ships than they had German ones, the situation was unchanged. Ships were sitting in port, crews growing frustrated, and the only glory, such as it was, accrued to the submarine service.

Meanwhile, the blockade that the navy was unable to break choked off Germany’s economy, leading to massive food shortages in 1916/17. The word Steckrübenwinter (turnip winter) is a remarkably cutesy name for a famine that killed an estimated 800,000 civilians. The effort of the state to enforce price limits, rationing, and adequate supplies were piecemeal and often counterproductive, leading to widespread disgust with the authorities and the wealthy. A host of off-ration goods and a flourishing black market ensured that especially the owners of arms businesses, whose profits were barely taxed, could continue to live in their accustomed comfort while working-class children starved in droves.

The situation in the fleet was less dramatic, but equally infuriating. Rations were short and increasingly of poor quality, and though officers were required to taste the food issued to the ratings, they were not required to share it. Daily, then, the sailors would watch their first officer make a show of enjoying their fare, then disappearing into the wardroom where meat, coffee, and alcohol – strictly forbidden on board otherwise – were served.

The difference this could make even at the best of times is illustrated by the fate of a North German staple, pickled herring. Both the North Sea and the Baltic had thriving herring fisheries which made that fish an affordable staple anywhere near the coast. At least since the 1500s, there was a tradition of pickling it in vinegar to produce a salty, acidic snack that could be served with bread or potatoes to satisfy the appetite and stimulate thirst. The pre-war Rendsburger Kochbuch (c. 1900) instructs us:

22. Marinated herring, to be prepared from fresh as well as salt herring. You gut them, first washing the salt off the salted ones, set aside the milt, and place the herrings in a deep bowl. If using salt herrings, you leave them and the milt to steep in fresh cow milk for at least 24 hours before.

The milt is chopped finely and stirred to a thick sauce with good wine vinegar. To the herrings, laid in a deep porcelain bowl or stoneware pot, you add finely diced sour apples, slices of salt- or vinegar-pickled cucumbers, many finely sliced onions, a few capers, a little bay leaf, peppercorns, and a few slices of lemons. You pour the milt mixture over it, cover it tightly, and leave it to steep in a cool place. Fresh herring are ready to serve after 36 hours, salt ones after 2-3 days. Before serving, a teaspoonful of Provencal olive oil can be added to the sauce for a pleasant, mild flavour. They are served with buttered bread or with hot boiled potatoes with the skin on.

Compare this with the recipe from a 1915 Kriegskochbuch published in Hamburg:

Salt herring in white sauce with boiled potatoes

2-3 herrings, 1/8 litre of vinegar, some mustard, 1 large onion, pepper, some salt

The herrings are skinned, washed, and cut in pieces. The sliced onion is boiled in the vinegar together with the spices and cooled. The milt is stirred thoroughly with the mustard and spices, mixed into the vinegar, and poured over the herring.

In case this still sounds too appealing as a meal for a family, it needs to be said that even the economical recipes of 1915 were largely fiction by 1916. If people remembered the Wilhelmine era with undeserved nostalgia for a long time, it was because the gute alte Zeit had offered modest culinary delights beyond the reach of rationing bureaucrats and industrial adulteration. It would be many years before most people would again have what the Rendsburger Kochbuch lists after its recipe for plain marinated herring:

23. Salt herring marinated. The herrings are prepared as above, but it is better to cut them open along the back and remove the heads. They must not be cut entirely through, but stay connected by the skin along the thin side (i.e. the belly side). You now spread them open, brush the flesh side with fine salad oil, sprinkle them with mustardseeds, best white ones, cover them with long, very thinly sliced strips of onion, strips of vinegar-pickled gherkins, and capers, sprinkle some pepper over them, and roll them up tightly. In order to prevent anything from falling out, tie them shut with thread. – These herrings are better yet if you first brush them with fine salad oil and roast then to golden brown on a griddle. A pan can be used if it is unavoidable, but you must prevent them from sticking with a pancake knife. Then, the herrings are spread thinly with mustard, but no mustardseed is used. Otherwise proceed as above.

Once all rolls are complete, you prepare a pickle as for marinated herring No. 22, but add neither apples nor cucumbers. Instead, add a little tarragon and stir in a few spoonfuls of sour cream.

The rolls must steep in this marinade for several days before they are ready to serve.

This is colloquially known as Rollmops and is still extremely popular up and down the coast (there is even a song about it). Most modern recipes are extremely simplified by comparison, though. Back in the days of Vorkriegsqualität, a sailor could get one of these at a waterfront restaurant and wash it down with good beer. The memory was fresh enough to rankle in 1917.

