Coronation Feast of Christoff II and Adleheit II

Served April 6th 2019 AS LIII

Menu
Course One
A variety of breads - classic hearth loaf and brioche
Butter
Two kinds of mustard both spicy and sweet
An array of cheeses - Appalachian Tomme, Grand Cru, and Goat Gouda
An assortment of sausages - bratwurst, liverwurst and prosciutto
Course Two
Genovese Tart
Stuffed Chicken
Herb Sauce
Course Three
Roasted Pork
Pickled Cabbage
Cherry Sauce
Ravioli
Course Four
Cheesecake
Lebkuchen
Snowe

1
Germany in Period
The concept of a unified Germany is a modern idea that did not fully exist until after
World War I. Before that Germany was a series of separate duchies and within the SCA period
part of the Holy Roman Empire. Until Martin Luther’s famous theses Germany and its duchies
were Catholic and followed the Catholic doctrine of fasting during certain times of the year most
notably Lent a period of 40
days between Ash Wednesday
and Easter Sunday.
One duchy of note is
the Duchy of Bavaria located
in southern Germany. The city
of Nuremberg home of the
Schembart Carnival​ ​is located
here.
Germany shares
borders with France, Italy, and
Switzerland countries with a
rich culinary history whose
influence is reflected in late
period culinary manuscripts.
Ingredients used in the Sabina
Welserin cookbook suggest
strong trade relationships with
Italian states in particular as
spices would have most likely come to Europe
through the ports of Venice and Parmesan cheese
was imported from Lombardy or Modena.

2
The Schembart Carnival
The carnival was the Bavarian equivalent of Carnevale in Italy and Mardi Gras in New
Orleans celebrating the start of lent referenced as Shrove Tuesday typically in late February or
early March. It ran for ninety years (1449 - 1539) before a member of clergy in Nuremberg
ended the practice1. In 1525 the carnivale was stopped before restarting in 1539 only to be
banned for social unrest2.
The festival is characterized by floats, elaborate costumes, and a dance involving juggling
butcher knives in the streets of Nuremberg.
Several folios exist depicting the events and
costumes.

1
Unknown Author, “Radical Fashion from the Schembart Carnival (1590)”, The Public Domain Review. Accessed
03/14/2019. https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/radical-fashion-from-the-schembart-carnival-1590/
2
Stefanie H. Weisman, “The Nuremberg ​Schembartlauf​ and the Art of Albrecht Dürer”, Cerise Press. Accessed
03/14/2019. http://www.cerisepress.com/01/03/the-nuremberg-schembartlauf-and-the-art-of-albrecht-durer/view-all

3
Sources
Germany has a plethora of cookbooks from the medieval period however few of these
manuscripts are translated into English. As I do not speak German to any degree I have opted to
utilize English translated sources. This gave me three cookbooks spanning a hundred years
coinciding with the length of the carnival.
The first cookbook is Das Kochbuch des Meisters Eberhard​, a Bavarian cookbook
published around 1450 and translated by Volker Bach. Meister Eberhard is other than that he was
a cook in the court of Bayern-Landshut. I was not able to find any additional information. This
manuscript gives an insight into German humoral theory in addition to several recipes which was
helpful in figuring out the menu order and compiling courses. It is further referenced as the
Eberhard Manuscript.
The second cookbook ​Ein Kochbuch aus dem Archiv des Deutschen Ordens​ was
published in the later half of the 15th century and also translated by Volker Bach. Unfortunately
there is very little information about this cookbook other than it was preserved in Kaliningrad
Russia and is believed to be a southern German cookbook. It is further referenced as the
Deutschen Ordens Manuscript.
The third cookbook ​Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin​ which is a Bavarian household
manuscript written in 1553. It is uncertain which Sabina wrote the cookbook as there were two
alive in 1553 who could have authored the book. The first Sabina was born in 1515 married a
Nuremberg citizen in 1535 divorced him in 1539 and died in 15763 in all likelihood she would
have witnessed the carnival if not actively participated in its temporary revival in 1539. The
other Sabina was born in 1532 married an Augsburg citizen in 1550 and died in 15994. There are
four recipes specifically from Nuremberg in the text but these could have been from either
Sabina. This manuscript has a mix of special occasion and everyday recipes in addition to several
international recipes and includes imported ingredients such as parmesan and saffron. The
manuscript was translated by V. Armstong​I​ and will be furthermore referenced as the Welserin
Manuscript.
The cookbooks that can be referenced to specific cities were written within 200 miles of
Nuremberg giving what I believe to be a more authentic interpretation of a menu that could have
been served for the carnival.

