r/FoodHistory

Not strictly a recipe, but sort of canning, if you look at it the right way:

This week was far too busy for any major writing projects, so all I have for you is a recipe from the Solothurn MS. but I think this one is interesting:

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A10 To have green and ripe cherries in wintertime

Take a small cask, and with it take cherries or sweet cherries (amelber), and do not handle them much with your hands. Also pluck cherry leaves with the stalks and branches (prossen und studlin), and also take it fresh. There follows first a layer of leaves placed in the cask, and then put a layer of cherries on the aforesaid leaves. Thereafter, again, a layer of fresh leaves as is said above, and again on this fresh cherries et caetera until the cask is filled. In the end, close the cask well, seal it with pitch, fat, and wax. Afterwards, put it into a warm well and you will have it etc.

Keeping fresh fruit was a challenge in the days before artificial refrigeration and protective atmosphere, and this is yet another iteration of the practice of keeping it from drying out or going mouldy by excluding air. While Apicius (I.17) famously immerses grapes in a sealed vessel of boiled water and Germany’s first printed cookbook, the 1485 Kuchenmaistrey, suggests coating them in glue, this recipe seals cherries in a cask, cushioned against damage by resting on fresh leaves, and keeps them cool in well water. The ‘warm well’ specified here is almost certainly not a hot spring – there are very few of those in the region – but simply a well that usually does not freeze in winter. That reading also suggests the cherries were stored for several months, from harvesting to the time hard frost became a concern, and given the care taken here, I could see that working. Serving a bowl of fresh, juicy cherries in December would make a beautifully understated way of showing off the skill of your household staff and the depth of your pockets.

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/2026/06/05/keeping-cherries-fresh/

"The Waltons" is set on a fictional mountain in rural Virginia during the 1930s. In some early episodes, the family is shown eating spaghetti. I'm curious whether this would have been historically and geographically accurate for a working-class rural Appalachian family at that time.

A few specific things I'm wondering about:

• How common was spaghetti (or pasta generally) in rural Southern/Appalachian households during the 1930s? Was it something a family like the Waltons would realistically have eaten?
• Italian-American foodways were well established in urban areas with large Italian immigrant populations by the 1930s, and there is a rich history of Italy-adjacent immigrants in the northern WV coalfields, but how far had dried pasta spread into rural, non-Italian regions of the American South?
• Would dried pasta have been available and affordable through general stores or mail-order catalogs in an isolated mountain community during the Depression?
• If they did eat it, would the preparation have resembled what we'd recognize as "spaghetti and tomato sauce," or something different? I assume it would be something more in the bolognaise / meat gravy family.

Basically, is this a believable detail, or an anachronism/geographic mismatch the show's writers got wrong?

Made a video breaking down foods that aren't what they seem fake wasabi, imitation crab, parmesan that's not real parmesan. Some of these genuinely surprised me while researching. Would love to know if any of these caught you off guard.

https://www.culina-vetus.de/2026/05/31/experimental-bouletten-and-a-cool-pot/

Once again, I am coming back from a longer absence than I had intended. I must apologise, but sadly it does not look likely that I will soon be able to return to my optimistic schedule, unless the economic crisis of 2026 does end up costing me my job after all. Still, what kept me from posting a longer article this weekend was a good thing. For the first time in weeks, I had the chance to go to flea markets and actually test out some historic recipes. Let me tell you about that.

First, yesterday as I was walking over a flea market in Hamburg, I spotted what looked like a cast-bronze, three-legged Grapen style cookpot. Grapen were a central tool of North German kitchen between 1300 and the early 20th century, but later versions were typically made from cast iron. Bronze ones are very rare and usually museum pieces. This one, though, turned out to be a genuine one and inexpensive enough for me to actually buy. I’ve put in a few hours cleaning it off, but it will take a lot more time with vinegar, wire brushes, and polishing tools. Once it is actually done, I hope to use it to recreate some recipes.