However understandable to us, going effectively on strike was an extremely risky thing to do. The sailors were subject to the infamously strict military discipline of the Kaiserreich, after all, and their officers were not the forgiving kind. Still, the initial response was remarkably restrained. The crew was even allowed a voice in managing their rations through a joint Menagekommission of officers and men. Their complaints were, after all, understandable and, that dreaded German word, unpolitisch.

This needs to be understood in the context of its time: The German high command was terrified of losing control. There had been strikes in factories all over the country earlier in the year. As yet, the military was unaffected, but across the borders they could see the French army dealing with widespread mutinies while the Russian one was effectively dissolving in an epidemic of insubordination. That was why, when they could not bring the protests in the fleet under control with disciplinary measures quickly, the navy high command turned to brutal repression. They feared – not without reason – that Socialist and democratic ideas were spreading among the men and demands for better food and service conditions could turn into calls for peace and political reform. The question how to end the war was controversial, and the left wing of the Social Democratic party gained support for its peace policy.

The crackdown was brutal and targeted. Men who had participated in strikes and walkouts were arrested by army reserve troops and put on trial. Those deemed ringleaders were sentenced to death, two sentences carried out by the army in Cologne, far from the navy base. Others were imprisoned or demoted and sent to the front as naval infantry. The admiralty further mandated vaterländische Erziehung throughout the fleet; Officers would school the men in patriotic thinking to counter Socialist subversion. There were further attempts to organise protests, but whenever they were caught, punishments were severe.

As far as the navy’s leadership was concerned, that was it, and they could get on with the business of winning the war. Had they managed that, it might have been. That was not how history went, though. The German battlefleet turned out for one more successful operation against Russia before rotting in port again. It was not until October of 1918 that the prospect of action returned. The admiralty wanted to sabotage peace negotiations with a final suicide mission to force a decisive battle against the Royal Navy. The crews refused, and the commanders transferred the mutinous ships away from the North Sea ports to Kiel, where they felt secure enough to arrest ringleaders and basically replay the successful procedure of 1917. On 1 November, 150 men were taken off the ships by the army. Their comrades protested, marching into town to call for their release. On 3 November, they were joined by workers from the dockyards and factories. That day, shots were fired by a shore patrol.

On 4 November, the navy base was under the control of a revolutionary sailors’ and workers’ council.

By 9 November, the emperor abdicated.

Nobody had actually prepared for this. There had been no deep conspiracy, no foreign interference like there had been in Russia., There are just limits beyond which you push people at your own risk. Few sailors and workers had been democrats or Socialists before the war, but now they found that the Socialists were talking sense. In improvised meetings, the voted on demands, elected spokespeople, and sent out delegates to other military bases where similar organisations mushroomed. The apparatus of repression – officers, military police, prosecutors and courts-martial – watched helplessly as it turned out there was nobody they could trust to follow their orders. The revolution took a week, and when it was over, there were no kings or princes left in the country.

We know there was no happy end to this. Germany had still lost a war, and the price of defeat would be steep. The blockade continued until 1919, putting the country through another Hungerwinter as the economy collapsed. Discontent with the democratic government that ultimately had to shoulder the burden of territorial losses and reparations undermined the republic from the start. But none of this was foreordained. What happened in 1918 stands as a lesson to autocrats in what can happen once they lose the trust of their people. Not every regime goes down in the flaming ruin of their capital. Often, they simply disappear because people no longer believe in them.

Post-revolutionary postcard honouring the mutineers. The caption reads: “The world belongs to the brave”, the rising sun is labelled “Kiel” and “Liberty”. Image courtesy of wikimedia commons.

Not exactly a recipe, but I hope it's still welcome. It explains the proper way to eat soft-boiled eggs.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/19/a-fourteenth-century-poem-of-table-manners/

On the second day of being stuck at home sick instead of in Paris with a dearly beloved person (boo to food poisoning), at least there is the upside of time to dedicate to my hobby. I found a modern rendering of this fourteenth-century poem a while ago, and now I was able to track down the original and translate it.

The Rossauer Tischzucht survives in three copies, so it clearly was a modestly popular piece of literature. It is named after Rossau in Vienna, where it was recorded in a monastery. The manuscript is in the Nationalbibliothek today (Cod. ser. Nova 2584). The rules as such are not unusual – much the same is repeated in every Tischzucht poem – but there are some interesting bits, and it makes a good foil to compare the König vom Odenwald or the feasting scenes from Wittenwiler with. Also, it clearly depends on the thirteenth-century Tischzucht attributed to Tannhäuser for some of its rhymes, but is not derivative.

Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).

Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.

If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.

If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this: 
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.

Nobody should together sup 
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask. 
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)

Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).  

Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.

Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand 
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).

Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).

Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.

No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself. 

Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.

Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.

Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.

When your companion drinks
You should not be eating. 

And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly 
To stop doing it immediately.

I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.

Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.

Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.

Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand 
Be reminded of this courtesy.

