Viadrina Museum - Gingerbread from the days of great-grandma: The scent of history
Bake gingerbread just like 100 years ago instead of reaching for pre-packaged Christmas treats on the supermarket shelves: Museum Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder) is making this possible in the run-up to Christmas. This Friday, children are invited to bake traditional gingerbread according to an old recipe in a kitchen just like in grandma's day. Museum educator Halina Muchow will introduce the young bakers to the secrets of the art of baking in the past. She is interested in the contemplation in the run-up to Christmas and the tranquillity with which the baking is done - a deceleration for the children, as she says. Because making gingerbread takes time.
At the heart of the process are so-called models, which were used around 1900 instead of the cookie cutters we know today. The children can fill the small plates with their indentations with dough and make Santa faces, snowmen, hearts or pine cones. Historic molds with baroque motifs from the late 18th century are among the treasures of the museum kitchen - but because of their age, they are only for viewing. The "Märkische Oderzeitung" had reported.
Instead, the little bakers get all the more insight into great-grandma's kitchen with a cooking machine from 1860, which is still heated with wood and coal. Old whisks made from Christmas tree trunks are also among the historic kitchen utensils. "In the past, everything was used sustainably, including the Christmas trees," explains Muchow.
The museum educator has already prepared the dough for the gingerbread. For hygiene reasons, the children are not allowed to help make it, she says regretfully. Measuring the ingredients with old units of measurement would certainly be educational. According to her, the recipe from the old days differs from more modern concoctions. Deer horn salt and sugar beet syrup are added to the mixture, along with butter, flour, eggs, a little milk and spices such as cloves and cinnamon. The syrup gives the dough a dark color. The main work is the stirring. It takes 45 minutes by hand, Muchow explains. For the dough to really succeed, it has to rest for one to two weeks.
The museum educator will pass on all this information to the children and add another amazing fact: When the gingerbread is taken out of the oven, it is still soft, but when it cools down it becomes hard. An apple would soften them again in the cookie tin. "These gingerbread cookies used to be eaten not only at Christmas time, but all year round. They have a long shelf life."
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- During their leisure time, children can engage in a traditional activity by baking gingerbread at the Viadrina Museum in Frankfurt (Oder), using models instead of modern cookie cutters.
- Museum educator Halina Muchow encourages contemplation and tranquility during the baking process, highlighting how gingerbread making was part of great-grandma's needs during Christmas.
- The Brandenburg-based museum features historical kitchen appliances like a 1860 cooking machine heated with wood and coal, demonstrating the sustainability practiced in the past during the Christmas season.
- Muchow shares an old gingerbread recipe that calls for deer horn salt and sugar beet syrup, along with other ingredients, explaining that the lengthy stirring process and dough resting period are crucial for the baked goods to have a long shelf life.
- As part of the museum's Christmas-themed activities, Muchow educates the children on how soft gingerbread becomes when removed from the oven but hardens as it cools, and how, traditionally, apples were used to soften stale gingerbread cookies.
Source: www.stern.de
