Goethe menu at the Erbenhof
We welcome you to the Erbenhof residing in the heart of Weimar. Come in and take a seat!
Let us paint you a picture: We are in the era that historians refer to as ‘the late Goethe’. Privy Councillor Goethe has been married to Christiane Vulpius for 4 years. She runs the house that Duke Carl August gave him in 1749. Goethe is currently working on the West-Eastern Diwan, Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years, Elective Affinities and on his masterpiece, Faust.
His life was dominated by his work as Minister of State, scientific studies, representing the court and, of course, eating, drinking and savouring at his own table. We can well imagine that the dishes prepared in Goethe’s house could have come from the cookery book collection of his grandmother, Anna Margaretha Justine Lindheimer, later Mrs Textor.
Served on Weimar porcelain in the style of the time
Origin and inspiration
In 2016, the Goethe and Schiller Archive in Weimar hosted the first exhibition on the subject of the culinary arts during the Goethe era. In 2018, this exhibition of cookbooks, recipes and menu cards from the Goethe era was shown again. Weimar food blogger Petra Hermann, whom we hold in high esteem, discovered a recipe written down by a lady-in-waiting with the title: ‘Anchovy salad, very good’. Inspired by this finding, she rummaged through original documents to create a harmonious menu that the poet might have eaten at the beginning of the 19th century. Goethe loved meat, but was also an animal lover who cared about other beings’ welfare.
The result is a 4-course menu that you can easily imagine on an evening in 1810. The recipes have been slightly modernised, but essentially adhere to the traditional instructions.
Goethe Menu
Daily work! Evening guests! Hard weeks! Joyous feasts!
Secret Corners
Anchovy salad on toasted grey bread with beetroot crème
Food should please the eye first and then the stomach
Calf broth with small pâté
Grandma’s delicacies
Venison with morel sauce and Franconian dumplings
Those who bring much will give something to many…
Nun’s puffs with wine foam and apple cream,
served with Welsche Nüsse (black walnuts)
Goethe menu – Savoir-vivre in Weimar
A SMALL FORETASTE
First course
A culinary throwback to the early 19th century awaits you with the Secret Corners, named after the playful German word for a man’s receding hairline. It is said to have been one of Goethe’s favourite dishes — with anchovies, egg, jacket potatoes and other ingredients giving it a distintive flavour. Goethe even had this salad brought to his box in the Weimar court theatre.
Served on toasted grey bread, the salty flavour of the fish is gently rounded off by the egg, potatoes and sweet beetroot cream.
Second Course
We continue with a ‘calf broth with small patties’. As a modern variation, mushroom-filled dumplings await you. This hearty broth warms the body and awakens the anticipation of the main course — while the stomach remains light.
Main course
The recipe comes from Goethe’s grandmother’s cookbook. You can look forward to ‘Venison with morel sauce and Franconian dumplings’. Tender game melts with a gentle morel flavour in your mouth. The Franconian dumplings are actually bread dumplings. According to Petra Hermann, there is only one vegetable dish in Goethe’s grandmother’s cookery book: stuffed vine leaves.
Dessert
To finish, you can look forward to ‘Nun’s puffs with wine foam and apple cream, served with Welsche Nüsse’. Nowadays known as walnuts, these small dark nuts lend an earthy, solid undertone to the more intensely sweet nuances of the puffs and apple cream.
Especially in German, the name is somewhat misleading, pointing to a rather private moment in a nun’s life. ‘Nun’s puffs’ actually means ‘what nuns do best’. Perhaps this points to the dish’s origins, as leftover gingerbread from Christmas is used to achieve the hearty notes in the puff’s taste..
The wine foam, the fermented nuts and the apple cream add the finishing touches and give this simple dish a special flavour that will enchant your taste buds. The Savoir-vivre in Weimar: eating just like in Goethe’s time.