When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely 
Shape the bread into points with your fingers 
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger 
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl. 

Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.

Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen. Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).

Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.

If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.

If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this: 
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.

Nobody should together sup 
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask. 
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)

Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).  

Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.

Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand 
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).

Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).

Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.

No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself. 

Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.

Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.

Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.

When your companion drinks
You should not be eating. 

And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly 
To stop doing it immediately.

I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.

Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.

Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.

Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand 
Be reminded of this courtesy.

When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely 
Shape the bread into points with your fingers 
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger 
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl. 

Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.

Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen. 

This is interesting in all kinds of ways and illustrates some of the rules and realities of medieval upper-class dining.

One interesting aspect is the rules for cutting bread. We know from many sources that the proper way to cut bread at the table was to hold the loaf in one hand and the knife in the other. Especially if your loaf was large and dense, as medieval bread often was, bracing it against your body would be far easier, and we know this was how people did it frequently. I used to assume doing it differently just because was sufficient explanation for the upper-class rule, and the smaller loaves of semmel or schönroggen made this practical, but the suggestion here is that it also was a test of strength and dexterity. Cutting loaves without bracing them and thick slices without putting pressure on the blade with your finger can be challenging. This ableist aspect is part of many rules of propriety, as anyone who has been instructed in manners can attest, and it makes sense in the context. Chivalric society was still a warrior aristocracy, every secular man at the table a trained cavalryman. They would show off that sort of thing.

The second observation is the rule that underlies the entire principle: Food moves one way. Anything that was in your mouth should never be in contact with the food on the table. This was made challenging by the fact that bowls and drinking cups were shared. Typically, diners shared one bowl and cup between two, using the hand facing away from their companion to eat with to avoid jostling each other’s elbows. Your bodily fluids had no business in the shared bowl. Thus wash your hands before eating, wipe your mouth before drinking, do not drink with your mouth full, do not touch shared condiments with your fingers, generally keep them clean, and never put bread or food that was in your mouth back in the bowl. Spoons were never shared and the bowl would not touch your moth, so you had to spoon or sop up any liquid in it. The mere suggestion of saliva touching the food – bending over the bowl, smacking your lips, or talking with your mouth full – is prohibited. None of this is unfamiliar to modern eaters, but many do not realise how consistent this system is and how much individual plates and cutlery helped defuse its tension points.

This is also where the rules for eating eggs are interesting. The egg is soft-boiled, eaten in the shell. You prepare a sufficient number of small bread wedges to sop up the egg first. Then you hold the egg in one hand, crack it open at the pointy end, and use the bread held in your other hand to eat it. If you lacked the forethought to prepare enough bread, you only have one hand free – there are no eggcups – so you will be forced to shape the bread with the mouth. This is unmannerly and disgusting for the reasons outlined above. Any well-mannered diner would understand how many wedges to cut and be dextrous enough to do it.

Another interesting point touched on briefly is the rule that you should not eat – that is, have food in your mouth – while your companion is drinking. In other Tischzucht poems, this is expanded to the rule nobody should be eating while the host drinks. It may be something to do with displaying self-control and reassuring the other you are not gobbling up the best bits while they are busy, but it also underscores an important aspect of commensality: Drinking is the more important social activity. Most symbolic actions center on drink, not food.

The final question is why a salmon is particularly notable for smacking its lips. there might be no more to it than that lahs (salmon) rhymes with wasserdahs (seal), but there is a parallel to consider. In Tannhäusers Tischzucht from the 13th century, the respective lines are:

He who snorts like a seal (wazzerdachs)
And smacks his lips like a Bavarian Saxon (payr sachs)
When he eats, like many do;
How very much he forgets his manners!

Clearly, the earlier poem provided the influence here. I have no idea why a Bavarian Saxon (geographically difficult to imagine in itself) was particularly known for lip-smacking, but I suspect there is a political background to this. It seems the anonymous author – or someone before them – liked the couplet, but also could not understand that word and substituted a different rhyme. It is a common phenomenon in folk music to this day.

On the second day of being stuck at home sick instead of in Paris with a dearly beloved person (boo to food poisoning), at least there is the upside of time to dedicate to my hobby. I found a modern rendering of this fourteenth-century poem a while ago, and now I was able to track down the original and translate it.

The Rossauer Tischzucht survives in three copies, so it clearly was a modestly popular piece of literature. It is named after Rossau in Vienna, where it was recorded in a monastery. The manuscript is in the Nationalbibliothek today (Cod. ser. Nova 2584). The rules as such are not unusual – much the same is repeated in every Tischzucht poem – but there are some interesting bits, and it makes a good foil to compare the König vom Odenwald or the feasting scenes from Wittenwiler with. Also, it clearly depends on the thirteenth-century Tischzucht attributed to Tannhäuser for some of its rhymes, but is not derivative.

Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).

Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.

If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.