3
Albrecht Classen. The Power of a Woman’s Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures: New Approaches to
German and European Women Writers and to Violence against Women in Premodern Times. De Gruyter, 2007.
Page 352.
4
Classen. The Power of a Woman’s Voice. Page 351-352

4
The Menu
Their Majesties wanted a traditional German feast rather than a truly period one. So I
started researching for this menu by looking at the foods most people think of when one brings
up German food; sausages, pork, spaetzle, cheesecake, and christmas cookies among others. This
lead to a rabbit hole of when these foods became the tradition as the period cookbooks had a
cuisine that closer resembled a traditional Italian meal rather than the vision I had of German
food such as is served in restaurants so I made a couple adjustments to certain recipes and my
peer will be making schnitzel specifically for her highness.
The first course was inspired by the late period Italian practice to serve from the
sideboard. A cold course of breads, cheese and meat that can wait if court runs late and be
prepped ahead of time so that focus can be on other courses later in the day. I have no evidence
that such a practice ever occured in Germany but it makes feasts easier to serve if the first course
isn’t temperature dependant so I opted to do it. The Welserin manuscript has several sausage
recipes including bratwurst and liverwurst5 both of which are commercially available relatively
easily. I have never made sausage before and will be letting the experts handle it for this feast. I
also served a prosciutto because the traditional German dry cured ham Rohschinken6 isn’t easily
acquired in the United States.​II​ I chose three alpine cheeses that were from countries that
bordered Germany that could reasonably also be made on the other side of the mountain range. I
am doing two breads a brioche because this is a pre lenten feast​III​ and a more typical hearth bread
served with fresh butter shaped into sea shells. I finish the course with a pair of mustards
purchased from the store, one a slightly sweet pub style and the other a spicier much more savory
herbal mustard in an attempt to please multiple palettes.
In period pork was the prefered meat as it is now but these recipes aren’t of a whole
roasted pig instead utilizing parts of the animal to make sausages, pies and aspics. The Welserin
manuscript gives instructions on how to smoke it for the coming year.7 The Dueschen Ordins
manuscript details how to make a pressed pig’s head but nothing further and Eberhard states it is
a course food that should be eaten after finer foods such as chicken. This leads me to believe that
it was a common protein that everyone was familiar with the preparation of such as modernly
everyone knows how to make instant ramen noodles. A whole pig would have been a rare dish
available only at slaughter time or other special occasions when fresh meat had to be eaten or
processed to last the year. Butcher paintings frequently show whole pigs in the background
suggesting that they were available. As a full pig is entirely too big to try to fit into the hall feast
is being served in a suckling piglet has been purchased for high table and pork butt will be served
to the populace. I don’t want to ruin a beautiful cut like pork butt so it will be seasoned with salt
and pepper before being grilled on the pig cooker until its ready to fall apart.
Cheesecake is a popular German dessert that comes up alot when one googles German
desserts that doesn’t need to have new world ingredients like vanilla or chocolate. English cheese
tarts are made using farmers cheese, eggs and sugar so I made those using ricotta as it is easily
available in the quantities I need for 21 tarts. I used the same pie crust as the Genovese Tart.

5
Welserin Recipes 25 and 26 respectively.
6
Unknown Author, “Guide to German Hams and Sausages”, German Foods. Accessed 03/25/2019.
https://germanfoods.org/german-food-facts/german-hams-sausages-meats-guide/
7
Welserin, Recipe 58.

5
Genovese Tart
I wanted a vegetarian dish that could be served cold if need be and pair well with the
chicken dish I had already chosen.

Original Recipe:
To make Genovese tart8
Take eighteen ounces of chard or spinach, three ounces of grated cheese, two and one
half ounces of olive oil and the fresh cheese from six ounces of curdled milk . And blanch the
herbs and chop them small and stir it all together and make a good covered tart with it.

