By Tara V. Kohlenberg —

Most families have holiday traditions, no matter the holiday we celebrate. Traditions are the rituals that connect us to our history, celebrating the generations that came before us. German Christmas cookies are the tradition that connects me to my German roots.

One of my most treasured possessions is an old, stained and smeared spiral notebook with recipes in the hand of my Oma. Safely zipped into a large freezer bag to protect its fragile pages, it lives in my cabinet wedged in between a plethora of other cookbooks.

This book is a treasure to me because, as a child, I never saw it. I did not bake Christmas cookies with my Oma. I sometimes saw her make bread or my favorite buttermilk cookies, but most of the “a pinch of this and handful of that” type of recipes were hidden deep in her head. It was like magic to me.

My grandparents lived in a Victorian house with a dining room located in the very center. Children were not allowed in the dining room after Thanksgiving Day. Cookies baked for Christmas were stored in there. The dining room had four entrances. Every door remained closed and closely monitored. Getting caught sneaking in there would definitely rate “a stick” from St. Nikolaus! Once, when I was maybe eleven, my Oma had her hands in dish water. She sent me into the darkened dining room to retrieve a dish from the corner china cupboard with a stern warning (in German), “Keep your eyes straight on the cabinet, get it and come quickly out. Don’t stop, don’t look around.”

I remember the heavenly aroma of cinnamon, cardamom and anise in the cool dark room. I certainly did not dawdle, but I still could not help seeing all the jars of different sizes and different colors, filled with fruit cookies, molasses cookies, Pfeffernüsse, Springerle and more. Turns out, storing those cookies for a couple of weeks before Christmas allowed the spice and fruit flavors to deepen and, in some cases, the cookies to soften.

Our wonderful Christmas cookie customs originated from desserts served with pagan winter solstice celebration feasts. When Christian beliefs spread over Europe throughout the Middle Ages (5th through 14th centuries), many of the old feast traditions remained, including decadent desserts.

The spice trade of the 15th century brought about increased availability of spices for food flavoring and medicines, but spices (pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, cardamon, cinnamon, anise, and cloves) were expensive. Dried fruits, apricots and dates were also considered prized ingredients, as were lard, butter and sugar. Families could only afford such extravagance on the most important holidays — Christmas or Easter. Small baked spiced treats like cookies were more affordable as gifts for friends and neighbors than cakes or pies.

We have come a long way since medieval times, but some things have not changed. Many of our treasured German Christmas cookie recipes are still heavily spiced with “traditional” Christmas flavors like cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamon, anise and ginger.

My favorite Christmas cookie recipe from Oma’s brown spiral notebook is for Springerle. These anise flavored cookies, from the German province of Swabia, were originally made to honor church holy days. They were sometimes used as Christmas tree ornaments.

The cookies are rolled out with specially carved rolling pins or pressed into molds to imprint the cookie dough.  Then the cookies are cut apart and left to dry over night to preserve the impression. When baked, the underside of the cookie rises to a soft center, leaving a crisp imprint on the top. My Oma never used a Springerle rolling pin. She just rolled them out flat before letting them dry. They were still great!

You might ask what anise tastes like. Anise, either seeds or oil, give Springerle a strong taste of licorice. Recipes for Springerle vary slightly from one another, some using orange flavoring instead. Here is my grandmother’s recipe. You can make some for yourself.

Springerle

• 1 C. Sugar
• 4 Eggs, beaten to a froth
• 1 tsp. Anise oil
• 4½ C. Flour
• 4½ tsp. Baking powder
• ¼ tsp. Lemon rind

Cream sugar and egg mixture. Add other ingredients gradually. Roll out ¼ inch thick on floured board. Roll with patterned rolling pin if desired. Let dry and harden in cold room overnight. Cut apart squares and bake at 250°F. Do not brown. Cookies will be white.

Another of my favorite cookie recipes is Pfeffernüsse, which literally translates as Pepper Nuts, because, well – they contain pepper.

Pfeffernusse

• 2½ C. Flour
• ½ tsp. Cloves
• ½ tsp. Nutmeg
• ½ tsp. Cinnamon
• ¼ tsp. Ginger
• ¼ tsp. Pepper
• ¼ tsp. Cardamon
• 2 Eggs
• 1 C. Dark brown sugar (packed)
• ⅓ C. Pecans (chopped)

Sift flour and spices together. In separate bowl, mix the eggs and sugar together with rotary beater until smooth. Mix all of the other ingredients in to make a stiff (and sticky) dough. With wet hands, roll into balls and place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 375°F for 12-15 minutes. Roll in powdered sugar if desired. (I know that there are Pfeffernüsse recipes that have a sugar glaze instead of powdered sugar, but this is the way my Oma made them).

Many of the original German recipes called for walnuts, almonds or hazelnuts. Yet, you will see the recipes lovingly handed down through the generations here in New Braunfels call for pecans. The German immigrants in Texas, being the resourceful people that they were, substituted locally found pecans in their recipes. Pecans bear fruit in the fall, making them the perfect substitution.

Christmas cookies were very special and definitely a gift of love. Yes, ingredients were costly, but cookies were also quite a chore to make. No tubes of store-bought cookie dough for them! My Oma did not have an electric stand mixer, just the rotary hand kind. Other than the frothing of eggs, everything was mixed by hand with a whisk or spoon. Even meringue was beaten by hand. Boy, you talk about upper body strength! If you have ever gotten tired making more than one batch of cookies in one day with an electric mixer, think about how tiring it is to make one batch totally by hand. They made several batches of different kinds throughout the month of December. It was well worth it.