If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this: 
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.

Nobody should together sup 
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask. 
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)

Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).  

Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.

Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand 
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).

Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).

Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.

No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself. 

Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.

Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.

Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.

When your companion drinks
You should not be eating. 

And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly 
To stop doing it immediately.

I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.

Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.

Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.

Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand 
Be reminded of this courtesy.

When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely 
Shape the bread into points with your fingers 
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger 
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl. 

Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.

Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen. Those who have such knowledge
That they already mastered honourable conduct (zuht und ere)
I ask them on my behalf
That they not be angry
When I now admonish young children
That are about seven years of age
And do not yet have that knowledge
Nor understand proper manners.
But whoever wishes to hear of proper manners
Should now abandon impropriety (unzuht).

Remember that when you go to the table
You must not leave your hands unwashed.
Cut the nails on your hands closely
If they are long, it dishonours you.

If you do not want to sit like an unmannerly person (gouch)
Loosen the belt around your belly.

If you want to cut bread mannerly
You must avoid doing this: 
Do not brace it against your chest
As weak women will do
Who are obliged to do this because of their weakness
At court, this will be greatly mocked.

Nobody should together sup 
From one spoon, this is clear.
It is not proper to drink from bowls
And whoever improperly takes those
And drinks up as though he was mad (als er tobe – prob. Noisily)
Though many praise this bad behaviour (unfuor)
I cannot think but that these are
As bare of honour as an empty cask. 
(er ist der ern ein itel vaz)

Those who bend over the bowl
And smack uncleanly
With their mouth like a pig
Should be eating with other animals (bi anderm vihe).  

Some bite off their bread slices (sniten)
After the manner of peasants
And dip them back into the bowl;
Courtly people abandon this impropriety.

Some even eat so greedily
They no longer feel what their mouth is doing
And bite their own hand 
Courtly people will avoid this gluttony (gitikheit).

Those who snort like a seal (wasserdahs)
Or smack their lips like a salmon (lahs)
And eat this way, as many do,
How badly they reject proper manners (sich der zuht verwigt).

Those who clear their throats (wiphitzt) when they are supposed to eat
And blow their nose in the tablecloth
Those two things are unmannerly
As far as I can recall.

No mannerly man will do these things:
Lying down on the table
Or leaning back
It is not well received when that happens.
Do not lean on your elbows
Sit upright, not bent over (gesmogen)
And do not touch yourself with your bare hand
But cover it with your clothes
If you must touch yourself. 

Do not put your fingers on the blade of the knife
When you cut thick bread slices
To empty out your bowl,
You must not forget these manners.

Wipe your moth before you drink
This courtliness is always proper
And only in proper measure (i.e. not too deeply)
Should your mouth enter the cup.

Some blow into their drink
I am not sure they will be thanked for that.

When your companion drinks
You should not be eating. 

And count this for an evil deed (mizzetat):
If someone has food in their mouth
And drinks with that, like an animal.
If I see this poor behaviour (unzuht) with anyone
I advise them honestly 
To stop doing it immediately.

I also think it is not well regarded
That if you have eaten meat off a bone
To put it back into the bowl
Courtliness must be guarded from this.

Whoever wants to eat and speak at the same time
Or even speaks in his sleep
Whoever wants to to both at once
Will have little rest.

Those who like to eat mustard and sauces
Should do without the impropriety
Of sticking their fingers into it
They should be accustomed to (not doing) this.

Nobody should reach for salt with their bare hand 
Be reminded of this courtesy.

When you want to eat eggs,
Well enkentzet (chosen?) and shelled
Beforehand you must wisely 
Shape the bread into points with your fingers 
So that you are never obliged
To shape it with your mouth later.
Also do not use your finger 
To reach into eggshells, as often happens
And do not practice such ill manners
To put the shell back into the bowl. 

Also, dear comrades of mine,
Do not poke around your mouth with the tongue
that is poorly regarded
When you leave the table.

Here ends this poem of table manners
May God protect us from all misfortune. Amen. 

This is interesting in all kinds of ways and illustrates some of the rules and realities of medieval upper-class dining.

One interesting aspect is the rules for cutting bread. We know from many sources that the proper way to cut bread at the table was to hold the loaf in one hand and the knife in the other. Especially if your loaf was large and dense, as medieval bread often was, bracing it against your body would be far easier, and we know this was how people did it frequently. I used to assume doing it differently just because was sufficient explanation for the upper-class rule, and the smaller loaves of semmel or schönroggen made this practical, but the suggestion here is that it also was a test of strength and dexterity. Cutting loaves without bracing them and thick slices without putting pressure on the blade with your finger can be challenging. This ableist aspect is part of many rules of propriety, as anyone who has been instructed in manners can attest, and it makes sense in the context. Chivalric society was still a warrior aristocracy, every secular man at the table a trained cavalryman. They would show off that sort of thing.