I added several eggs to this in order to have a cleaner slice when cut. I used whole milk
ricotta rather than the farmers cheese the original recipe uses because I needed over 20 tarts and
the ricotta is commercially available in the quantities I needed unlike farmers cheese. I chose a
gruyere cheese for the grated cheese in the recipe for its nuttiness that pairs well with spinach
and it’s a swiss mountain cheese that could plausibly be made on the German side of the Alps. I
used frozen spinach and kale for the filling to cut down on the prep that fresh spinach requires
and frozen spinach has the added advantage that it doesn’t shrink when you heat it. I prepared the
filling off site as this kitchen has a limited amount of work space available.
Because I needed to make 21 tarts only the high table tarts will be covered and the
populous will receive open faced tarts to reduce the amount of crust rolling that will occur on
site. The tarts were blind baked in order to insure that the bottom crust were cooked thoroughly
and the crust was made using flour, butter, salt, and eggs in the cold crust style. The filling is on
the creamy side so I want a flakey crust to go with it for textural contrast.

8
Welserin, Recipe 30.

6
Stuffed Chicken
I merged to recipes to get the dish I had in mind and substituted chicken for the goose.

Original Recipe:
Recipe 159
Take a goose, stuff it with onions, peeled quinces, pears and bacon, stick it on a spit and
roast it.
Here follows how to cook a goose10.
Let it starve for two or three days so that the bad /preden/ that are within it go out. Then it
should be fed on grain. Kill it and roast it by the fire. You shall stuff it with sage and other good
spices, so that the juices go through it, and it should be sprinkled with wine or with vinegar, so
that the fat drips away. Goose fat should not be eaten as it makes people sick, because the fatness
(of the goose) comes from bad moisture. Those who are healthy should eat goose roasted this
way, so it does less damage. Those who are ill should eat little of it. If you cook it by boiling in
water, it is unhealthy, because then the bad /preden/ can not go out of it, being prevented by the
water.

I omitted the bacon so that the dish would be safe for Alpha-Gal allergies and substituted
apples for the quinces as quinces are out of season. I used grains of paradise and cinnamon for
the spices called for. Grains of paradise had for the most part fallen out of favor by this point in
period but their flavor profile pairs well with chicken and I wanted a little heat to uplift the
chicken. The chicken marinated in white wine overnight before being stuffed and baked.
I deboned the chicken leaving the legs and wings because her highness doesn’t eat meat
with bone in it.

9
Welserin Manuscript
10
Eberhard Manuscript

7
Herb Sauce
The sauce doesn’t actually have a name but I needed something mildly descriptive to put on the
menu so I named it herb sauce.

Original Recipe:
Another sauce11
Sage, parsley, mint and pepper, that is to be pounded with vinegar, this is a sauce that
gives you a good appetite.

I used fresh parsley with dried mint and sage to cut down on cost while still having a
bright green sauce. The parsley will be chopped finely before being added to the vinegar and it
will sit for at least an hour before serving so the flavors can meld.

11
Eberhard Manuscript

8
Pickled Cabbage
Her highness really wanted apple cabbage which is on the tart side so I’m using this as
the base.

Original Recipe:
If you want to make pickled cabbage12
Boil white cabbage heads, take two parts mustard and one part honey, mix them with
wine and add caraway. /ein/ (?) it enough, put the boiled cabbage into it and serve it cold. You
can also season the broth and serve it

I used a commercial honey mustard to reduce prep and thinned it down with white wine
to the consistency of honey mustard salad dressing. The cabbage was boiled the night before to
insure it will be cold in time for serving. I used red cabbage because it’s prettier next to the pork
than green cabbage and tends to reduce less than its green counterpart as well. I added sliced
green apples that sat in acetated water to prevent browning. The apples add a nice crunch to the
soft cabbage. An hour before serving the apples were drained and added to the cabbage before
being mixed with the dressing and allowed to sit for the flavors to meld. Caraway seeds will be
sprinkled on top for the populous as her highness does not eat seeds.

12
Deutschen Ordens Manuscript.

9
Tart Cherry Sauce
This sauce sounded amazing with pork.

Original Recipe:
To make a sauce of tart cherries13.
If you wish to make a good sauce of tart cherries, put the cherries into a pot and place it
on the embers and let them boil. Then cool down again and pass them through a cloth, put it back
into the pot, place it on the embers and let it boil well until it thickens. Then add honey and
grated bread and cloves and good spice powder and put it into a small cask. It will stay good
three or four years.

I omitted the breadcrumbs because it looks like cat vomit when mixed with liquids. Good
spice powder is a mix of cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg to which I added salt and pepper
to make this sauce a touch more savory. I used frozen cherries since they’re easily available
without costing a small fortune and they don’t need to be washed or pitted. I could not find tart
cherries so I added white wine vinegar to sharpen the flavors until I got something reminiscent of
sweet carolina bbq sauce. The cherries will not be strained out in order not to waste food.

