Dori: You asked how our ethnic dishes got "invented"... Mostly it was dictated by the kind of food that was available. In northern Germany by the sea there would be more seafood, in the plains grains, pigs and beef, in the meadowy hills sheep, in Bohemia and Austria lots of eggs are used in their "Mehlspeisen" (pastry) dishes, Since animals were slaughtered only at certain seasons, the meat supply was centered on that event. Potatoes and Tomatos did not come to Europe until after the discorvery of America, so most of the people had a grain based diet. As to the more elegant preparation of now internationally famous dishes, and how this came about, there is a simple explanation. Not everyone farmed, but everyone raised their own food needs, or traded for it. Little cash was expended on food items, so you had to become inventive. Most of the people in the 17th and 18th century were craftsmen living on their trade and being "Häuslers" meaning that they owned a house with a garden in the back. Often, these were in cities, where the front of the house was wall to wall with a garden in the back, or on the outskirts of the city where there was a smithy or mill. They all "grew their own food"... Farmers with larger land holdings were very few, as a 40 acre farm was considered a large farm. It was often safer for the farmer to live in the city and farm his fields and vinyards outside the city walls. These family establishments are intact to this day in Germany. They were like that when our people still lived in Bohemia before the expulsion. Besides, Europe has a lot of castles, and also many balneological treatment centers (you call them spa here, but it is not the same, as whole cities are living from the spa tourism in Europe) and their guests are housed in hotels with hotel kitchens. These kitchens are geared to diets in order to alleviate the problems treated by balnealogical medicine (water cures as old as time itself.) People working in these kitchens brought home such recipes and they spread to all their neighbors. Also, living in areas where the nobility hunted was always a good spot to have enough food available to prepare feasts. There is another aspect, think of it, because there did not exist a pharmaceutical manufacture, except a few pill rollers in the local Apothecaries. It was, therefore, the type of food you ate (or avoided) that cured most ailments supported with a huge box of family gathered herbs. We have lost a lot of valuable knowledge since then. Aida On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Dori Rhody <[email protected]> wrote: > I was always under the impression that the women worked the fields along > side the men along with caring for children. I also believed there was > little or no meat, soup was on the fire and added to as necessary (Peas > porridge hot :-) ). > This means when did the ethnics dishes become invented? ie tortes, > cookies, yummy breads, pickled pigs feet, potato dumplings etc. These > women either had help or a lot more energy and stamina than I. > Dori > German-Bohemian Heritage Society web site http://www.rootsweb.com/~gbhs/ > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >