[Sca-cooks] Cinnamon in German cooking, esp knodeln

[Sharon Palmer]

>>  In particular, he claims that cinnamon appears 
>>in recipes where it doesn't belong, and offers 
>>the example of knodeln.
>
>Hopefully Ranvaig can chime in about German recipes - she's
>immediately who comes to mind, with her work on Rumpolt. I personally
>think that their tastes were somewhat different in period than in
>modern times. The first dish I EVER tasted in the SCA was like
>tortellini in a cinnamon flavored chicken broth. It was strange, yes,
>but GOOD.

Thank you, I've been traveling from Ohio, to 
Mississippi for a wedding, to Missouri for 
Thanksgiving, and home tonight, and I just saw 
this discussion.

First, I wonder what he means by "knodeln". 
Modernly it means a steamed or boiled dumpling of 
bread or potato.  Potato is unlikely but I have 
yet to find a recipe for plain bread dumplings in 
Rumpolt or any other period German source.

"Kno:del" or "Klo:ß" ("o:" means umlaut) seems to 
mean meatball, from any of a variety of meat, 
poultry, or fish.  Bread is often but not always 
mentioned, but may be implied in other recipes. 
Also two recipes from hard boiled egg, and one of 
flour and egg yolk fried in butter, that could be 
something like spaetzle.  But nothing like modern 
kno:del.

I found one recipe in Rumpolt that called for 
cinnamon in the sauce for Kno:del, none in the 
kno:del themselves.  Ginger and pepper are most 
common, along with various spices "mit allerlei 
Gewu:rz", mild spices (lindem Gewu:rz), spice it 
well "wu:rtz es wohl", tarragon, juniper, 
parsley, saffron, and mace (not all in the same 
recipe), none of which seem unreasonable for 
meatballs.

Another thing to consider is that proportions are 
seldom given, and it's hard to tell how strong 
their spices were.  Cinnamon is used in a number 
of recipes, and you can't always tell if they 
mean a strong cinnamon flavor, or just a touch.

Rumpolt has 40 Kno:del recipes and some of them 
aren't translated yet, but I'll look though them 
tomorrow and give more details.

Ranvaig