Building a library on a particular topic can be expensive, just ask me! I've made plenty of buying mistakes and often wish that there had been someone to tell me how to get started in building a physical library around the topic of 16th century Germany that was specifically geared towards recreating clothing. Here are my recommendations for a general "Get you started" library. Of course there are additional books I could recommend for more specific areas of interest, but this would be a good ... continue reading...
Augsburg Weights and Measures with their Modern Equivalents
I started my experiments by attempting to follow the English translation prepared by ValoiseArmstrong in 1998. I attempted the recipe for 163, To make Nürnberger Lebkuchen. This resulted in a puddle of spicy bubbling goo when I baked it, not the nice molded cookie that should have resulted based on the text's instructions on molding the dough. I then decided that I would go back to the Middle High German (MHG) original text and translate the ingredient amounts from that. This resulted in quite ... continue reading...
Introduction & Who was Sabina Welserin?
I was first introduced to Sabina Welserin's cookbook back in the Fall of 2003 when I was gifted with a large bag of quinces and needed a recipe. I asked a friend, a member of the Madrone Culinary Guild, where I could find a recipe for them, and they pointed me to Sabina's cookbook. Thus recipe 107: To make a quince tart became my first reconstruction from Sabina's cookbook in 2003. ... continue reading...
From Ein Buch von guter spise: 59. Einen krapfen ( A krapfen)
How you want to make a fastday krapfen of nuts with whole kernels. And take as many apples thereunder and cut them diced, as the kernel is, and roast them will with a little honey and mix with spices and put it on the leaves, which you made into krapfen, and let it bake and do not oversalt. ... continue reading...
Oxymeli from Pilney the Elder
Recreation of Oxymeli from Pliny the Elder, The Natural History (eds. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S., H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A.) CHAP. 21.--OXYMELI "Vinegar even has been mixed with honey; nothing, in fact, has been left untried by man. To this mixture the name of oxymeli has been given; it is compounded of ten pounds of honey, five semi-sextarii of old vinegar, one pound of sea-salt, and five sextarii of rain- water. This is boiled gently till the mixture has bubbled in the pot some ten times,2 ... continue reading...