13
Eberhard Manuscript

10
Ravioli
I was originally looking for spaetzle but this was the only pasta recipe I could find in the
German manuscripts. I opted to make a cheese and spinach ravioli so that anyone who doesn’t
eat pork will have enough to eat in this course.

Original Recipe:
To make ravioli14
Take spinach and blanch it as if you were making cooked spinach, and chop it small.
Take approximately one handful, when it is chopped, cheese or meat from a chicken or capon
that was boiled or roasted. Then take twice as much cheese as herb, or of chicken an equal
amount, and beat two or three eggs into it and make a good dough, put salt and pepper into it and
make a dough with good flour, as if you would make a tart, and when you have made little flat
cakes of dough then put a small ball of filling on the edge of the flat cake and form it into a
dumpling. And press it together well along the edges and place it in broth and let it cook about as
long as for a soft-boiled egg. The meat should be finely chopped and the cheese finely grated.

I was worried that the filling was too close to the Genovese tart filling so I added herbs
from one of the herb tart recipes in the Welserin15 Manuscript. I used a small amount of ricotta to
give the filling some body and used a mix of gruyere and gouda cheeses. A modern pasta dough
recipe was used consisting of flour eggs salt and olive oil. The filling and dough was made ahead
of time and the ravioli will be assembled the night before. I added a small amount of saffron
water to the filling for high table so it would be easily distinguished as the high table filling was
made without rosemary for her highness.
It will be served topped with additional gruyere cheese, butter, fresh marjoram, borage
blossoms and arugula blossoms.

14
Welserin, Recipe 31
15
Recipe 106

11
Snowe
This is a popular recipe throughout Europe in the 16th century and I thought it would pair
well with the cookies. I added rosewater as this was a common practice in other areas of Europe.

Original Recipe:
To make snow16
Dilute cream and put it in a pot. And take an eggbeater and stir it thoroughly, until it
forms snowy foam on top. And toast a Semmel and lay it in a bowl and sprinkle sugar over it and
put the foam on the bread, then it is ready.

I sweetened this slightly with sugar and topped it with roses. I opted to place it in its own
bowls instead of on top of cookies as I was worried the cookies would become soggy.

16
Welserin, Recipe 55.

12
Lebkuchen
I wanted a moderately sweet spice cookie to offset the heavy sweetness dairy desserts
tend to have. Cookies also have the added advantage of not needing utensils to eat and can be
served cold.

Original Recipe:
163 To make Nürnberger Lebkuchen17

Take one quart of honey, put it into a large pan, skim it well and let it boil a good while. Put one and a half
pounds of sugar into it and stir it continually with a wooden spatula and let it cook for a while, as long as one cooks
an egg, pour it hot into a quarter pound of flour, stir it around slowly and put the described spices in the dough, stir it
around slowly and not too long; take one and a half ounces of cinnamon sticks, one and a half ounces of nutmeg,
three fourths of an ounce of cloves, three ounces of ginger, a pinch of mace, and chop or grind each one separately
so that they are not too small, the cinnamon sticks, especially, should be coarsely ground. And when you have put
the spices in the dough, then let the dough set for as long as one needs to hard boil eggs. Dip the hands in flour and
take a small heap of dough, make balls out of it, weigh them so that one is as heavy as the others, roll them out with
a rolling pin, and spread them out smoothly by hand, the smoother the prettier. After that dip the mold in rose water
and open it up. Take four ounces of dough for one Lebkuchen. Be careful and get no flour in the molds or else they
will be no good, but on the board you can put flour so that they do not stick to it. Let them set overnight. And when
you take them to the baker, then see to it that you have another board that is thoroughly sprinkled with flour, so that
it is very thickly covered. Put the board with its covering of flour into the oven so that the board is completely
heated, the hotter the better. Take it out afterwards and lay the Lebkuchen on top, so that none touches the other, put
them in the oven, let them bake and look after them frequently. At first they will become soft as fat. If you take hold
of them you can feel it well. And when they become entirely dry, then take them out and turn the board around, so
that the front part goes into the back of the oven. Let it remain a short while, then take it out. Take a small broom,
brush the flour cleanly away from the underside of the Lebkuchen and lay the Lebkuchen, in the mean time, on the
other board, until you have brushed off the Lebkuchen, one after the other, so that there is no more flour on the
bottoms. Afterwards sweep the flour very cleanly from off the board. Lay the Lebkuchen on top of it again, so that
the bottom is turned to the top. Take a bath sponge, dip it in rose water, squeeze it out again, wash the flour from the
bottoms of the Lebkuchen. Be careful that you do not leave any water on the board, then they would stick to it.
Afterwards put the board with the Lebkuchen again in the oven, until the bottoms rise nicely and become hard, then
take the board out again. See to it that two or three [people] are by the board, who can quickly turn the Lebkuchen
over, or else they will stick. Afterwards take rose water and wash them on top with it as you have done on the
underside. Put them in the oven again, let them become dry, carry them home and move them around on the board,
so that they do not stick. And when they have completely cooled, then lay them eight or ten, one upon the other,
wrap them in paper and store them in a dry place, see that no draft comes therein, then they remain crisp.