The second observation is the rule that underlies the entire principle: Food moves one way. Anything that was in your mouth should never be in contact with the food on the table. This was made challenging by the fact that bowls and drinking cups were shared. Typically, diners shared one bowl and cup between two, using the hand facing away from their companion to eat with to avoid jostling each other’s elbows. Your bodily fluids had no business in the shared bowl. Thus wash your hands before eating, wipe your mouth before drinking, do not drink with your mouth full, do not touch shared condiments with your fingers, generally keep them clean, and never put bread or food that was in your mouth back in the bowl. Spoons were never shared and the bowl would not touch your moth, so you had to spoon or sop up any liquid in it. The mere suggestion of saliva touching the food – bending over the bowl, smacking your lips, or talking with your mouth full – is prohibited. None of this is unfamiliar to modern eaters, but many do not realise how consistent this system is and how much individual plates and cutlery helped defuse its tension points.

This is also where the rules for eating eggs are interesting. The egg is soft-boiled, eaten in the shell. You prepare a sufficient number of small bread wedges to sop up the egg first. Then you hold the egg in one hand, crack it open at the pointy end, and use the bread held in your other hand to eat it. If you lacked the forethought to prepare enough bread, you only have one hand free – there are no eggcups – so you will be forced to shape the bread with the mouth. This is unmannerly and disgusting for the reasons outlined above. Any well-mannered diner would understand how many wedges to cut and be dextrous enough to do it.

Another interesting point touched on briefly is the rule that you should not eat – that is, have food in your mouth – while your companion is drinking. In other Tischzucht poems, this is expanded to the rule nobody should be eating while the host drinks. It may be something to do with displaying self-control and reassuring the other you are not gobbling up the best bits while they are busy, but it also underscores an important aspect of commensality: Drinking is the more important social activity. Most symbolic actions center on drink, not food.

The final question is why a salmon is particularly notable for smacking its lips. there might be no more to it than that lahs (salmon) rhymes with wasserdahs (seal), but there is a parallel to consider. In Tannhäusers Tischzucht from the 13th century, the respective lines are:

He who snorts like a seal (wazzerdachs)
And smacks his lips like a Bavarian Saxon (payr sachs)
When he eats, like many do;
How very much he forgets his manners!

Clearly, the earlier poem provided the influence here. I have no idea why a Bavarian Saxon (geographically difficult to imagine in itself) was particularly known for lip-smacking, but I suspect there is a political background to this. It seems the anonymous author – or someone before them – liked the couplet, but also could not understand that word and substituted a different rhyme. It is a common phenomenon in folk music to this day.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/18/houses-by-the-harbour-feeding-the-revolution-xxx/

Hamburg has lately become a popular tourism destination, and one of the things many visitors do is take the ferry line 62 down the Elbe for a scenic ride. As it glides past the 1912 tunnel entrance building towards the old fish market hall with its impressive 19th-century cast iron windows, the ferry passes a beach club, a firefighting ship’s mooring, a retired Tango-class Soviet submarine, and a set of houses painted in bright colours and usually festooned with banners. These are the Hafenstraße houses, one of Germany’s most famous anarchist squatter communes, and the story of its emergence is one of street fighting, skulduggery, and deep embarrassment.

It all started in a way that is drably familiar to anyone from any Western European city. The houses were owned by SAGA, a municipal housing corporation, and they were old. Around 1900, they had been state-of-the-art, but by 1980, age and neglect had taken a severe toll. Apartments stood empty, no repairs were made, and the corporation was looking to demolish them and get an investor to build an office block. This kind of modernisation had already swallowed up entire neighbourhoods, much of it technically illegal, but carried out by connected landlords with impunity.

By late 1981, the last tenants, including a left-wing youth organisation, were facing eviction. The final New Year’s Eve party drew a crowd, including many anarchist activists and punks who played music, ate, drank, greeted 1982 – and stayed put. Under the eyes of the management, a squatter community had popped up. In the ensuing standoff, the squatters defied several attempts to evict them until SAGA’s management sent in a contractors under police protection to brick up the ground floor doors and windows.

The next day, they found someone had bricked up their main office’s entrance overnight.

The fight was on.

Though conservative media framed this as an assault on lawful society, the activists had a solid legal case. Under West German law, you could not, in fact, do with your property as you saw fit. Property carries the obligation to use it in a socially responsible manner – it is in the constitution (§14.2). Though squatting as such was illegal, the SAGA could not just evict them or destroy the houses. Not to mention that, despite all efforts to paint them as terrorist sympathisers, drug dealers, and a Communist fifth column, the occupants enjoyed significant support expressed in practical aid, demonstrations, and votes.

