We now know what makes our inner selves tick. It is FOOD. Perhaps this is a good time to talk a little about what our ancestors ate in Germany.
The long and short of it was that in 1700, our ancestors ate bread, bread, and bread for the morning meal, the noon meal (the big one), and the evening meal. Probably the bread was not made from wheat but from one of the other grains. In 1800, our ancestors ate potatoes, potatoes, and potatoes for the three meals of the day. This was told by a German historian.
This shift came about because Europeans did not trust the potato as a heathy food to eat. It was a member of the nightshade family which is poisonous. After they discovered the potato could be trusted, they ate immense quantities of it. It produced a large amount and could be used as an animal food also. Also, they did not trust the tomato in 1700. (In a suburb of Ötisheim, there is a statue of an early eighteenth century minister who is honored for daring to plant a potato in 1722.)
In the Eighteenth Century they (the Germans) ate little meat. Most days were meatless. Fish was perhaps more common than the flesh of mammals. Pork became much more popular after 1800. They used a lot of root vegetables because they could be kept over the winter months. A prominent vegetable was the turnip, but other vegetables were used also. A major, above-the-ground vegetable was cabbage. Cabbage could be kept for a while in the winter by storing underground. The other way of keeping cabbage was as sauerkraut. This was a great food because cabbage has lots of Vitamin C, a vitamin that was not too easy to get in the winter time.
There were fruits also. Plums and apples were popular. Plums were made into plum butter for use on the bread. Apples were dried and were a basic ingredient in the cooked dishes.
In the spring of the year, there was a great desire for greens which had been missing during the winter. One sees why dandelions have been popular, for they were an early plant. But nothing beat the early summer when the new vegetables and early fruits were available.
Many foods are from the new world. Besides the potato, there were squashes and corn. Both of these have excellent storage properties.
A lot of the food we think of as "German" was acquired after our ancestors came to America. Some of it was new world food, and some of it only acquired a popularity in Germany after the Eighteenth Century. Our early Eighteenth Century German ancestors did not eat much pork and its by-products. If they grew any pigs, they were probably for sale, not consumption. In America, with large farms and forests, much more pork was grown here than in Germany, where space and food for the swine were limiting factors.
(06 Oct 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.