The book of good food

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First page from the book by Guoter Spîse , around 1350.

The book of good food or Bůch von gůter spîse - named after the Middle High German text beginning "diz buoch (says) von guoter spise" - and also called Würzburg cookbook , is the first (around 1350) "cookbook" written in German. It is part of Michael de Leone's house book , which is now in the Munich University Library under the signature 2 ° Cod. Ms. 731, Cim. 4 located composite manuscript.

Lore

The book of guoter spîse can be found on pages 156 r - 165 v as the 21st chapter in Michael de Leone's house book , referred to in older research as "Würzburger Liederhandschrift". It is assumed that the BvgSp comes from chief scribe B, to whom 200 of the 285 sheets of the second volume are ascribed. Michael de Leone (around 1300–1355) is suspected to be behind the corrections, which are clearly distinguished from the rest of the text by black ink. He was the commissioner of the manuscript, which was created between 1347 and 1350 under the coordination of Michael’s scribe Gyselher and which was supplemented by additions until 1354. The complete work originally comprised two volumes, divided into 33 chapters, of which only the second volume (chapters 1 and 15–33) was preserved. Only a few fragments of the first volume (chapters 2–14) have survived, but the contents of the table of contents in the second volume can be reconstructed. Five sheets of these fragments are in the Munich State Library (Cgm. 195 / I), another sheet is in the possession of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nürnberg (Hs. 9030). The complete second volume is in the Munich University Library (2 ° Cod. Ms. 731, Cim. 4).

Parallel traditions

In addition to the buoch of guoter spîse , other cooking recipe collections were created from the 14th century, which among other things contain the same recipes (albeit in a modified form) as the BvgSp. Sometimes it's just individual recipes, so-called litter tradition, that have been included in the collections, sometimes it's whole recipe blocks that are similar. The four manuscripts with the most common matches are:

  • Dessau, State Library, Hs. Georg. 278. 2 °

On fol.123v-132v there is a “book of good food” in this manuscript from the first half of the 15th century. Not only are the 66 recipes contained therein the same as in the BvgSp, they are also arranged in the same order. The differences lie, for example, in the shortening, simplification or omission of certain recipes. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that this could be a copy of the BvgSp.

  • Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. 4995

In the manuscript, written around 1450, on fol. 191r - 224v a recipe collection of 169 recipes, which is known under the name "Mondseer Kochbuch". The name is derived from a marginal note on sheet 238v, in which it is noted that Frater Benedictus from the Benedictine monastery of Biburg in Lower Bavaria gave the book to the Mondsee monastery in 1453. 86 of the recipes and the rhyming preface are identical to the BvgSp, even if they have been linguistically adapted. For example, unusual or strange-sounding titles of recipes have been replaced by simpler, clearer ones.

  • Vienna, Austrian National Library, Cod. 2897

The “Wiener Kochbuch” with 286 recipes is contained on pages 1r-29v of this collective manuscript from the first half of the 15th century. The writer used several sources as a template, including the BvgSp, which is represented with 48 recipes. However, the recipes were not given in the same order, but are spread across the entire cookbook.

  • Berlin, State Library, mgq. 1187

The manuscript, created in the first half of the 15th century, contains a collection of cooking recipes on sheets 71r-112v, 48 of which have parallels to the BvgSp.

construction

The guoter spîse buoch consists of two parts and contains a total of 101 recipes. The first part (fol.156r-162v) contains 55 recipes and two joke dishes. It is surrounded by a rhyming preface and the closing remark “diz is a guot lere from guoter spise”. The second section (fol. 162r-165v) with 44 recipes has no separate introduction or preface, but is concluded by the comment “Here get vz die lere von der kocherie”.

Although there were still lines left on the sheet at the end of the first part, the scribe did not continue until the next page. This interruption, as well as the different style, content, and vocabulary of the two parts suggest at least two sources that the writer used.

content

The guoter spîse book begins with a 22-line prologue. This makes the intention of the recipe collection clear. The book should benefit people who are not very familiar with the art of cooking:

Diz buoch says / from guoter spise The book tells of good food.
Then make the wrong cooks wise. It makes the ignorant cook wise.
I want to know. I want to teach them
from the cooking dishes. in food preparation,
which cannot be understood. that they cannot understand.

However, on closer inspection, it is noticeable that the recipes are aimed more at experienced chefs. As is customary for medieval recipes, there are hardly any measurements or times. The preparation of certain ingredients, such as almond milk or donut dough, were also not included in the recipe collection, but rather regarded as basic knowledge. The first part tries to be didactic. Using the example of spices, z. B. find that these are named, a total of 19 different. In the second part, which is becoming increasingly sketchy, there are only four spices (saffron, pepper, galangal and violet). Instead, the general term "wuertze" is used, which requires knowledge of the correct spice mixture.

The first part ends with two recipe parodies, one in prose form, the other in rhyme. Possibly a kind of reward for all those who have successfully completed the "cooking course":

A good delicious koestelin. So make one small from the youngest. delicious koestelin. von stichellinges magin vnd mucken fuezze vnd lovinken zvngen meysen beyn vnd froesche an der keln. so mahtu live long on worries. A good, tasty delicacy. Finally, make a small, delicious delicacy from the stomach of a stickleback and from mosquito feet and finch tongues, from tit bones and frog throats. So you can live long and worry-free.