These recipes are only samples of the German baking tradition as they survive in the fifth, sixth or seventh generations of immigrant families here in New Braunfels. Make some up (or get some at Naegelin’s) and share the Love! Merry Christmas!

Sources: Sophienburg Museum and Archives; Recipe Collection, Wanda Voigt.

“Around the Sophienburg” is published every other weekend in the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

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By Tara Voigt Kohlenberg

Now that circumstances are anything but normal, there is a pretty good chance that you, too, have been playing “What Can I Make With This?” The game is played while standing in front of an open pantry or refrigerator. Don’t get me wrong, I do love to cook, but when our Go-Go lifestyle became a Stay-Stay adventure, my Go-To recipes got boring.

I reached for my cookbooks, as I have quite a few. We tend to take cookbooks for granted. It is so much easier to just find a recipe on Facebook. A cookbook is basically a written collection of recipes for food preparation. The oldest recorded written recipes, i.e. cookbook, is a set of four clay tablets written in 1700 BC discovered in Mesopotamia. They contain a recipe for meat stew, using meat, vinegar, smoked wood, and herbs. The first English cookbook was written for King Richard II in the 14th century. Most cookbooks of that time were actually written for the lady of the house to read to her cooks, since the kitchen staff lacked the most rudimentary reading skills. The first known American cookbook was published in 1796. With time, more modern cookbooks served as kitchen references, as they also contained not only recipes, but also sections on running a household, childrearing, and personal memories or commentary. Over the years, I have collected quite a few vintage cookbooks. My favorites are the ones with handwritten recipes inside the front covers and in the margins.

My mom was a great “by the book” cook. She could follow any recipe and make it come out beautifully. I have a big, red and white checked Good Housekeeping book from her. It is well used. My grandmothers, however, tended to cook by rote. They mostly had individual recipes in a box. It was hard for me to accurately recreate the recipes for my favorite dishes prepared by my grandmothers due to subjective measurements like “pinch,” “dash,” “handful,” and “enough.” Both of my grandmothers lived and cooked through World War I, the Great Depression, and World War II. Most of their recipes were handed down from other women in their families. My Gran wrote her cornbread recipe on the box lid for my mother to learn. My mom did the same for me, which I in turn, did for my own daughters. It is not just the recipes for food that get handed down, it is also sharing recipes for life.

Before today’s glossy, Chef-inspired cookbooks with beautifully photographed food inviting us to prepare restaurant fare at home, there were smaller, more practical cookbooks that helped people simply survive. Women supported each other, their families, and their community through food. They came together during tough times in history to help shoulder the burden and support the nation. Newspapers, book publishers and manufacturers of kitchen appliances jumped on board during the Great Depression and both world wars, creating cookbooks/menus/recipes to survive food rationing and still be able to create healthy, hardy dishes with little to nothing in the cupboard. The New Braunfels Herald ran recipe columns and advertising calling on women to save wheat as their contribution to feed the soldiers and win the war.

During World War I, there were government mandated Wheatless, Meatless and Porkless days to allow much needed food supplies to be sent to the war front. Tuesdays were declared Meatless, forbidding any type of meat to be served, even in soups. Only breads, pastries and pies made with corn meal, rye flour, barley flour, or rice flour could be consumed on Wheatless Wednesdays. Porkless Day was Saturday, which meant no bacon or sausage served.

Recipes and tips, shared within families, became the backbone of cookbooks for the greater community. As early as the Civil War, women have shared their favorite recipes, selling cookbooks to raise funds for injured soldiers, churches, civic clubs, libraries and museums. Some books included poetry, daily devotional prayers or light humor. Suffragettes spread their message for the women’s vote. National Guard and American Legion Auxilliaries’cookbooks were interspersed with patriotic photos and quotes about bravery.

I will leave you with some recipes from World War I (1918) and World War II (1943), both periods of national strife and numerous rationed items. Remember that cookbooks are some of the greatest record books that we have. They are snapshots of history, giving us a glimpse of exactly what was going on during that time. What will they say about this very challenging period of time fifty to a hundred years from now?

Wheatless, Eggless, Butterless, Milkless, Sugarless Cake (1918)

• 1 cup corn syrup
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups raisins
• 2 tablespoons fat
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1½ cups fine cornmeal (or 2 cups rye flour or 3½ cups whole wheat flour)
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder (or ½ teaspoon soda)

Cook corn syrup, water, raisins, fat, salt and spices slowly 15 minutes. When cool, add flour, soda or bake in powder, thoroughly blended. Bake in slow oven 1 hour. The longer this cake is kept, the better the texture and flavor. This recipe is sufficient to fill one medium-sized bread pan.

Chili Peanut Meatless Sandwich fillings for Victory lunchboxes (1943)

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons cream
• 2 tablespoons chili sauce
• ¼ cup finely chopped salted peanuts

Combine peanut butter, cream and chili sauce. Add peanuts; mix thoroughly.

Soy Bean Meatless Sandwich filling (1943)

• 1 cup cooked soy beans
• 1 teaspoon grated onion
• Salt and pepper
• ¾ tablespoons mayonnaise

Drain soy beans thoroughly and mash with a fork. Add seasonings, onion, and enough mayonnaise to moisten. Mix well.

Sources: Sophienburg Museum & Archives; Tara Kohlenberg cookbook collection.

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