Das buch von guter spise (the book of good food), also known as ein buch von guter spise, is the earliest known German language cookbook. It is dated from between 1345 to 1354. The household manual, which included guter spise, was organized by Michael de Leone, who was the proto-notary (chief clerk) of the Archbishop of Würzburg. The surviving portion of the manuscript is in the library of Munich University.
There are many other surviving pre-seventeenth century German cookbooks. Von Speisen, natürlichen und kreuter Wein, aller verstand was printed in 1531 in Frankfurt am Main; it is available as ISBN 3-923090-25-0. I am currently working on translating this. Das Kochbuch Meister Eberhards ; ein Beitrag zur altdeutschen Fachliteratur is a transcription of a fifteenth century cookbook. Kuchenmeysterey, originally printed around 1486, can be found as a photoreproduction. The original of Das Kochbuch der Sabrina Welserin was a handwritten manuscript from 1553; a more recent version includes a facing page transcription and translation into modern German. One of the most beautiful cookbooks I have seen is a reprint of Ein new kochbuch by Marx Rumpolt; the original, now at Cornell, was printed in 1581 in Frankfurt am Main. The reprint was issued in 1980 and is scheduled for republication. The above list is far from complete; there are several other unpublished manuscripts.
Large sections of guter spise can be found in two later manuscripts. The first is called the "Mondseer Kochbuch", since it is from the Mondsee monastary; it is bound with a Latin and German winebook, Eberhards von Bethune's Graecismus, a Latin good health regimen, and a Latin schema mnemotechnica. The other is known as the "Weiner Kochbuch". Although the two manuscripts share recipes not found in guter spise, only the guter spise portion can be found as a black-and-white photocopy in Daz buoch von guoter spise, edited by Gerold Hayer and published in 1976. This has the best discussion I have seen of guter spise; it is in German. In addition to Hayer's book, there are at least three different transcriptions of guter spise . In my translation, I worked mainly from the 1844 version, by the Bibliothek des Literarischen vereins in Stuttgart. Hans Hajek edited a version printed in 1958 as Heft 8 in the Texte des spaten Mittelalters series.
As appears to be common for these cookbooks, guter spise starts with a poem introducing and lauding the book. The following is the couplet which preceeds the poem.
Dis buch sagt von guter spise
daz machet die unverrihtigen köche wise
This book speaks of good food.
It makes the ignorant cook wise.
Das buch von guter spise is split into two sections. The first section contains 57 recipes. The second section has 44. It appears that the two sections are from different sources because the first section starts with an introductory poem and ends with two joke recipes (#53 and #54) and the line "Diz ist ein gut lere von guter spise" (This is a good lore of good foods). Though there is still room on the page for a few more lines, the second section starts on a new page.
In addition, the organization of each section is different. The first section is disorganized. There are fastday dishes mixed in with meat dishes. There is even a mead recipe among them. A fancy recipe for a roasted, filled, endored young pig (#8) is preceeded by a recipe for hazelhens in a sauce and is followed by a puree of plums. However, recipes #32 through #35 form a coherent sauce and agraz (or verjuice) grouping. These are not the only sauce recipes in this section, for #49 is Swallenburg sauce and #48 is a condiment.
The second section is better organized. The first grouping, #55 through #61, contains fastday fladen and krapfen . These recipes are fish, fruit and/or nut dishes. Then recipes #62 through #70 are purees. Number #63, Saracen Peas, is an exception, as it is more of a confection. Similiarly, the three colris are grouped in here as #65, #66 and #67. Recipes #71 through #75 are dishes that have almonds as a major ingredient. Recipes #71 and #72 are for cheese of almonds. Recipes #73 and #74 use ground almonds, which have been boiled for almond milk, in various baked works. Recipes #74a and #75 both use almond milk and rice to make a sort of rice puree. The next grouping has three blancmanges (#76,#77, and #77a). Then recipes #78 through #83 are fruit, vegetable or nut purees. Recipes #84 and #85 concern themselves with preserving morella cherries. Then recipes #86 through #93 are fladen recipes. Finally, recipes #94, #95 and #96 are fancy subtelties. (a heron on a sheet, a Saracen's head, and an oxhead)
In all of these recipes, only the following spices were used. It is interesting to see how frequently each is called for. Pepper is the most prevalent, being named twenty-three times in guter spise. Other common spices are saffron (15 times), sage (14 times), parsley (13 times), ginger (11 times), anise (7 times), caraway (7 times), galingale (3 times), and cloves (2 times). Spices are called for twenty-four times, and herbs are called for seven times. Garlic is used four times; shallots are used twice. Tansy, hops, cinnamon, pennyroyal, mint, mace and mustard are each mentioned once. Salt is mentioned twenty-four times; there are also frequent warnings against oversalting.
In addition to the fancier subtelties mentioned above , there are simpler ones. For instance, #27 called "A Good Grain" appears to describe pasties, stuffed with meat and apples, which are then endored and roasted until they are red. I believe they are intended to resemble oranges. Another is #23, entitled "A good food". It is a dish of chicken made to look like carrots, complete with a bit of green sticking out the top. I serve the yellow garlic sauce, #32, with the chicken carrots, as is suggested in the original.
There are several other sauces in Guter Spise . #32a and #35 are both for Agraz, or verjuice. #32a suggests using the agraz for roasting sheep, hens and fish. Another condiment, #33, consists of wine or vinegar, shallots and salt; it is recommended for roasting beef. There are a couple other interesting sauces. #49 entitled "A good sauce" is called Swallenberg sauce. It is made with wine, honey, ginger, pepper, garlic and egg whites. #48, "A condiment", gives a sauce wherein one can make pickled or marinated parsely, fruits and vegetables or beets.
