Historic Cookery Archives : TRAVEL/FOOD

Land of Christmas: The Beauty of Saxony at Holiday Time

Christkindlesmarkt, Christkindlmarket, Christmas, Historic foodways, Historic Restaurants, Holiday events, Saxony, Uncategorized

Saxony is Germany’s Land of Christmas, a place where tradition and craftsmanship shine year-round. Throughout the state, artisans create exquisite handmade goods, and during the holidays, their work fills markets with warmth and wonder, allowing visitors to explore a mix of history, culture, art, cuisine, and festive cheer. From Dresden’s historic Striezelmarkt, one of Germany’s oldest Christmas markets, to Leipzig’s music-filled Old Town, Saxony’s centuries old cities radiate holiday spirit and cheer.

In Seiffen, the famous “toy village” of the Ore Mountains, generations of craftspeople continue to carve nutcrackers and candle arches that are now timeless symbols of Christmas. Meanwhile, Bautzen and Görlitz enchant visitors with medieval streets and castle views steeped in history and folklore. Even after a century of challenges, Saxony’s dedication to quality and artistry endures—especially at Christmastime, when only the finest craftsmanship will do.

The Striezelmarkt in Dresden, with its many beautifully decorated stalls filled with a cornucopia of items, is a stunning spectacle during the winter and Christmas season. Photo: Sebastian Weingart (DML-BY)

View of the 588th Dresden Striezelmarkt from the tower of the Kreuzkirche. Photo: Michael Bader (DML-BY)

Dresden: One of Germany’s Oldest Christmas Markets

Dresden’s Striezelmarkt is the crown jewel of Saxony’s Christmas. By medieval right this market dates to 1434, and in 2025 Dresden celebrates its 591st anniversary. The market opens Wednesday, November 26 at 4 pm with a parade and the ceremonial lighting of the stalls. Highlights include the 40 ft high Ore Mountain pyramid and the giant candle arch (both record‐breakers), plus a historic Ferris wheel offering views over the glittering Old Town. Visitors can sip Glühwein and nibble on Dresden’s famous Stollen, which even has its own festival on Dec 6. Beneath the illuminated church towers, shoppers browse handcrafted wooden toys, ornaments and regional foods.

Dresden Striezelmarkt

Leipzig: Music, Markets, and Magic in the Old Town

An hour by train west of Dresden, Leipzig lights up for Christmas in historic style. Leipzig’s festive season begins on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, with the opening of the historic Christmas market, running through December 23. The city center will feature over 300 stalls, blending tradition, music, and culinary delights.

Highlights include the Historic Market Square with its 60 ft Christmas tree, nightly trombone performances from the Old Town Hall balcony, and a festive stage with choirs and musicians; the Naschmarkt, showcasing medieval crafts, mead, and freshly baked Handbrot; St. Nicholas Churchyard with the beloved Feuerzangenbowle pyramid for mulled wine; and Augustusplatz, featuring Finnish and South Tyrolean villages and a 125 foot Ferris wheel offering panoramic views.

Trendy districts like Connewitz and venues such as WERK2 and Feinkost host smaller markets with handmade arts, crafts, and regional foods. Music lovers can enjoy performances at St. Thomas Church, including Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, along with numerous advent concerts celebrating Leipzig’s rich musical heritage. Beyond the city, visitors can explore the medieval Christmas market at Felsenkeller, the illuminated Christmas garden walk at Park Markkleeberg, and the traditional Gänsemarkt in Werms, featuring Christmas geese, carp, handicrafts, and Nordic decorations.

Leipzig Christmas Market

Bautzen: Castles and Sword-fights

Eastward in the Lusatian Hills in an area in the east of Saxony that is the center of Sorbian culture in Saxony, the medieval town of Bautzen in Upper Lusatia, is a perfect backdrop for a fairy tale Christmas with turrets and towers and beautiful churches and buildings.

Photo courtesy of Wenzelsmarkt Bautzen Facebook.

In Bautzen’s old town, the historic Wenzelsmarkt (28 Nov – 22 Dec 2025) carries the name of King Wenceslas IV, who in 1384 granted the town market rights. Stalls line Hauptmarkt and Reichenstraße beneath the Reichenturm tower, decked with lights and a giant tree. Bakers’ guilds sell Stollen and smoked sausages, and on weekends a medieval market at the Moench Church Ruins highlight sword-fights and minstrels. Children can enjoy seasonal surprises at the library and hear Christmas tales at the Nikolaiturm (St. Nicholas Tower).