While there is hardly any order in the first part, a classification is already made in the second section. Recipes 55–85 consist of foods from Lent, although these are interrupted by some recipes for blamensir . This is blanc manger , a dish made from white ingredients that was popular in the Middle Ages:

The woelle make a blame. the neme thick almond milk. vnd huener brueste geceyset. vnd tuo daz in the almond milk. vnd ruere daz with ris mele. vnd smaltz genuoc. vnd zuckers tuo genuoc dar zuo. daz is a blame one. If you want to make a mess , take thickened almond milk and chopped chicken breasts and add them to the almond milk and stir in rice flour, with enough lard, and add enough sugar. This is a blame one .

Dishes for meat dishes finally begin from recipe 86. Within these two groups, a loose order can also be seen, which is based on ingredients or preparation methods (e.g. fish dishes, donut fillings, fruit dishes).

The two penultimate recipes of the second part are special. They are show dishes that demonstrate the skill and artistry of the chef. For example, recipe no. 95 provides information about serving a veal's head, which is placed on a two-tiered apple meat cake, sprinkled with egg white flowers and decorated with other small cakes. This example clearly shows that the dishes of the buoch von guoter spîse come from the kitchen of the urban upper class and the nobility. But also valuable foods, such as spices imported from the Orient (e.g. pepper , saffron , cloves , sugar ), or the preparation of game (e.g. pheasant , deer , partridge ), the consumption of which was reserved for the nobility the origin of the dishes.

Web links

Wikisource: Das Buoch von guoter Spise  - Sources and full texts

Literature and Sources

  • Doris Aichholzer: > Wildu make ayn good food ... <Three Middle High German cookbooks. First edition, translation, commentary. (= Viennese works on Germanic antiquity and philology. 35). Lang, Bern [u. a.] 1999, ISBN 3-906762-44-0 .
  • Anton Birlinger : An all-male book of good food. In: Meeting reporter of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich 2, 1865, p. 171 ff.
  • Horst Brunner (ed.): The house book of Michael de Leone (Würzburg song manuscript) of the Munich University Library (2 ° Cod. Ms. 731). Kümmerle, Göppingen 1983 (= Litterae. Volume 100), ISBN 3-87452-548-1 .
  • Horst Brunner, Hans Günther-Schmidt (Hrsg.): From the great Löwenhof to the university. Würzburg and German literature in the late Middle Ages. Reichert, Wiesbaden 2002, ISBN 3-89500-312-3 .
  • Trude Ehlert: The book of gůter spîse: culinary importance and cultural and historical value. Auer, Donauwörth 1994 (supplement to the facsimile edition, edited by Tupperware Germany, ISBN 3-403-02404-0 ).
  • Hans Hajek (ed.): Daz bůch from gůter spise. Reissued from the Würzburg-Munich manuscript. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1958 (= texts of the late Middle Ages. Issue 8).
  • Gerold Hayer (ed.): Daz buoch from guoter spîse. Illustrations from the tradition of the oldest German cookbook. Kümmerle, Göppingen 1976 (= Litterae. Volume 45), ISBN 3-87452-340-3 .
  • Gerold Hayer: 'The book of good food'. In: Burghart Wachinger et al. (Hrsg.): The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . 2nd, completely revised edition, volume 1 ( 'A solis ortus cardine' - Colmar Dominican chronicler ). De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1978, ISBN 3-11-007264-5 , Sp. 1086 f.
  • Marianne Honold: Study of the functional history of the late medieval German-language recipe manuscripts. (= Würzburg medical research. 87). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2005, ISBN 3-8260-3283-7 .
  • Tupperware (ed.): Diz bůch from gůter spise. Auer, Donauwörth 1994, ISBN 3-403-02404-0 (with a cultural-historical afterword and linguistic explanation by Hans Hajek and a bibliography compiled by Gerhard Schott).
  • Melitta Weiss Adamson (ed.): Daz buoch from guoter spise. The Book of Good Food. A Study, Edition, and English Translation of the Oldest German Cookbook. (= Medium Aevum Quotidianum. Special Volume 9). Medium Aevum Quotidianum, Krems 2000, ISBN 3-901094-12-1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch from guoter spise. 2000, p. 14f.
  2. ↑ Hayer: Daz buoch from guoter spîse. 1976, p. 6.
  3. ↑ Brunner: From the great Löwenhof to the university. 2002, pp. 20-22.
  4. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/2673
  5. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/6441
  6. ↑ So far, 21 manuscripts could be associated with the BvgSp. For the entire list, see: Honold: Functional history of recipe manuscripts. 2005, pp. 172-174.
  7. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/8909
  8. ↑ Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch from guoter spise. 2000, pp. 33-36.
  9. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/11713
  10. ^ Francis B. Brévart: Mondsee Cookbook. In: Author's Lexicon , 2nd ed., VI, Sp. 670–672.
  11. ↑ Aichholzer: > Wildu make ayn guet essen ... < 1998, p. 87.
  12. ↑ Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch from guoter spise. 2000, p. 37f.
  13. ↑ http://www.handschriftencensus.de/11173
  14. ↑ Aichholzer: > Wildu make ayn guet essen ... < 1998, p. 245f.
  15. ↑ Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch from guoter spise. 2000, p. 39f.
  16. ↑ Honold: Function history of the recipe manuscripts. 2005, p. 20f. u. 173.
  17. ↑ Hayer: Daz buoch from guoter spîse. 1976, p. 7.
  18. ↑ BvgSp, fol. 156ra. Transcription according to Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch by guoter spise. 2000, p. 55.
  19. ↑ Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch from guoter spise. 2000, p. 21.
  20. ↑ BvgSp, fol. 162rb. Transcription according to Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch by guoter spise. 2000, p. 79.
  21. ↑ BvgSp, fol. 163vb. Transcription according to Weiss Adamson: Daz buoch by guoter spise. 2000, p. 85.
  22. ↑ Hayer: Daz buoch from guoter spîse. 1976, p. 8.