Kitchen of the German Democratic Republic

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The cuisine of the German Democratic Republic , also known as GDR cuisine , is the culinary culture that developed in the German Democratic Republic and is still partly widespread in East Germany today.

Influences

Soljanka
Ketwurst

After the Second World War , the Soviet occupation zone was established in the east of the area left by Germany . In it parts of Prussia were combined with Mecklenburg , Saxony , Anhalt , Thuringia and de facto East Berlin . In this region as a whole, there were some peculiarities compared to other German cuisine in the following years .

The basic problem of the kitchen of the German Democratic Republic and the reason for its independent character has always been the availability of the ingredients. Grocery cards have not existed since 1958, but this in no way meant that food of all kinds was available in unlimited quantities. Noble meat such as loin was still rationed until the mid-1960s, a quantitative rationing or preferential treatment for the supply of rarely available food (e.g. the preferential sale of grapefruit to diabetics ) can be proven up to the end of the GDR and was handled inconsistently .

Basically, the kitchen of the 1920s and 1930s was updated and adapted. Every household and every restaurant was forced to constantly improvise, which on the one hand resulted in independent dishes, on the other hand there was never a uniform GDR cuisine. Against this background, it is rather surprising that many historical and regional features have survived anyway. Displaced persons z. B. from the former Prussian provinces of Pomerania , Silesia and East Prussia as well as the areas in Czechoslovakia brought traditions of regional cuisine with them. Modified dishes from the Soviet Union , such as the solyanka , were also popular.

As one of the first cookbooks, still in the Soviet occupation zone, Schmalhans cooks well by Martha Zwerg was published in 1948 . It was followed by Schmalhans ade as the first GDR cookbook in 1950 ! - A cookbook for better days. This was followed by further intermediate stages We cook well (1962) and later We bake well , books that have shaped several generations and still appear today.

The basic characteristic of all GDR cookbooks is that they did not contain any information about the switching levels to be selected on kitchen stoves , but were limited to information such as "weak medium heat". The reason was the very different equipment of the households with wood, coal, gas and later electric stoves.

With Manfred Otto's book Gastronomic Discoveries in the GDR , a restaurant guide was published in 1984 with almost 100 upscale GDR restaurants. Influences from western countries played a smaller role in the GDR than in the west. Exceptions were, for example, the Japanese restaurant run by Rolf Anschütz in Suhl , the Italian Fioretto Doris Burneleits in Berlin-Spindlersfeld or restaurants in Interhotels , which, however - like the regionally typical restaurants with the cuisine of "friendly countries" in the district capitals - tended to be exemplary, exerted no significant influence on the kitchen culture of the GDR.

Food and meal vocabulary

The linguistic regulation of the "press releases of the press office of the Council of Ministers of the GDR", which were sent several times a week, gave specific instructions for the layout and division of the newspaper pages, for topics to be emphasized or suppressed, it contained lists of linguistic designations that should be used or approved were to avoid. There were even “recommendations” for choosing recipes. So there were duplicates of names that arose from ideological motives because the GDR leadership was anxious to eliminate linguistic memories of the feudal times. For example, the Bismarck herring became the deli (katess) herring, the Bismarck oak cake was only left with oak , Fürst Pückler ice cream became semi-frozen (if it was a cake) or the Pückler slice became at least the title of nobility Prince eliminated. Because of the renaming of the city of Tilsit, Tilsit cheese had become a nonsense, Königsberger Klopse was renamed to Kochklopse . On the other hand, Swiss and Limburg cheeses were allowed to keep their designations of origin.

Western terms should not be used if possible. With products such as Ketwurst , Grilletta or Krusta , there were also own gastronomic developments from the late 1970s, which were based on Western models, but had to avoid direct reference: the Ketwurst corresponded to the hot dog , the grilletta basically the hamburger , the Krusta the pizza . The specific choice of words corresponded on the one hand to the ideological requirements of the GDR leadership, but on the other hand to the availability, which would not have made it possible to adopt the terms directly anyway.

A special independent word creation is the gold broiler (for the roast chicken common in the West ), which, after an unexpectedly positive test sale in a broiler bar , experienced a massive expansion and from the late 1970s meant a considerable relief of the still problematic self-sufficiency with meat ( the noble parts of pig production , such as pork fillet , were sold to the FRG for foreign currency and were only available in the GDR as an exception). It was impossible to foresee that the broiler would be so successful, it was an embarrassing solution, the success of which surprised even those responsible.