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The other thing I did was try out a few recipes for a small publishing project. I intend to put all the ‘Feeding the Revolution‘ articles into one compilation with redactions of the recipes adapted for the modern home kitchen (or protest catering station). Today, among a few other things, I tried out the Bouletten from the 1868 Volksküche manual:

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Nr. 19: Mashed potatoes and Bouletten with sour sauce

Bouletten: 3 lbs (1.5kg) beef, 3 lbs (1.5 kg) pork, 1/3 Metze (1.15 litres) of grated Semmel bread, 2 Metzen (6.9 litres) grated boiled potatoes, 1/2 Mandel (seven) eggs, pepper, spices, onions and salt, 1 lb (500g) of fat to fry 100 Bouletten.

Mashed potatoes: 2 1/2 – 3 Scheffel (110 litres) potatoes, 8 Quart (9.12 litres) milk, 3 lbs (1.5 kg) salt

Sauce: 1 lb fat mixed with 2 lbs flour, 1/2 lb flour added dry to the roux, 2 Quart (2.28 litres) good vinegar, 1 lb sugar, pepper, spices and onions, the necessary quantity of water. Cooking time: 1/2 hour

I began by downsizing quantities to a more manageable 1kg of potatoes, 500g of mixed ground beef and pork (this is a common thing in German cuisine, gemischtes Hack, for same in any supermarket and most butchers’ shops), one egg, and 100g of grated bread. Without guidance as to quantities, I went with 1 1/2 medium-sized onions, 2 tsp of salt, and a generous pinch of pepper and mace. I shredded the boiled potatoes coarsely, diced the onions, and mashed it all together in a bowl by hand. This turned out easier than I expected, and the mass held together very well. I shaped patties from pieces the size of eggs and tried out various temperatures and quantities of fat to fry them. The best combination, in my opinion, was a high temperature with about a tablespoon of fat in a pan of five Bouletten. Looking at the original instructions, this is unlikely to be accurate, though. The potatoes and breadcrumbs soak up fat quickly. Just one pound to cook 100 means at best a light coating on the pan.

The patties were initially hard to handle. They stuck to the pan and came apart easily when turned over, though they held together well enough for me not to break any completely. High heat can produce a slightly crispy exterior, and I did not burn any, though that would definitely have been possible if I had let my attention wander. Eaten warm, they are soft, almost spoonable, and would go well with mashed potatoes and a sweet-sour sauce. After they had cooled, I had one on a baguette sandwich and was surprised how well it went with mustard and lettuce.

Now, it bears repeating that these are good despite being made very cheaply. This is a product of skill. The upper class version of the same dish requires much less ability. Here is the description from Henriette Davidis’ Praktisches Kochbuch:

Fried Frikandellen

The Frikandellen turn out especially fine and tasty if you mince one part beef, one part veal, and one part well-marbled pork, adding 100-200g of butter to the meat. This mixture cannot always be had, though. In that case, you mince 1kg of good beef with 125g of suet of fresh bacon (Speck) very finely and add 4 whole eggs, 20g salt, a pinch of mace or ground pepper, 30g of ground rusk (Zwieback) or grated white bread, and one cup of cold water, mixing all together thoroughly. You then shape round balls, smoothed flat with wet hands, sprinkled with ground rusk, lay them into boiling (lit. rising, steigende) butter and fry them golden in the pan, repeatedly drizzling the meat with hot fat. The Frikandellen must be golden, not brown.

With this much butter, eggs, and high-quality meat, it would take quite some talent not to have them come out tasting good. As an aside, the two words used here are still current in German for the fame dish. Frikadelle is the technical, formal word and usually found in cookbooks. Bulette is a local name in the region of Berlin, considered informal and slightly proletarian. Other areas have different words for this ubiquitous dish.

So much for today, and I apologise in advance if there is no more until the coming weekend. I am looking forward to another very busy week with some apprehension, but I have not forgotten my readers. Stay safe out there, everyone.