The Landsknecht Cookbook

A long project

Research began in 2010 during recovery from surgery

2016 book project „The Kitchen, Food and Cooking in Reformation Germany“

2019 contract for German version with Zauberfeder (published 2021)

2021 English translation commissioned

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What‘s so special about Landsknechts anyway?

They had style

They were loud

They were well known for heavy drinking and demanding good food

They represented an innovation in warfare

They were a media phenomenon

Hart ligen für gute speis�Feeding Landsknecht Armies

A New Type of Soldier

• Soldiers serve on individual, temporary contracts
• Employers not responsible for supplies, only pay
• Private suppliers sell goods at organised camp markets

Organising the Market

Organising the Market

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Challenges to army leaders:

• Enough supplies must reach the market
• Suppliers must safely make a profit
• Soldiers must not be cheated or gouged
• Cash pay must be regular and sufficient

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Suppliers

• Large contracts for delivery of basics
• Local governments required to ensure supplies
• Local population encouraged to come to markets

Supply Trains

Sudler

• Professional cooks following the army, selling prepared food
• Similar profession (garbräter, garkoch) established in cities
• Close to butchers in many guild structures

Cooking Individually

• The wives or companions of soldiers also cooked
• It is possible the Rotte of 6-10 men functioned as a mess

Cooking Equipment

Cooking Equipment

• Women often carry pans or other equipment
• Professional cooks carry large cauldrons and standing pots
• Prob. mostly lighter equipment, no cast metal cooking vessels

How to use it?

• Pan probably used for deep-frying, boiling, cooking porridges
• Ceramic pots used for legumes, porridges, vegetables
• Cauldrons used for meat, puddings, sausages
• Spits for roasting

What did they actually eat?

A 1598 Ordinance of War stipulates:

• Daily: 2 lbs bread, 1.5 lbs meat, 2 litres beer
• Weekly: 2 lbs bacon, cheese and butter

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Actual diet was likely both more diverse and often less ample. A 1573 manual lists garrison supplies including beans, peas,lentils, oats, barley, oil, bacon, lard, butter, cheese, oil and stockfish as well as spices for the sick.

Bread

• Basic foodstuff
• Probably brought in over longer distances
• Texts mention mobile ovens, improvised flatbreads and spit breads

Meat

• Regular supply of fresh meat was important
• Butchers followed the army, slaughtered and sold on the spot
• Strong price fluctuations, esp. when looting

Nose-to-Tail Eating 1400s-Style

Meister Hannsen (c. 1460) records how a crew of cooks would produce from a single calf: roast, boiled meat, liver sausage, brain with almonds, blood sausage, lung pancake, tripe, galantine, bread pudding, blood-based sauce, broth-based sauce, boiled meatballs and soup.

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Marx Rumpoldt (1581) lists 83 recipes to be used with various parts of the ox, from lips to tail.

Other Foods

• Porridge probably more important than the sources suggest
• We do not know if fast days were observed
• Dairy, eggs and seasonal fruit obtained locally
• Fried foods as luxury

Drink

• Beer and wine were very important to the soldiers
• Retail trade in beverages often an economic niche for poor women
• Transport must have been challenging

Textual Sources

Military manuals

Household records

Recipe collections

Account books

Personal accounts

Popular literature

Songs

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The Problem with Recipes

- marketed to upper classes

- very much is assumed

- there is no recipe for airimschmalz, but many for marzipans

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Solution: (not really)

- look at mock recipes

- subtract status ingredients

- look at equipment and non-recipe sources

Basic Suppe

The food is ubiquitous, recipes are rare

Much conjecture is required.

Cheese soup and pea soup is included, basic broth is not

Cheese Soup – lucky survival

Recipe Source

Pass out cheeses, wash them clean in pure warm water, cut them up small, put them into a pot and set them by the fire with water. Throw in peeled onions, green parsley, the herb and root, and sage leaves. Let that boil well and take care that it does not burn. When it is boiled, pass it through a sieve or cloth and put it back into a clean pot. Make it fat with butter, strew whole caraway on it, salt it, and serve it.

(Klosterkochbuch, IV.33)

Basic Meat

Boiled meat is more likely than roasted

Fresh meat is rarely available today

Reconstructing a recipe from a variety of sources

Many Ways of Chicken

Roasting and boiling – distinctions of birds

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Welsche Art und deutsche Art

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Chicken as an ingredient in dishes

Boiled chicken with lettuce and parsley roots

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Suggests a more commonplace version with cabbage or other greens

Text source

If you would make chickens in lettuce, take a pot and lay in a handful of lettuce leaves and place a chicken on that, again a handful of lettuce and again a chicken on top and so forth. Then take good meat broth that is fat and add a good lump of butter, salt it, and boil it until it has boiled enough. Add a little mace. You must take the lettuce and wash it thoroughly beforehand. That is how it is made.

(Sabina Welser, #90)

Mus and Gemues

Fritters and Krapfen

Basic fritters are extremely common in the recipe corpus

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Often enriched with cheese

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Fillings are frequent

Text source

For fritters as crooked as horseshoes

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Grate good cheese and take with it half as much flour and break eggs into it so you can knead it, and spices. Roll it out on a bench so that it becomes like a sausage. Then make it crooked and fry it in fat.

(Inntalkochbuch, #5)

The world of Krapfen

Tarts and Pastries

Most likely a class marker

Pastetenpfanne – a versatile tool

Recipes range from basic to highly complex

An almond tart

If you want to make an almond tart, take the whites of eggs and a little grated bread. Take almonds, grind them up small and add rose or lavender water. Add these to the eggs, add sugar, and make a bottom crust as for a tart.

(Stenglerin#12)

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Text source

If you want to make a tart, take chard, salt and parsley, chop it up small, and wash it in fresh water. Grate cheese into it, add fat and eggs, and then make sheets of dough and fill it into them. Bake it in a (baking) pan, put egg yolk on top, and leave it to bake well etc.

(Innsbruck MS #146)

On Reconstructing Table Manners

The End of an Era: Fifty Years of Peace, Thirty Years of War

Following the mid-cetury Schmalkalden wars, Germany saw a period of relative peace.

The requirements of modern mass warfare after 1618 quickly took the landsknecht system to its limits.

By the mid-17th century, armies operated centralised supply systems.

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