There is also a small selection of vegetable dishes. #45, "A good little dish", takes pureed peas and eggs and cooks them in fat. Then they are cut in pieces, roasted on a spit and covered with herbs. There are a couple vegetable purees, #64 is "a puree with leeks" and #79 is "a carrot puree". #31, "a food of beans", is beans in a caraway sauce. #52, "A good filling", is called ruzzige cake. It is a parsley, sage, cheese, egg and bread mixture baked on top of a slab of dough. It forms a pizza-like dish.
There are several krapfen and fladen recipes. Judging from the directions, these are not the fritters which a German dictionary will claim. These recipes tell one to place the filling on "a leaf made from dough" or "and make it on its leaf". They say to "fill the krapfen" or "make it to a krapfen". The one exception is a fladen of morella cherries; however, this is more dried cherry bark.
The fladen have both meat and cheese (#86, #88). #87 also has chicken. #89 has fatty bacon and pig claws or calves' feet. #91 uses chicken livers and stomachs and a pear for garnish. #90 is made from calf liver and is poured into a krapfen which is already filled. It is specifically poured through a hole, implying a top crust. #92 is more interesting for its decoration, than it's filling which is similiar to that of #86. The decoration is three squares or chevrons made into a shield; they are basteln (probably a form of pasty, or more elaborate) stuffed with chicken. #93 is also decorated with basteln, but it uses five positioned as the five on a die. It also has nuts and fatty bacon, but no cheese. Other fladen are grouped with the krapfen. These are all fish or fish gut recipes. The krapfen contain apples and nuts or apples and grapes.
Fruits are frequently used in guter spise. Cherries, apples, quinces, pears, plums and grapes are all used. Cherries are made into filling (#1), konkavelit (#83), puree (#82), compost (#84), or dried (#85). Plums are only in one puree (#9). Grapes are mainly in sauces. Apples, pears and quinces all are made into purees. Pears are also baked and then boiled in honey for a filling (#12). Apples appear frequently, in pasties, krapfen, and so on. One of the more interesting dishes uses pears and apples as the stuffing between two slices of bread, which is dipped in egg and cooked. This is #10 entitled "a food of pears".
Apples, quinces and pears are most frequently combined with chicken or meat in dishes. For instance, #27, which I mentioned as an imitation orange, has meat and apples. #5* entititled "heathen cakes" uses meat and apples. #30 entitled "a good food" is a chicken and quince or pear stew. #26, "this is a good filling", is a roasted goose served with a sauce partly of apples. One of the fish fladen includes an apple, and the one of pike guts includes many. #50, called hens of rinkauwe uses pears and chicken, but they are used to form a layered tart. #51 entitled "a good food" makes a dish called "Hens from Greece"; it uses chicken and apples in a layered tart.
Other chicken dishes include #4, "hens from Greece", which has chicken and pork with a rose sauce. #28 is called king's hens. It is essentially a chicken omelet. There are also four blancmanges, one of which uses goat's milk. Two pasty recipes (#15 and #19) can be made very successful with chicken replacing the original fish. I have also made #19 with the original salmon, and it is excellent. There are many other fish dishes: filled pike (#17), roasted eels (#18), stockfish (#20), lamprey (#27*), pike restuffed into its skin (#36 and #46), eel restuffed in its skin (#37), fish roasted in a dough (#38), and fish puree (#55 and #62).
Another grouping of food is those using internal organs. #21, "a good food", uses pig's intestines and stomach to form a sauce which is served on pig entrails. #22 uses pigs intestines and the fat from tame pigs' kidneys. The small intestines are boiled in the condiment, stuffed with it, and then stuffed into the large intestine. Goose (#26 and #42) are cooked or served with a condiment from their intestines or entrails. #6, "a clever food", mixes brain, flour, apples, eggs and spices and roasts the mixture; the result is called roasted brains. Liver of beef, deer and chicken is used. #2, "of a deer liver", roasts the liver and serves it layered with a honey sauce. #29, "how you want to make a good liver", is liver in a liver sauce; it is normally made of beef liver, but deer liver was for the holidays, and wild swine's liver was another option. #40, "a good dish", uses chicken stomachs and livers in a mixture, which is later pressed into a form and baked; the result is caled laxis. The recipe offers the option of making young hens of chopped lamb meat, which suggests the form of the original as well.
There are also ample examples of fastday dishes. #24 is called calcus. It is made with almond milk, bread, and possibly egg yolks. Sugar is strewn on top. #25 is "how you want to make a roasted milk". #47 also makes a roasted milk, but this one is from almond milk and is mixed with millet groats, boiled eggs, bread and herbs. #65, #6, and #67 all describe colris, which is made from thin sheets of egg chopped and mixed with milk and bread and egg yolks. #70, "an almond puree", has almond milk and bread, with a roasted apple for a topping. Almond butter (#39) and almond cheese (#39, #71, #72) are the start of almond dishes. #73 is "an almond wedge-shaped bake work" made like one of butter. #74 takes dough from meal and fills it with the drained remains of almond milk and sugar. If that is not tempting enough, #74a is a rice pudding made with almond milk and sugar. #63, "heathen peas", has only almonds, honey and spices; it is handed "out greedily, cold or warm".