Festive rides at the Kornmarkt (Corn Market) provide extra fun, while live music fills the air throughout the city. From December 1st onward, Santa Claus will delight crowds daily on Wenceslas’s Stage beneath the Main Market tree, opening a new door of the Advent calendar.

Bautzen

Görlitz: A Silesian Christmas in Eastern Saxony

From the Napoleonic Wars to WWII, the Saxon town of Görlitz was part of the Prussian province of Silesia, which now belongs to Poland. Today, Görlitz is part of Germany right on the border with Poland and the city maintains many of the Silesian customs, traditions, costumes, cuisine and even its dialect.

The city’s historical importance is evident in its well-preserved architecture, which reflects its past as a wealthy trading town. It was never destroyed during the war and so its buildings are original and incredibly romantic. Each year the city stages the Schlesischer Christkindelmarkt (Silesian Christmas Market). From Friday, November 28 to Sunday, December 14, 2025 the Untermarkt (below the medieval hall) is transformed into a festive village. Wooden chalets brim with gingerbread, hand-carved angels and regional crafts, and the scent of mulled wine wafts past the Gothic St. Peter’s Church. There are special church services,baking, reading, singing and music, plus the “Görlitz Christkind” (christ child) which makes a daily appearance on the market. Bautzen offers a quiet, historic counterpoint to the big-city markets.

Görlitz

Seiffen: Germany’s Christmas Capital in the Ore Mountains

Nestled high in the “Erzgebirge” (Ore Mountains), the village of Seiffen is the Christmas capital of all Germany as it is where many of the beautiful Christmas treasures are created. The nutcracker and the smokers were invented in Seiffen as the woodcutters used their winter time in industrious ways to create the wooden toys, gifts, keepsakes, candles and figurines.

Here families have been making wooden toys and decorations for over 300 years. In Seiffen’s narrow lanes, workshops and shops spill out seasonal bounty: nutcrackers, smoking men, pyramids and candle arches. Local artisans say this craft is truly their passion. As one woodcarver explains, “People are amazed that we can spend so long painting a few details on a minuscule doll’s head… But we love our craft – it’s a love many of us have had since we were children.” Visitors to Seiffen can tour family workshops and the Toy Museum (Spielzeugmuseum), tasting Erzgebirge biscuits amid snow-dusted firs and candlelight. It is truly quintessential Saxon Christmas tableau.

Traditional Christmas Handicraft

They Ate What? Food through the ages.

cooking, Historic foodways, Historic Restaurants

The Oldest Recorded Recipe – What Did They Eat 4,000 Years Ago? https://flip.it/Y77d3O

It’s Not Too Late to Attend the Bourbon Classic

Distiller Spirits, Distilleries, Drink, Drink mixes, Events, Gastronomy, Historic foodways, Historic Restaurants, James B. Beam Distillery, Kentucky Bourbon Classic, Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Louisville, Regional & Ethnic, Southern cuisine, Tours

https://www.bourbonclassic.com/saturday/

NYTimes: The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years

Asian cooking, Books, Chefs, Desserts, Farm-to-Table, Gastronomy, Gourmet, Healthy eating, Historic foodways, Indian Food, Italian Cuisine, Mediterranean, Michelin, Michelin Star, Persian food, Pizza, Regional & Ethnic, Restaurants, Southern cuisine, Thai, Vegetarian

The 25 Most Influential Cookbooks From the Last 100 Years https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/t-magazine/most-influential-cookbooks.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Article: 20 Stunning Romanian Cities And Towns You Have to See – A Journey Through History, Culture and Hidden Gems!

Adventure, Historic foodways, Historic Restaurants

20 Stunning Romanian Cities And Towns You Have to See – A Journey Through History, Culture and Hidden Gems! https://flip.it/iooKft

Lost Recipes of Prohibition

Cocktail Recipes, Prohibition

When I was writing my book, A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana (History Press), about Nettie Diamond, a wealthy widow and pharmacist who was murdered by her fifth husband, a much younger bootlegger named Harry in Indiana Harbor on Valentine’s Day 1923, described by the Chicago Tribune as a ‘juicy . . . page-turner’ of a true crime story about gold digging, adultery, and a slaying on Valentine’s Day, 1923, I was intrigued about how easy it was to get booze back then. And one way, was for drugstores to get a permit during Prohibition to buy medicinal alcohol and distribute it.

