SC - Progress report on Lebkuchen

[Philip & Susan Troy]

LYN M PARKINSON wrote:
> 
> Kateryn,
> 
> Just as a note: some modern recipes for sauerbraten call for gingersnaps
> in the marinade.  A modern gingersnap would have a 'poor man's'
> resemblance to a decent Lebkuchen cookie.
> 
> Thomas, where does the 'leb-' come from, in the word 'lebkuchen'?  Maybe
> that will help us define the difference between the cookie and Kateryn's
> idea of a honey-spice mixture.  Although, IIRC, most of the sources I
> have that give any history of Lebkuchen refer to the Guilds--Nuremburg,
> in particular--and they were definately cookies by the 16th C., which
> includes Sabina Welser.

It occurs to me that Sabina Welserin is using, IIRC, both volume and
mass/weight measures in the lebkuchen recipe in question. Is it
conceivable that the relationship between quarts and pounds in 1553
Augsburg is not what we might assume it to be today? If, for example,
the measure of flour is in fact larger than we assume it to be in
relation to the measure of the sugar or the honey (IIRC, and I could be
completely wrong here, there is sugar in pounds, flour in pounds, and
honey in quarts, no?-- while our quart of honey is about three of our
pounds, this may not have been the case for Sabina Welserin) the
consistency of the final product might well be less sticky and more
fudgy or cakelike than the sticky or candy-like consistency of the
product as made in the modern experiment...

Just a thort...

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com