Food

Coffee can first class Finest highland coffee with Intershop special filling from VEB coffee and nutrient works Halle / Saale

The three basic problems of the GDR were always: the desired self-sufficiency , the permanent dependency on the Soviet Union (which was more likely to be maintained than dismantled by it) and the lack of foreign currency, which forced the sale of coveted products in the so-called non-socialist economic area . These conflicts could not be resolved by the end of the GDR.

The GDR was always able to secure a basic supply , the prices of basic foodstuffs such as bread and milk were subsidized. On a European scale, the supply of carbohydrates, fiber and fat was sufficient and, from the beginning of the 1970s, increasingly led to an oversupply with accompanying typical obesity in significant parts of the population. The GDR also succeeded in abolishing food stamps in 1958 .

However, none of this can hide the fact that, contrary to the official reading, there was a shortage economy and, as a result, the procurement of food outside of the basic foodstuffs for domestic supplies was primarily carried out through barter deals and relationships or through the cultivation of allotment land. The procurement of fruit and vegetables that could not be grown in the GDR, such as tropical fruits, was only possible with considerable difficulties. The inadequate infrastructure and logistics, combined with a lack of refrigerated trucks and rail refrigerated trucks, were also problematic .

Typical types of meat were pork and poultry , and to a lesser extent beef , while veal and lamb were hardly available: veal was exported to the FRG for foreign currency, and lamb was only occasionally on menus in Central Europe from the mid-1980s. As everywhere in German cuisine, the side dishes were mostly potato dishes and rice . Common wheat noodles made with egg were considered typical pasta , as durum wheat had to be imported against foreign exchange and was therefore hardly available for noodle production.

It was not until the late 1970s that various foods (including tropical fruits ) were available as high-priced items, primarily canned goods, in delicatessen shops . Other fruit such as B. apricots or peaches were grown in some Comecon countries (e.g. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, southern USSR) and were (albeit rarely) commercially available or were brought back to these countries privately from vacation trips and distributed among acquaintances or sold.

The supply of fish was limited to a few farmed fish such as trout , carp and pikeperch and the catch from the GDR deep-sea fishery ( Fischkombinat Rostock ) - in terms of quantity, coastal fisheries in the Baltic Sea played a subordinate role. Approaches to expanding the supply in cooperation with Mozambique after 1977 failed.

Coffee developed into one of the most important items in the budget of GDR private households as a whole until the 1970s, with gifts from West German relatives covering around 20 percent of the needs. It became a symbol of central importance within Germany, even beyond the traditional coffee culture of the coffee saxons in the south of the GDR.

distribution

Many dishes of the GDR cuisine found their distribution through the cooking habits in canteens, kindergartens, schools and cafeterias as well as at major events. There was also its own publishing culture, such as cooking programs on television. The most popular ones were Der Fernsehkoch Recommends with Kurt Drummer and Der Tip des Fischkochs with Rudolf Kroboth and his son Rainer Kroboth . Examples were also suitable offers in catering establishments, such as the dissemination of solyanka in different preparations.

Typical dishes

Meatballs
Sweden sundae (2011)

The limited supply of raw materials resulted in certain standard dishes:

Social role and aftermath

In the publishing house for the woman most East German cookbooks, recipe books and magazines, including titles such as appeared COOKING. 1680 recipes for you or the longseller published in 1962 We cook well. Traditional home-style recipes were particularly popular. The recipes were developed in the publisher's own test kitchen, among other things. The fact that these sales successes were published by a state publisher, however, also offered citizens the opportunity to submit complaints (“submissions”) to the state trading companies, which had to be answered within a month. This option was used in particular when even the ingredients provided for in We cook well were not available. Such supply crises led to the political leadership losing face. 1977 there were supply problems with coffee, the subsequent coffee crisis in East Germany led to a degree of citizen protests and discontent, which until 1989 any government protests of GDR history overshadowed the coffee shortage was an attack on a key consumer need and an important part of Perceived everyday culture.

Dresden Christmas stollen

The typical return gift from East Germans to the West Parcel , the Dresden Christmas stollen , also caused problems for the GDR economy, as indispensable ingredients such as almonds , raisins and orange peel were only available for foreign currency. In 1978, Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski was unable to enforce the plan to ban the pub. To alleviate the deficiency, however, surrogates have also been developed and used: orange peel has been replaced by candied carrots ( Kandinat M ), lemon peel has been replaced by candied green tomatoes ( Kandinat T ).

