Mastery in the German Kitchen

Germany was the birthplace of so many early printed books that it seems natural that one should be a cookbook. Küchenmeisterei (Mastery of the Kitchen, 1485), printed in Nuremberg by Peter Wagner (in an unusual turnabout, we know the name of the printer but not the author), reflects the entrepreneurial, forward-looking spirit of the time. The original manuscript dates back to earlier in the century, and the southern German language includes a few dialect words that indicate that the unknown author almost certainly came from the Nuremberg region of Bavaria. Given his wide culinary experience and the sophistication of his recipes, he was probably master cook to a local aristocrat.⁸ The author states he is writing for a wide audience: “for princely households, for prosperous city-dwellers, for wealthy cloisters, and for master chefs in the taverns and inns of the nobility and their families.”⁹ However, the expansive style and generous overview of the recipes suggest a wider audience than the restricted court circles of rich clerics and nobility. Another possible source for Küchenmeisterei is monastic, because the ingredients are typical: “the complete absence of hare despite other game recipes (hare was regarded as unchaste). . . . the lack of sugar, which was very much in fashion at the time for the rich, and its substitution by honey (for whose production monasteries were famous); and the use of home-grown herbs rather than an abundance of expensive spices.”¹⁰