Christkindle Markets Part 2: Lebkuchen-the gingerless gingerbread
Okay, on to part two-gingerbread! If you haven’t read part 1 yet, check it out. Traveling through the markets one of the most ubiquitous foods is lebkuchen, also known as German gingerbread. These are spiced and honey-sweetened cookies with a cake-like texture, baked on top of a wafer, and often topped with chocolate or a glaze, commonly sold at Christmastime. My friend Martina has always raved about these cookies so tasting them fresh was a high priority.
But to my surprise, they don’t have ginger but they do have coriander (to which I am highly allergic). Suffice to say, I did not taste more. But that small bite was interesting. These cookies have a very soft texture, with dried fruits and nuts inside for a crunch. They are full of warm spices, but missing that spiciness that comes with ginger. This got me thinking, why do we call them gingerbread? They are more breadlike than gingerbread in the States. But can they be “gingerbread” without ginger? And how did that come to be?
A history of ginger in Europe
The legend goes that in 1296, Franconian monks in the city of Ulm, along the Danube River, first crafted these cookies. Though lacking butter, flour, and sugar, they combined forest nuts and honey from the monastery’s beehives with exotic spices acquired through trade along old trade routes. Likely, these spices included cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg (listed in the 17th-century Nuremberg Lebkuchen recipe), and perhaps cardamon and coriander as well. This blend was kneaded into a cakey dough and then baked on leftover Communion wafers to prevent sticking. The result was a soft, sweet cookie. As a bonus, these cookies had a long shelf life, due to the use of honey, minimal fat, and the use of archaic leavening agents like hartshorn or potash, which are only activated through heat.
But if the spices used did not include ginger, why call them gingerbread?
In the Middle Ages, the opening of new trade routes between the East and the West, as well as the movement of people (such as through the Crusades), resulted in new spices making their way to Europe, including cinnamon, cloves, anise, coriander, cardamom, pepper, and ginger. These new and exciting spices were highly valued in Europe for their ability to enhance the flavor of food and preserve it. But they were also hard to obtain, making them a high-value commodity. As demand grew the spice trade took off, dominated by merchants from the Middle East and Asia. As a result, the exact origins and identities of some spices were not well understood by Europeans. Thus, many spices were collectively referred to as “ginger” or by other generic terms.
It wasn’t until later explorations and more direct trade routes to Asia were established that Europeans gained a more precise understanding of individual spices. So while lebkuchen is considered German gingerbread, ginger just refers to the use of warming spices. And to add ginger to lebkuchen, I have been told, makes the cookies not authentic.
Lebkuchen Recipe
I loosely followed the recipe below. But these cookies are pretty flexible. I found you can tailor them to your tastes, adding different spices and candied fruits and nuts.
https://www.tasteatlas.com/nurnberger-lebkuchen/recipe
Enjoy!