The publishing house for women survived the reunification period as one of the few publishing houses in the former GDR. In the wake of the Ostalgiewelle at the end of the 1990s, there were new editions of the GDR cookbook classics. With Alles Soljanka or what? The ultimate GDR cookbook was published in 2000, a title that has been reprinted several times since then and is also seen internationally as a source of identity. The GDR kitchen tradition nevertheless remained strongly regionally subdivided.

literature

  • Jutta Voigt : The taste of the east. About eating, drinking and life in the GDR. Kiepenheuer, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-378-01076-2 .
  • Kurt Michael, Heinz Förster: Raw materials for food production: Legal bases and product information for the training of the professions cook, diet cook and restaurant worker . 2nd Edition. Fachbuchverlag Leipzig , Leipzig 1990, ISBN 3-343-00415-4 .
  • Gerd Freudenberg, Jürgen Herrmann, Bernd Patzig: Textbook for cooks: 4. Food teaching and teaching methods . Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, Leipzig 1977.
  • Collective of authors: Food theory . Fachbuchverlag Leipzig, Leipzig 1987, ISBN 3-343-00303-4 .

Web links

Commons : Kitchen of the German Democratic Republic  - collection of pictures

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ulrike Zander: Pesto and pasta in the “workers and farmers state”: Interview with Doris Burneleit. In: museumsmagazin.com. museumsmagazin online, 2013, accessed on October 16, 2015 .
  2. ↑ Matthias Biskupek : What does "GDR" actually mean ?: Bohemian villages in German & history . Eulenspiegel, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-359-01458-8 , p. 154 .
  3. ^ A b c Joachim Born, Gerhard Stickel: German as a lingua franca in Europe . Wolfgang Thierse “Speak so that I can see you” - observations on the relationship between language and politics in the GDR past. Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-11-062247-8 , pp. 114-126 .
  4. ↑ Patrick Ziob: Fast Food in the GDR. Superillu , October 15, 2019, accessed May 6, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Volker Wünderich: The "coffee crisis" of 1977: luxury foods and consumer protest in the GDR . Ed .: Valentin Groebner , Jakob Tanner (=  historical anthropology . Volume 11 , no. 2 ). Böhlau Verlag , August 2003, ISSN  0942-8704 , p. 240–261 , doi : 10.7788 / ha.2003.11.2.240 ( preview on degruyter.com [accessed October 17, 2015]).
  6. ↑ Hans-Joachim Döring : Development policy and solidarity in the GDR, presented using examples of state cooperation with Mozambique and Ethiopia and the development-related educational work of independent groups . Berlin 2008, 3 State Context: On Development and Solidarity Policy in the GDR: 3.2 Structures and Framework Conditions, p. 28 f . ( tu-berlin.de [PDF; 797 kB ; accessed on October 17, 2015]).
  7. ↑ Stefan Wolle : The ideal world of dictatorship: everyday life and rule in the GDR: 1971–1989 . 3. Edition. Econ & List, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-86284-231-5 , pp. 328 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed October 17, 2015]).
  8. ^ A b Monika Sigmund: Coffee in both German post-war countries: consumption, discourse, interpretations and relationships . Ed .: Federal Foundation for the Processing of the SED Dictatorship. ( PDF (20 kB) [accessed on October 17, 2015]).
  9. ^ Coffee Digest 1: Dates and Backgrounds: World, Europe and Germany. (PDF (782 kB)) (No longer available online.) In: kaffeeverband.de. German Coffee Association , 2004, archived from the original on August 21, 2006 ; accessed on October 17, 2015 .
  10. ↑ a b Peter Peter : Cultural history of German cuisine . 2nd, revised edition. Verlag CHBeck , Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-57224-1 , Broiler und Soljanka - Die Küche der DDR, p. 192 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed October 15, 2015]).
  11. ↑ a b The GDR Koch Bible. In: mdr.de. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , January 15, 2010, accessed on October 17, 2015 : “ We cook well was the most successful cookbook in the GDR. With more than 1,000 recipes, it brought regional cuisine and solid home cooking into the East German apartments. And that since 1962. "
  12. ↑ Arnd Zschiesche , Oliver Errichiello : The Secret of Success East: Survival strategies of the best brands - and what managers can learn from them . 1st edition. Gabler Verlag , Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8349-1615-0 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed October 16, 2015]).
  13. ^ Anne Fuchs, Kathleen James-Chakraborty, Linda Shortt (eds.): Debating German Cultural Identity Since 1989 (=  Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture ). 1st edition. Camden House, 2011, ISBN 978-1-57113-486-8 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed October 16, 2015]).