There was, in fact, something to the accusations; The people who occupied the Hafenstraße houses were an eclectic leftist community embracing anarchist principles of self-organisation. Most of them were opposed to drug criminalisation, proudly internationalist, and critical of capitalism, though it is amusing to imagine how a 1980s Soviet functionary would have responded to these comrades. Fifth columnists, they were not. But neither were they pacifist. Nonviolent resistance was not a realistic option in the face of riot police.

Internally, they were well organised and effective. One reason they enjoyed support was that they organised repairs and improvements to the houses that the owner had neglected. They organised a communal kitchen that fed them and a large number of visitors as well as local homeless. Cultural events and solidarity concerts drew crowds. The occasional violent demonstrations and police raids made headlines, but most days were filled with a quiet activism working patiently towards an eventual resolution.

This was a consciously egalitarian, internationalist group, often dismissive of traditional patterns and willing to try new things, including new foods. Today, the anarchist scene in Germany has gone almost completely vegetarian or vegan both for ecology and inclusiveness, but by all accounts, this was still uncommon in the 1980s. One of the most popular cookbooks emerging from this scene, Peter Fischer’s Schlaraffenland, nimm’s in die Hand, which we already quoted on the issue of ‘authentic’ pizza, gives us a large number of recipes from distant countries, including many that are suitable for cooking in quantity. One of them is for stir-fried pork with soybean sprouts, then a great novelty:

Pork with Soybean Sprouts heo xao gia

Cut 400g pork shoulder into thin slices and sautée in olive oil with two split onions. Stir well continually. Salt and pepper, add a pinch of glutamate and 1 glass of water and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add 500g fresh sprouts along with 10g of black mushrooms and again simmer 10 minutes on low heat.

If no fresh sprouts can be had, use tinned ones. In that case, use the water from the tin for cooking.

Better variant: Use loin in place of shoulder. In that case, first brown the onions, then sautée the meat.

(…)

Consider: With Vietnamese as with all East Asian meals, there is always a large bowl of rice on the table to serve yourself. Rice means: Rice without any other ingredients, plain boiled. It is eaten from a rice bowl next to the bowl for the main or other course.

Prepared nuoc-mam also accompanies all meals. It is the axis of Vietnamese cuisine. You either season a dish with it or dip salad herbs in it. Salad eaten this way is incredibly delicious, only Italian salads can compete. At any rate – if you have tried nuoc-mam, which tastes just as good based on Hong Kong fish gravy, three times, it will never be out of your kitchen again.

Further: Whenever adding a glass of water is mentioned, it means warm water. But a collective cook will already know these things anyway.

Of course, the author has things to say about preparing nuoc mam in the introduction to the chapter:

… Not the pure extract, but a mixture made according to individual preference is used (at the table). I have adopted the following formula:

Keep in a well-stoppered small pitcher to be stored in the refrigerator if the sauce is not used up entirely during the meal. First, put 5 tbsp lukewarm water into the pitcher. Then cut the flesh of 1/2 a lemon into pieces, lightly squeeze them between the fingers, and add them to the water. Follow with 2 tbsp (good) wine vinegar, 2 crushed garlic cloves, 1 shredded small hot red pepper. Finally, top up with nuoc man to taste and add sugar to balance the saltiness. This tastes best if it is allowed to steep overnight.

This recipe may not sound like anything special to us today (neither would it have to me, as I grew up around people like that), but it is hard to overstate how much of a break with tradition it was for Germany in the mid-20th century. Vietnamese cuisine had a special status as a left-wing identity marker, with the war barely ended and visiting the country still viewed as close to treason by conservatives, but even beyond this, Germany was not a place where culinary adventurism held much sway. Its own culinary tradition had been devastated by war, displacement, and austerity, and for a generation, eating well had mostly meant getting enough calories and then, enough status-bearing ingredients to make a ‘proper’ meal. Interest in ‘foreign’ foods never died, of course, and immigrant communities helped the spread of Italian, Greek, and Yugoslav foods through the country. Going to less familiar worlds represented a vast leap, though. In 1981, spaghetti was still adventurous to many.

Contrast this with the conscious internationalism of a cookbook that has room for Italian and Spanish, Maghrebi, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian recipes. The author prides himself on his knowledge of flavours and places that German backpack tourists visited when that was still uncommon and is solicitous of authenticity in a way that we recognise as typical ‘foodie’ behaviour, but that was still a novelty then. Getting your hands on nuoc mam, or even decent olive oil, was not easy in 1981 Germany, though you stood a better chance in Hamburg than just about anywhere else. Soybean sprouts were often cultivated at home because they were equally hard to find. In the end, you had to make compromises, and what passed under the name of ‘curry’ or ‘nasi goreng’ at the time was often wildly improvisational.

