Basler Läckerli

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Basler Läckerli
The freshly cut dough
The icing that makes the familiar cloud pattern

Basler Läckerli or Basler Leckerli is a traditional, gingerbread-like pastry that is named after the original place of manufacture, the city of Basel .

Recipe

Basler Läckerli are made from wheat flour, honey , candied fruits ( orange peel , lemon peel ) and nuts ( hazelnuts , almonds ). The dough is rolled out flat, baked, then brushed with a sugar icing and cut into rectangular pieces (the Läckerli) that are not too small.

history

When the trade in oriental spices reached Europe in the 11th century, the wealthy monasteries first began to season their honey baked goods with them. This custom gradually spread to the cities, where the gingerbread industry arose in Switzerland in the 15th century. The first different gingerbread and treat recipes appeared in cookbooks from the 17th century. “Läckerli” or “Läckerle” are or were widespread in southern Germany and German-speaking Switzerland. The word is first attested in 1591 from Augsburg ("111 Leckherle to 4 Kreuzer and 324 other Leckherle to 3 Kreuzer"); The first Swiss Läckerli recipe can be found in the handbook created in 1621 by the Bern city ​​doctor Abraham Schneuwly ("Frauw Anna Von Hallweil to make Läckerlein"). Other early Läckerli recipes are attested from St. Gallen (1640), Zofingen (1677), Schaffhausen (1684), Graubünden (1689) and Zurich (late 17th century). In Basel, the Läckerli appear for the first time in an account of the gardeners' guild from October 10, 1711, where "3 Blatten Läckerlin" are mentioned; previously, the term gingerbread was used in recipe books (as elsewhere) .

The widespread legend that the Basler Läckerli were created in the 15th century for the members of the Basel Council must be viewed as false. The customs and department store files in the Basel-Stadt State Archives say that essential ingredients for the Basler Läckerli were not on the market in Basel in the 15th century.

Spelling and word origin

As with many terms of dialect origin, there are different spellings. The Basel German pronunciation [lækːəʀlɪ] corresponds to the spelling Läggerli according to the rules of the Dieth spelling . Both the “Basel German Dictionary” by Rudolf Suter and the “New Basel German Dictionary” by Markus Gasser et al. therefore recommend this notation for texts written in dialect. The Spelling Dude considers the spelling Leckerli to be correct for the standard language , while the Duden volume Swiss High German lists the spelling Läckerli and Leckerli . Läckerli is mostly written in Basel , also by a large manufacturer of biscuits and by the «Basler Zeitung». Basler Läckerli was already officially mentioned in 1720 (long before the standardization and regulation of German spelling ) .

The noun Läggerli is probably derived from the verb lägge "lick" (not very common in Swiss German today) and originally meant "sweetness" or "sugar biscuits"; compare the same to significant schläcke "lick" words formed Schläckwaar "Schleck goods" and Schläckzüüg "Schleck stuff" for sweetness at all. This means that the recipe can also be very different; the Züriläckerli, for example, are made from marzipan .

Varia

In subcultural usage, the typical rectangular dose units of LSD are also named. This is an indication of the invention of the substance by the chemist Albert Hofmann in the Basle laboratories of the Sandoz company in 1943.

Around 1904 a company started producing «Basler Läckerli» on Breisacherstrasse in Kleinbasel . This pastry was sold, along with other sweets, in the Läckerli Huus on Gerbergasse in Basel.

literature

  • Schweizerisches Idiotikon , Volume III, Column 247 f., Article Lëckerli and Baslerlëckerli , where also on the cultural history of pastries.
  • Albert Spycher: Treats from Basel. A gingerbread book from the Upper Rhine region. Buchverlag Basler Zeitung, Basel 1991, ISBN 3-85815-212-9 .
  • Albert Spycher-Gautschi: On the history of the Basler Leckerli. In: pianissimo 18, 2017, p. 29.

Web links

Commons : Basler Läckerli  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Spycher-Gautschi: On the history of the Basler Leckerli. In: pianissimo 18, 2017, p. 29.
  2. ^ A b Albert Spycher: Leckerli from Basel. A gingerbread book from the Upper Rhine region. Buchverlag Basler Zeitung, Basel 1991, p. 80.
  3. ^ Albert Spycher: Leckerli from Basel. A gingerbread book from the Upper Rhine region. Buchverlag Basler Zeitung, Basel 1991, p. 81.
  4. ^ Rudolf Suter: Basel German Dictionary. 2nd revised and expanded edition. Christoph Merian Verlag 1995, ISBN 3-85616-064-7 .
  5. ^ Markus Gasser et al .: New Basel German Dictionary. Christoph Merian Verlag 2010, ISBN 978-3-85616-502-4 .
  6. ^ Hans Bickel , Christoph Landolt : Swiss High German. Dictionary of the standard language in German-speaking Switzerland. 2nd, completely revised and expanded edition, published by the Swiss Association for the German Language. Dudenverlag, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-411-70418-7 , pp. 54 and 55.
  7. ↑ See the relevant word articles and word contexts in the Swiss Idioticon and the southern German large-scale dictionaries. Further attempts at derivation can be found in Albert Spycher: Leckerli from Basel. A gingerbread book from the Upper Rhine region. Buchverlag Basler Zeitung, Basel 1991, p. 79, inter alia on Electuarium .
  8. ↑ Läckerli-Huus entry on myswitzerland.com accessed on January 20, 2019