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December 2003

Seasoned Greetings

A short history of Nürnberger Lebkuchen

When the Bavarian Group of the Federal Association of Confectioners applied to what was then the EEC in 1992, wanting to have the term Nürnberger Lebkuchen registered as a geographical trademark, it noted the following description on the application form: “spiced baked goods with at least 50 parts of sugar/honey/invert sugar/and spices, oil almonds and other oilseeds, egg protein/milk products and fruit preparations to every 100 parts of cereal products.” A far cry indeed from Lebkuchen’s headily oriental aromas, which draw shoppers around Germany to Christkindl markets, enjoining them to abandon the pointless search for the ideal gift and prop themselves up at bar tables in festively decorated booths for a hot toddy and some spicy Lebkuchen biscuits. Like “Silent Night” and angel chimes, baked apples and bees-wax candles, Lebkuchen is distilled essence of Christmas for most Germans. Nuremberg has been the center of its production since the late Middle Ages, a traditional byword for spicy biscuits made of honey-sweetened heavy dough with a soft but slightly crunchy consistency (owing to the inclusion of nuts) and a spicy taste dominated by cinnamon, ginger and pepper. They are baked on wafers in round or rectangular form and often coated with icing sugar. Historically, the city is a fairly recent player in the story of spiced cake. The use of both honey and ginger to create luxury baked goods has a long history. In the 14th century BC, the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen appears to have been so partial to cakes dripping in honey that they were placed in the royal burial chambers, where they were believed to exert healing powers and afford protection from evil spirits. In pre-Christian Europe, Germanic tribes also attributed mystical powers to honey and traditionally ate coarse honey biscuits around the high feast of the winter solstice to ward off the spirits of darkness—an association that persisted in early Christianity and is still alive today with the domestic production and consumption of Lebkuchen around Christmas time. The early heyday of spiced biscuits and gingerbread in medieval times was marked by rituals such as the embracing of fruit trees with arms that had been steeped in honeyed dough to ensure a good harvest in the following year. Sweetened gingerbread itself was first baked on the Greek Island of Rhodes in Classical times and exported to the many corners of the Greek empire.

During the Middle Ages transporting Lebkuchen’s more exotic ingredients from their place of origin to Europe was a long, arduous process. Many of the spices available today in a conveniently packaged mixture started out in those days on the back of a camel: aniseed from Syria or Egypt, ginger and cardamom from India, cinnamon from Sri Lanka, cloves from East Africa and nutmeg and mace from Sumatra. Until the late Middle Ages even pepper was considered a luxury, giving rise to the phrase “gepfefferte Preise” to describe highly priced goods. (The candied orange and lemon peel used in Lebkuchen was available somewhat closer at hand—it was traditionally produced in the Netherlands.) Nuremberg lay at the junction of a number of trading routes and had easy access to the spices that came to Europe via Venice. By 1441 the city was employing spice inspectors (literally Schauer) at its gates to assure high-quality imports. Conversely, export of the luxury cake along the routes that fanned out from the city made it a valuable source of income. In addition to spices the other distinctive ingredient needed for production was honey—gleaned from the bees kept in local monasteries and brought to the city by the Zeidler, or honey dealers. Raw sugar from East India was still too expensive to use on a daily basis. Although honey was initially a by-product of the wax needed for altar candles, it soon assumed an equally important economic role for the all-powerful monasteries in pre-Reformation Germany. It seems likely that monks first hit upon the idea of putting the neutrally flavoured communion wafer made of flour and starch under the sticky dough to prevent it sticking to the baking trays.

The first Lebkuchen baked in monasteries in the 13th and 14th centuries served medicinal purposes. Of the spices used ginger was particularly well known as a palliative for flatulence and alcoholic gastritis—and no doubt much in demand amongst the higher ranks of the monastic orders. Its beneficial properties may be one explanation for the name given to Lebkuchen: Lebenskuchen – the bread of life. Most recipes also call for the inclusion of nuts, which are an important symbol of Christian reincarnation, of a spiritual inner life that sees only the light of day once its outer shell has been discarded. The name could also derive from the traditional form of a Laib, or loaf, of bread modified to Leb. Alternatively, the designation could stem from the middle high German word lebbe, signifying sweet. Given its monastic background, the most likely derivation is from the Latin libum, which denotes flatbread or cake.