That may be why loved Lost Recipes of Prohibition: Notes from A Bootlegger’s Manual by Matthew Rowley (The Countryman Press 2015; $27.95). Nominated for a James Beard Award, it contains more than 100 secret and forgotten formulas for illicit booze

Rowley, who describes himself as specializing in folk distilling and the manufacture and distribution of illicit spirits, was given an old book titled The Candle and The Flame, The Work of George Sylvester Viereck. The interior didn’t contain any poems by Viereck, a popular poet up until his pro-German sensibilities during World War I made him a pariah in the U.S. Instead, the book’s once blank pages contained a plethora of handwritten distilled spirit recipes procured and preserved by a New York pharmacist named Victor Alfred Lyon.

As for Harry, he wasn’t supposed to sell alcohol for non-medicinal purposes like he did—by adding real spirit company labels to his own bottles…but that was Harry who also. According to Rowley, many pharmacists made alcoholic concoctions to help ailing (or just plain thirsty) customers and many distilleries were allowed to continue to operate to provide product. Rowley points out that during Prohibition, the sale of sacramental wine went sky high as people suddenly became much more religious.

Lyon’s recipes were collected from a variety of sources and at the time he was gathering them, some were a century or so old. Rowley organized the recipes in chapters such as Absinthe, Cordials, and Bitters and Gin; Compounding Spirits and Gin, Whiskey and Rum.

Less a cookbook than a history and how-to of spirit making, Rowley does include many of Lyon’s recipes from a simple cocktail that silent screen movie star Mary Pickford enjoyed to the complex (and supersized) such as one for Rumessenz which calls for gallons of ingredients and was used by wholesalers, barkeepers, importers and exporters to make an essence of rum they could use for adding the aroma and tastes of rum to a batch of plain alcohol creating a higher profit margin.

That’s similar to what Harry Diamond did as well and at his trial he told the court he made about $20,000 a month from bootlegging. And that was in 1923 dollars.

Harry went to the electric chair so he didn’t have much time to enjoy his earnings. But in celebration of the newly found recipes of Prohibition, mix up a drink or two and enjoy!

Lanizet: Sour Mash Cajun Anisette

3 quarts water
25 ounces sugar
½ teaspoon anise oil
½ tablespoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon red food coloring
3 cups bourbon or Tennessee whiskey
5 to 7 pounds ice

Pour 1 ½ quarts of the water in a medium stockpot. Note the depth of the liquid. Later, you will boil the syrup to this height. For now, pour in the remaining water and all the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer until the liquid reduces to 1 ½ quarts, 50 or 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.

While the syrup is simmering, sterilize five new or well-scrubbed 1-pint canning jars in a deep pot or canning pot. Leave the jars in the hot water until you’re ready to use them. Wash and boil the lids and rings according to the manufacturer’s directions.

When the syrup reaches that 1.5-lquart mark, turn off the heat and remove the pot from heat. Stir in the anise oil, vanilla and food coloring until thoroughly mixed, then stir in the whiskey. Remove the jars from their hot water bath with tongs. Place the jars (don’t touch with your bare hands) on a wooden surface or folded towels and immediately pour the crimson liquid into the jars up to 1⁄2 inch from the tops. Wipe any dribbles or spills from the rims with a clean, damp cloth and place hot lids on top with sealing compound down; screw on the metal rings firmly but not too tightly.

Line your sink with a damp dish towel; it will prevent the hot jars from breaking when they touch the cool surface. Immediately place the jars upright in the sink, then slowly fill it with cool tap water so it covers the jars. As the jars cool, you’ll hear a series of metallic pops and pings; that’s a vacuum forming in each jar. When the jars are cool to the touch, after 5 to 10 minutes, place them upright in a tub of ice, with ice to top off the jars, to cool the anisette as quickly as possible. Once contents of jars are well chilled, about 1 hour, remove the jars from the ice. Label and date the jars, then store upright in a cool, dark place.

Yield: 5 pints

From Lost Recipes of Prohibition.