Millet meal
The millet trip was a bet between the Swiss from Zurich and the Alsatians from Strasbourg in 1456 . The people of Zurich proved with a boat trip that they could be in Strasbourg within 24 hours because the millet porridge brought from Zurich in the boat was still warm in Strasbourg.
prehistory
In earlier times, so-called "field shooting" took place in Strasbourg, to which the neighbors were invited. Zurich riflemen were there once. They made the claim that if Strasbourg were to be besieged during the chaos of war, the people of Zurich could quickly provide assistance. To demonstrate this ability, they would drive a pot of warm millet gruel on the waterway from Zurich to Strasbourg so quickly that they would hand it over while still warm.
Racing
In 1456 the people of Zurich kept this promise. They made a millet porridge and drove off. In fact, they managed to reach Strasbourg within 22 hours and hand over the warm pot.
Repetitions
The trip was repeated on June 20, 1576 and even then the porridge was delivered so hot that the Strasbourgers are said to have burned their "lips" while eating. The 1174 verse long poem of praise, which Johann Fischart wrote for the occasion, is famous : The lucky ship of Zurich . The Zurich gold and silversmith Abraham Gessner , who took part in the repeat trip, then made a silver foot bowl as a souvenir, which is now kept in the Swiss National Museum. In Strasbourg, a fountain built in 1884 (the oldest preserved in the city) commemorates the event. On the Strasbourg monument created by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in Basel in 1895 , one of the half-reliefs (the one pointing to the Elisabethenanlage) also commemorates this second millet journey.
Since 1946 the trip has taken place every ten years (with the exception of 1966, this trip was made up in 1967). Also in 2006, from August 24th to August 27th, the Limmat Club Zurich organized another millet porridge trip to Strasbourg together with the Shooting Society of the City of Zurich , the Society of Archers in Zurich and the Stadtmusik Zurich . In earlier decades, the mayor of Zurich was only there on part of the journey , but in 2006 Elmar Ledergerber made the whole journey. Like all other travelers, he wore a historical costume the whole time.
Because of the many weirs, dams and locks - a total of 29 obstacles have to be overcome - the journey takes significantly longer today than before - around 2.5 days (approx. 27 hours of driving and 30 hours of midday / night rest). That is why the porridge produced by the Zurich Confiserie Sprüngli is now transported by land to Kehl , the German neighboring community of Strasbourg, and only brought on board there. The entrance to Strasbourg is always a folk festival with a large participation of the population and authorities. On the following day there will be a shooting competition and a skipper jump.
The millet trip in 2016 started on July 13th with two wooden longships and two shorter transfer boats and reached its destination on July 17th. Among other things (with the exception of André Odermatt ) the entire Zurich city council (the executive) went with them, from Baden a changing delegation. Official receptions of the neighboring communities took place at the intermediate stops along the route and at the destination. Due to high water, the sluices of the river power plants between Laufenburg AG and Rheinfelden AG were not allowed to be passed; In this section, the delegation therefore had to use land routes. The boats were taken out of the river in front of the Laufenburg power plant , transported on with flatbed trucks and then put back into the water after the Rheinfelden power plant .
photos
Millet trip 2006, departure from Zurich
Millet ripe 2006
Timetable 2006
literature
Oriented towards the sources of the two historical millet bread trips:
- Jakob Baechtold : The happy ship from Zurich. According to the sources of the year 1576. Zurich: Orell Füssli 1880 (= Mittheilungen der Antiquarian Gesellschaft in Zürich, 20, Section 2, Issue 2 and New Year's Piece, 44/1880).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Ed. By Alois Haas, Stuttgart 1967 (Reclams Universalbibliothek, vol. 1951)
- ^ The silver treasure of Switzerland - Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
- ↑ SNM collection
- ↑ Zurich fountain , strassburg.eu
- ↑ cf. Timetable 2006
- ↑ Why the Zurich City Council stays overnight in Baden - Baden , Aargauer Zeitung, July 9, 2016.
- ↑ In honor of the millet porridge: A wooden ship is ready for a film - Limmattaler Zeitung, July 8, 2016.
- ↑ The Zurich city council fluctuates - tagesanzeiger.ch, July 12, 2016.