I have opted to add cardamom based on its use in another lebkuchen recipe18 within the
text and omitted the mace because of the spice’s scarcity.​vii​ Instead of brushing the cookies with
rosewater while they baked I used rosewater in the icing instead to prevent the rosewater from
overpowering the cookie’s flavor.
Traditionally these cookies were molded before baking similar to what is modernly
referred to as Springerle cookies. I had difficulty finding cookie molds in the shapes I wanted so
I opted for a slightly different approach using cookie cutters to get the shape I wanted and using
a small amount of icing to detail the pieces. I decorated the cookies for high table to look like

17
Welserin, Recipe 163.
18
Welserin, Recipe 151

13
shells and the kingdom badge “Spike”. The cookies for the populous were decorated to be spike
with a swirl pattern in the colors of Atlantia.
The icing used is a simple royal icing using meringue powder to offset any issues that
could arise from the use of raw egg white. The powder was mixed with powdered sugar and
rosewater.

14
Notes
I - I could not find a first name for V. Armstrong.
II - The internet did not have any websites in English that could send me this ham so I
substituted prosciutto.
III - I really wanted to do a rich bread but was worried just the brioche would be too much butter
for the diners.

15
Bibliography

Classen, Albrecht. ​The Power of a Woman's Voice in Medieval and Early Modern Literatures:
New Approaches to German and European Women Writers and to Violence against
Women in Premodern Times.​ Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2007. Accessed March 14, 2019.
https://books.google.com/books?id=OPSu6UQ_YyIC&pg=PR2&source=gbs_selected_pa
ges&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Eberhard. ​Das Kochbuch des Meisters Eberhard.​ Bayern-Landshut:~1450. Volker Bach
translation. Accessed March 22, 2019.
http://www.florilegium.org/?http%3A//www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MANUSCRIP
TS/Eberhard-art.html
Weisman, Stephanie H. "The Nuremberg Schembartlauf and the Art of Albrecht Dürer." ​Cerise
Press,​ Spring 2010, 1, no. 3. Accessed March 14, 2019.
http://www.cerisepress.com/01/03/the-nuremberg-schembartlauf-and-the-art-of-albrecht-d
urer/view-all.
Welserin, Sabina. Das Kuchbuch der Sabina Welserin. Germany: 1553. V. Armstong translation.
Accessed March 22, 2019.
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Medieval/Cookbooks/Sabrina_Welserin.html
Ein Kochbuch aus dem Archiv des Deutschen Ordens.​ Southern Germany:~1450. Volker Bach
translation. Accessed March 22, 2019.
http://www.florilegium.org/?http%3A//www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-MANUSCRIPT
S/Konigsberg-art.html
“Guide to German Hams and Sausages” German Foods. Accessed March 25, 2019.
https://germanfoods.org/german-food-facts/german-hams-sausages-meats-guide/
"Radical Fashion from the Schembart Carnival (1590)." The Public Domain Review. February
28, 2017. Accessed March 14, 2019.
https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/radical-fashion-from-the-schembart-carnival-1
590/.

16
Figures
Figure I - Europe, 1519. ​Muir's Historical Atlas: Medieval and Modern​, (London: 1911).
Accessed via: https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/maps/1519eur.jpg
Figure II - Ring dance of butchers, 1449. ​Nuremberg Shrovetide Carnival (1449-1539).
Schembartsbuch.​ (Nuremberg, Germany. 1590-1640). Bodleian Library MS. Douce 346.
fol. 181v-182r. Accessed via:
https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/90f01a88-004c-42f0-9e3d-6f795257bf70

17