Lore Trenkler

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Eleonore Richarda Trenkler ( March 25, 1914 in Berlin - September 10, 2002 in Vienna ) was an Austrian cook and dietician . From 1960 to 1962 she was the personal cook of the Ethiopian Empress Menen II and then - until his death in 1975 - of Haile Selassie .

Life

Lore Trenkler was born in Berlin as the daughter of a Viennese metallurgical engineer and a Munich resident. She had at least one older brother who became a forester. On the day the Nazis came to power, she left Germany and moved to Vienna to live with her grandfather. She completed her training as a dietician and worked in health resorts and hospitals. Plans to emigrate to Africa with her brother failed after the annexation of Austria and the beginning of World War II. Your brother died in the world war.

From 1956 she was head of the diet kitchen at the Kerckhoff Clinic in Bad Nauheim . In 1960, in response to a newspaper advertisement, she applied for the position of dietician for the Ethiopian Empress. Applicants should be over 40 years old and speak French. Trenkler was selected and got a three-year contract.

Time in Ethiopia

Menen II , Empress of Ethiopia

On the morning of November 14, 1960, Lore Trenkler arrived in Addis Ababa on board a four-engine liner from Frankfurt. She was seen at the airport by Haile Selassie's personal physician, an elderly German named Dr. Otto, welcomed with a bouquet of violets. She took over the boarding of the seriously ill empress. Friends had said that Ethiopia was one of the safest countries in Africa, without wars and unrest. But just a month after her arrival, she experienced a first palace revolution - during the emperor's visit to Brazil - which was subsequently suppressed. The emperor personally apologized to the cook for the trouble so quickly after arrival, often visited her in the kitchen and together she looked for a place for a small vegetable garden in the palace grounds.

15 months later the Empress died and Trenkler was transferred to the palace kitchen. In addition to catering for the imperial family and its guests, it also organized state banquets , including for Elisabeth II of England, the German Federal President Heinrich Lübke and several times for the Yugoslavian President Josip Broz Tito , a friend of the Emperor. The celebratory dinner for the Queen of England in 1965 consisted of five courses for 1,000 people, served on gold plates. The monarch was just as impressed as her prince consort.

Haile Selassie

Trenkler runs the kitchens in the Jubilee Palace , the main residence of Haile Selassie I and his family, today the official residence of the Ethiopian President , and in the Guenete Leul Palace , the place of work. She also accompanied him on official trips through his empire, for example to the imperial residences in Asmara , Massaua and Dire Dawa , and abroad. She made friends with a cheetah from the imperial menagerie, which came from Kenya, and also looked after the imperial chimpanzee - according to the instructions of the Frankfurt Zoo , since this genus is not native to Ethiopia. In addition to international recipes and traditional Ethiopian dishes, Lore Trenkler also integrated Viennese specialties in the menu, such as Kaiserschmarrn and apple strudel with drawn dough. The latter was also well suited to the Oriental Orthodox Lent , which was strictly observed, and enjoyed great popularity throughout the imperial household and among ministers and officials. Even after the fall of Emperor Haile Selassie I in 1974, she cooked for her long-term employer, and the finished dishes were arrested by the military. After his death in August 1975, she left Ethiopia and settled in Vienna.

At the age of 72 she learned the technique of Chinese silk painting and three years later she designed her first exhibition in a bank. She used the proceeds from the exhibition to finance her first trip to China.

memories

Lore Trenkler wrote her memoir for relatives in Vienna. It was edited by Rudolf Agstner , Austrian ambassador to Ethiopia from 2006 to 2009, and published in 2011. The memories give insights into work and life at the Ethiopian imperial court, both in Addis Ababa and in the imperial residences of today's Eritrea . Trenkler called the time the "loyal soul at the court of Addis Ababa". The book also shows the economic and social development of the country under the long-term ruler, but always from the inner perspective of the court, characterized by the author's high level of loyalty and appreciation for her employer. In an interview with Franz Fluch, she noted: “The Kaiser was actually like a father to one.” She found that the first-class patients in German clinics were much more demanding than their Ethiopian employer.

The book represents, so to speak, the counterpart to Ryszard Kapuściński's controversial monograph King of Kings , and the author does not hesitate to criticize the Polish writer for inaccuracies in detail and his tendency to fabulous. Trenkler describes the processes at the court in great detail, such as how she had to prepare cost estimates for cooking pots and these required the imperial approval. The result is a vivid picture of servants in an absolutist court, including the role of the ferenji , the foreigners, and their status in Ethiopia in the 1960s and 1970s.

Lore Trenkler spent her twilight years in a retirement home in Vienna-Penzing. She was buried at the Gersthofer cemetery .

The Ethiopian showpieces in the Weltmuseum Wien , opened in October 2017, are largely from their collection.

Book publication

Portraits

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian Gasser: Freshly cooked in Addis Abeba , Die Zeit (Hamburg), May 26, 2011
  2. ↑ Franz Fluch: Lore Trenkler - cook of the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie , Hörbilder , Ö1 , October 7, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Trenkler, Lore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Trenkler, Eleonore Richarda (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian cook and dietician
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH September 10, 2002
Place of death Vienna