SC - 16th Century recipes a few questions. . .

[Decker, Terry D.]

> At 08:52 AM 1/31/00 -0600, you wrote:
> >Parmesan cheese is definitely period and was very likely available to the
> >Welsers as they were one of the major German banking families in the
> >international trade.
> 
> The following is said as a generalization from my readings,  not a specfic
> 
> source.  When looking at German Cooking, remember the Emperiors lived in 
> the south and in italy.  Also one had the Hanse league in the north moving
> 
> goods from central europe, northern lands, british isle etc.   I would
> have 
> to say that if it existed in a large city anywhere in the known world, it 
> could have been traded for throughout Europe and especially the Germanic
> lands.
> 
> Now I will sit back and listen and learn from the experts in these areas 
> for specifics.
> 
> Frederich
> 
Sabina Welser's cookbook was written in Augsburg and is dated 1553 (IIRC).
The comments I made were specific to this cook book and not to German
cooking in general.  

As a small historical note, the Hanse was essentially defunct by the 15th
Century, although it formally disbanded in the 17th Century (1669).  The
English and the Dutch were taking over the Baltic and Russian trade.
Augsburg is a southern German city and was probably little affected by the
Baltic trade.  It originated as a Roman garrison and trade town dealing in
salt with the Salzkammergut.  Later it became a textile manufacturing town.
The wealth and connections from the textile trade were used to create an
international banking empire.

Trade requires that the the people receiving the goods be able to pay for
them.  As the Fuggers, Hochstetters and Welsers controlled much of Europes
mining, manufacture and trade, this is not a particular problem.  The
Welsers could afford the best goods and since Sabina calls for parmesan
cheese in some recipes, I'm fairly certain they had parmesan cheese
available.  How it was transported there is open to question, since it could
have been brought up the Danube, up the Main, or transported overland from
Italy.

As for the Emperors, Augsburg didn't worry much about them, they bought
them.  The Emperor at this time was Carlos V (Carlos I of Spain).  A
financial coalition of the Fuggers, Hochstetters and Welsers put up the
money to bribe the electors to put Carlos on the throne.  For their part in
this, the Welsers received a Venezuela and Colombia as a herditary fief in
1528, after Carlos captured Rome and the Pope.  The monopoly was revoked in
1546, a hard blow but not completely destructive.  

In 1550, the Fuggers missed monopolizing the tin mines in Bohemia and
Saxony, started a panic and went bankrupt.  This event marked the decline of
the Augsburg bankers and the rise of the Dutch and English banking and trade
empires fueled by loot from the Indies.

Bear