A compromise was also what ended the standoff at the Hafenstraße. Though conservative hardliners in and out of government longed to crack heads and tried violent solutions several times, in the end the mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi decided to deescalate. At this point, the inhabitants had used their renovations to fortify the buildings with razorwire and steel doors, and the police estimated 5000 officers would be needed to clear them out. Support from other German states would have provided the numbers, but the confrontation was averted in a dramatic last-minute round of negotiations in 1987. The squatters were offered a rental agreement, the fortifications were removed, the police stood down, and an uneasy peace began.

Things did not wind down easily on either side. Radicals resented being tenants to the state as much as the right-wing press did the ‘surrender’. It was not until 1995 that a cooperative of inhabitants and supporters was able to buy the houses outright. The city sold at a steep loss, and many resented that violent radicals could have prime living space while many law-abiding citizens nearby were turfed out of their apartments by gentrifying real estate investors. Ironically, the anarchist commune turned out to be a better investment than either 1980s office space or 1990s luxury condos in the long run. It proved a draw for artists, musicians, and activists, providing alternative tourist cachet close to the city’s preeminent drunk party location and its most overpriced souvenir shops, and it cost less than two embarrassing failures to convince the people they really wanted an Olympic bid. It may not have been what the first occupants of the houses envisioned when they set up their revolutionary commune, but this really is a happy end, to the extent we get these in history.

https://preview.redd.it/zi3n12c880eh1.jpg?width=2564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=740c53da914ce164bf62106eddd3c5931d587400

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/07/18/houses-by-the-harbour-feeding-the-revolution-xxx/

Hamburg has lately become a popular tourism destination, and one of the things many visitors do is take the ferry line 62 down the Elbe for a scenic ride. As it glides past the 1912 tunnel entrance building towards the old fish market hall with its impressive 19th-century cast iron windows, the ferry passes a beach club, a firefighting ship’s mooring, a retired Tango-class Soviet submarine, and a set of houses painted in bright colours and usually festooned with banners. These are the Hafenstraße houses, one of Germany’s most famous anarchist squatter communes, and the story of its emergence is one of street fighting, skulduggery, and deep embarrassment.

It all started in a way that is drably familiar to anyone from any Western European city. The houses were owned by SAGA, a municipal housing corporation, and they were old. Around 1900, they had been state-of-the-art, but by 1980, age and neglect had taken a severe toll. Apartments stood empty, no repairs were made, and the corporation was looking to demolish them and get an investor to build an office block. This kind of modernisation had already swallowed up entire neighbourhoods, much of it technically illegal, but carried out by connected landlords with impunity.

By late 1981, the last tenants, including a left-wing youth organisation, were facing eviction. The final New Year’s Eve party drew a crowd, including many anarchist activists and punks who played music, ate, drank, greeted 1982 – and stayed put. Under the eyes of the management, a squatter community had popped up. In the ensuing standoff, the squatters defied several attempts to evict them until SAGA’s management sent in a contractors under police protection to brick up the ground floor doors and windows.

The next day, they found someone had bricked up their main office’s entrance overnight.

The fight was on.

Though conservative media framed this as an assault on lawful society, the activists had a solid legal case. Under West German law, you could not, in fact, do with your property as you saw fit. Property carries the obligation to use it in a socially responsible manner – it is in the constitution (§14.2). Though squatting as such was illegal, the SAGA could not just evict them or destroy the houses. Not to mention that, despite all efforts to paint them as terrorist sympathisers, drug dealers, and a Communist fifth column, the occupants enjoyed significant support expressed in practical aid, demonstrations, and votes.

There was, in fact, something to the accusations; The people who occupied the Hafenstraße houses were an eclectic leftist community embracing anarchist principles of self-organisation. Most of them were opposed to drug criminalisation, proudly internationalist, and critical of capitalism, though it is amusing to imagine how a 1980s Soviet functionary would have responded to these comrades. Fifth columnists, they were not. But neither were they pacifist. Nonviolent resistance was not a realistic option in the face of riot police.

Internally, they were well organised and effective. One reason they enjoyed support was that they organised repairs and improvements to the houses that the owner had neglected. They organised a communal kitchen that fed them and a large number of visitors as well as local homeless. Cultural events and solidarity concerts drew crowds. The occasional violent demonstrations and police raids made headlines, but most days were filled with a quiet activism working patiently towards an eventual resolution.

This was a consciously egalitarian, internationalist group, often dismissive of traditional patterns and willing to try new things, including new foods. Today, the anarchist scene in Germany has gone almost completely vegetarian or vegan both for ecology and inclusiveness, but by all accounts, this was still uncommon in the 1980s. One of the most popular cookbooks emerging from this scene, Peter Fischer’s Schlaraffenland, nimm’s in die Hand, which we already quoted on the issue of ‘authentic’ pizza, gives us a large number of recipes from distant countries, including many that are suitable for cooking in quantity. One of them is for stir-fried pork with soybean sprouts, then a great novelty:

Pork with Soybean Sprouts heo xao gia

Cut 400g pork shoulder into thin slices and sautée in olive oil with two split onions. Stir well continually. Salt and pepper, add a pinch of glutamate and 1 glass of water and simmer for 10 minutes. Then add 500g fresh sprouts along with 10g of black mushrooms and again simmer 10 minutes on low heat.