Lebkuchen finds its first official mention in the Franconian rent-roll (tax records) of 1395. Demand was so great that Lebküchner or Lebzelter (producers of Lebkuchen) needed to found an organization that would represent and protect their economic interests. In those days guilds were founded by any professional group recognized as such by the municipal authorities and included trades ranging from notaries to prostitutes. They worked somewhat along the lines of a cartel, governing quality and price, professional qualification and income. The guild of Wachszieher and Lebzelter (candlemakers and gingerbread bakers) was finally founded in 1643, at a time when the Thirty Years’ War was coming to a close and when the need for regulations that reintroduced some form of order into the lawless chaos of war was particularly pronounced. The Nuremberg City Council’s decision provided for the creation of a sworn guild of master gingerbread bakers, 14 at the time of founding, all of whom were required to own their own “smoke,” or oven. It was not always professional skill that smoothed the path to membership of the prestigious association. A more convenient mode of accession in the short-term was marriage to the daughter of a master baker—although many a baker probably lived to rue the day.

The luxurious ingredients needed to make Lebkuchen rapidly led to its association with indolence and greed—especially in times of war and hunger, which were then much more frequent and widespread in Europe than they are now. Need one mention Hansel and Gretel, enticed by the wicked witch to nibble at her sugar-coated gingerbread house in anticipation of a succulent feast on innocent flesh? In his Land of Milk and Honey (Schlaraffenland) Hans Sachs, the Master Singer of Nuremberg (1494–1576), lists gingerbread as one of the trappings of sloth and avarice—two of the seven deadly sins:
“In the land of milk and honey dwell
Those that know laziness too well …
There they can drink and find themselves fed
In houses with doors of gingerbread.”

Lebkuchen’s
association with such nefarious tendencies spread as far afield as England, where it made an appearance in the anti-German sentiment prevalent in Britain prior to World War I. In 1899 Florence Leigh published a children’s story entitled Greedy Frederick. Young Frederick, the anti-hero with a suspiciously German name, is sent from London to spend Christmas with his good and plainly named cousins, George and Jane. Unfortunately, he’ll eat nothing but gingerbread, to which he is addicted, and throws a tantrum at the sight of the regular fare served at the dinner table. Shinning down the chimney on Christmas Eve, Santa decides that punishment is due and gives him a Noah’s Ark of gingerbread animals, which Frederick devours in the early hours of Christmas morning. Sadly, the author leaves him to his fate:
“far too disgusting to relate
and far too sad to read.”
Upon waking, George and Jane are horrified to find that Frederick has himself been turned into a giant gingerbread. Good children that they are, they prop him up against the mantelpiece and hope for clemency. The moral of the story:
“Now ginger cake is very nice
If you should eat a bit,
But then you know it is not wise
To take too much of it,
Especially, if it should be—
Like Frederick’s—made in Germany.”

It was, of course, precisely the designation “made in Nuremberg” that sent the Bavarian Confectioners to the EEC in 1992. EU regulation RAL RG 0131 specifies that Nürnberger Lebkuchen is a speciality produced only within the “administrative boundaries of the city of Nuremberg.” What was once a seasonal business now starts in April, reaching a production peak in the months August to December, during which over 4,000 people are employed. Mixing and kneading machines have long since replaced human effort and automated production lines place roughly 2,000 wafers per minute on baking trays. Although such figures sum up the denuded reality of industrial production modes, the ingredients of the traditional recipe retain their powers of culinary evocation: beat together four eggs and one pound of sugar until they have the consistency of thick cream. Gradually add some drops of vanilla essence and one pound of mixed ground hazel nuts and walnuts, two tablespoons each of candied orange and lemon peel, finely ground ginger soaked in syrup and cinnamon, clover, coriander, nutmeg and mace. Spoon the dough onto baking wafers and smooth it over with a knife dipped in rose water. Bake until breadlike. Enjoy!

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