Imagine the smell of a roast coming straight out of the oven, with potato dumplings
and red cabbage to complete the dinner. You are sitting in a rustic restaurant,
with wood-covered walls and with shelves full of wine bottles, in Nuremberg, a
town in Frankonia, in Southern Germany. And you just ordered Sauerbraten, a roast
with a slightly sour taste.
What does this have to do with gingerbread? you may be asking.
Well, the gravy of Sauerbraten contains gingerbread—a special kind used for sauce, to make it thicker and give it an aromatic taste of spice.
Gingerbread for sauce and gravy is a specialty in some areas of Southern Germany and Czech.
It contains less sugar but has lots of spices and flour. Pieces of gingerbread are cut and marinated in water or wine to cook with the sauce.
Nuremberg is famous for its gingerbread or Lebkuchen. Ginger plays only a small role as an ingredient in typical Lebkuchen, and it bears no resemblance to the widely-known gingerbread.
The German translation for gingerbread, Ingwer-Brot, may be confusing. Six-hundred years ago, German gingerbread was still called honey cake. It was part of a healthy diet for monks, during lent. Then Nuremberg became the hub of the European spice-trade market because many roads crossed in the city.
When Nuremberg gained the monopoly on spices, the original recipe for honey cake underwent several changes: flour and honey were no longer the main ingredients; spices such as cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and aniseed were available and were added.
From the 14th century, gingerbread was baked outside of monastery walls. In 1395, the first Nuremberg gingerbread baker was registered, called Lebküchner. Later, bakers organized themselves in an association and kept their recipes secret. It is said they were forbidden to leave Nuremberg.
Lebküchner invented the Elisenlebkuchen, a special gingerbread covered in chocolate (even available in summer!). Grab a gingerbread and enjoy a glass of beer or wine with it in the sun. Elisenlebkuchen contains almost no flour but must contain 25 per cent ground nuts. The rules are strict and it is produced only in Nuremberg.
Each baker uses secret ingredients (mostly spices) and, according to the Nuremberg website, the bakers of the association produce approximately 20-million pieces of Lebkuchen each year.
In Nuremberg, one will find small bakeries such as Lebkuchen-Düll, a family-owned business that baked 6,000 Lebkuchen per day before factories such as Lebkuchen.
Schmidt is shipping Lebkuchen all over the world and producing three-million pieces of Lebkuchen per day, from September to December. Lebkuchen’s high season is during the famous Christmas Market, which opens on December 1st with an opening ceremony. It is one of the oldest Christmas markets in the world, dating back to the 16th century when craftsmen were selling their goods in stalls.
One will rarely find a Gingerbread Man in Nuremberg, as it isn’t a German tradition … but gingerbread houses are and they are popular in North America, too. Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. It is said that they go back to the story of Hansel and Gretel, written by the Brothers Grimm. Hansel and Gretel discover a house made of sweets and treats in the forest. It is unclear if gingerbread houses were a result of that tale.
Gingerbread houses come in different sizes. Everything’s bigger in America, so it’s no wonder that the world’s largest gingerbread house (39,201 cubic feet) was erected at Traditions Golf Club in Bryan, Texas, in 2013. According to the Guinness World Records website, it required a building permit and was built like a traditional house and with 4,000 gingerbread “bricks.”
But is bigger always better?
Sometimes it’s the small things that create that festive feeling. For me, it has always been the smell of Sauerbraten, with the typical Lebkuchen sauce like my mother used to make. (And, remember, if you can’t visit Nuremberg, you can still bake Lebkuchen, yourself, and enjoy the smell of spices and chocolate at your house).