If no fresh sprouts can be had, use tinned ones. In that case, use the water from the tin for cooking.

Better variant: Use loin in place of shoulder. In that case, first brown the onions, then sautée the meat.

(…)

Consider: With Vietnamese as with all East Asian meals, there is always a large bowl of rice on the table to serve yourself. Rice means: Rice without any other ingredients, plain boiled. It is eaten from a rice bowl next to the bowl for the main or other course.

Prepared nuoc-mam also accompanies all meals. It is the axis of Vietnamese cuisine. You either season a dish with it or dip salad herbs in it. Salad eaten this way is incredibly delicious, only Italian salads can compete. At any rate – if you have tried nuoc-mam, which tastes just as good based on Hong Kong fish gravy, three times, it will never be out of your kitchen again.

Further: Whenever adding a glass of water is mentioned, it means warm water. But a collective cook will already know these things anyway.

Of course, the author has things to say about preparing nuoc mam in the introduction to the chapter:

… Not the pure extract, but a mixture made according to individual preference is used (at the table). I have adopted the following formula:

Keep in a well-stoppered small pitcher to be stored in the refrigerator if the sauce is not used up entirely during the meal. First, put 5 tbsp lukewarm water into the pitcher. Then cut the flesh of 1/2 a lemon into pieces, lightly squeeze them between the fingers, and add them to the water. Follow with 2 tbsp (good) wine vinegar, 2 crushed garlic cloves, 1 shredded small hot red pepper. Finally, top up with nuoc man to taste and add sugar to balance the saltiness. This tastes best if it is allowed to steep overnight.

This recipe may not sound like anything special to us today (neither would it have to me, as I grew up around people like that), but it is hard to overstate how much of a break with tradition it was for Germany in the mid-20th century. Vietnamese cuisine had a special status as a left-wing identity marker, with the war barely ended and visiting the country still viewed as close to treason by conservatives, but even beyond this, Germany was not a place where culinary adventurism held much sway. Its own culinary tradition had been devastated by war, displacement, and austerity, and for a generation, eating well had mostly meant getting enough calories and then, enough status-bearing ingredients to make a ‘proper’ meal. Interest in ‘foreign’ foods never died, of course, and immigrant communities helped the spread of Italian, Greek, and Yugoslav foods through the country. Going to less familiar worlds represented a vast leap, though. In 1981, spaghetti was still adventurous to many.

Contrast this with the conscious internationalism of a cookbook that has room for Italian and Spanish, Maghrebi, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian recipes. The author prides himself on his knowledge of flavours and places that German backpack tourists visited when that was still uncommon and is solicitous of authenticity in a way that we recognise as typical ‘foodie’ behaviour, but that was still a novelty then. Getting your hands on nuoc mam, or even decent olive oil, was not easy in 1981 Germany, though you stood a better chance in Hamburg than just about anywhere else. Soybean sprouts were often cultivated at home because they were equally hard to find. In the end, you had to make compromises, and what passed under the name of ‘curry’ or ‘nasi goreng’ at the time was often wildly improvisational.

A compromise was also what ended the standoff at the Hafenstraße. Though conservative hardliners in and out of government longed to crack heads and tried violent solutions several times, in the end the mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi decided to deescalate. At this point, the inhabitants had used their renovations to fortify the buildings with razorwire and steel doors, and the police estimated 5000 officers would be needed to clear them out. Support from other German states would have provided the numbers, but the confrontation was averted in a dramatic last-minute round of negotiations in 1987. The squatters were offered a rental agreement, the fortifications were removed, the police stood down, and an uneasy peace began.

Things did not wind down easily on either side. Radicals resented being tenants to the state as much as the right-wing press did the ‘surrender’. It was not until 1995 that a cooperative of inhabitants and supporters was able to buy the houses outright. The city sold at a steep loss, and many resented that violent radicals could have prime living space while many law-abiding citizens nearby were turfed out of their apartments by gentrifying real estate investors. Ironically, the anarchist commune turned out to be a better investment than either 1980s office space or 1990s luxury condos in the long run. It proved a draw for artists, musicians, and activists, providing alternative tourist cachet close to the city’s preeminent drunk party location and its most overpriced souvenir shops, and it cost less than two embarrassing failures to convince the people they really wanted an Olympic bid. It may not have been what the first occupants of the houses envisioned when they set up their revolutionary commune, but this really is a happy end, to the extent we get these in history.