Ein Ruzzige Küechlin

This fascinating recipe comes from the 14th century German cookbook, Ein Buch von Guter Spise published in 1345. I used a network copy provided by Alia Atlas ©1993 and 1995, which is available on the WWW at http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/akatlas/Buch/. This work was based upon a transcription published in 1844, the original manuscript was part of a household manual which Michael de Leone, the proto-notary of the Bishop of Würzburg, had organized. The original is in the university library of Munich. The manuscript was dated between 1345 and 1354, and contains 101 recipes. The recipe used to create this dish was #52:

The redaction provided by Alia Atlas for this recipe is as follows:

The first “pizza” I baked using this recipe was wonderful, with a subtle flavor and powerful aroma that filled the house! Having received very positive and creative input from family members and others in the Barony, I decided to improvise by adding meat to recipe. This follows with a traditional German orientation toward meat pies and even meat pastries which is evident in this same recipe book. In addition, Alia’s redaction was not very specific on nature of the bread dough, and so I used a very basic whole wheat yeast dough to which I added 2 tbsp of Olive Oil to better allow the bread to separate from the pan, and to further “nudge” the flavor of the dish toward a modern “Pizza” flavor.