I have chosen 3 recipes from the facsimile Handschrift of Maister Hannsen Des von Wirtenberg Koch, to transliterate, translate into English (while retaining the sentence structure of the original) and then re-create giving modern measurements and detailed instructions.

The book I used, Maister Hannsen Des von Wirtenberg Koch, is a facsimile of a handwritten 1460 cookbook. This 1996 edition has a section at the end, which contains a transliteration into modern lettering, a translation into modern German, and a few pages of notes and appendices. The original book bears the stamp of the University library at Basel, Germany. Since people wrote as they spoke, the writers' dialect is preserved in the pages of the book; and the dialect in Maister Hannsen indicates a Bavarian influence. Many of the recipes are designed for a nobleman's table as is evidenced by the lavish use of spices and the gilded nutmeg in the recipes I used.

It is unclear whether Maister Hannsen created these recipes or merely transcribed them. According to Dr. Ehlert a number of Maister Hannsen's recipes are quite similar to recipes in other collections such as the Wolfenbu:ettler Handschrift and the Reichenauer Kochbuch.

A white hedgehog (of almonds)

A black hedgehog (of ginger and spice)

Another hedgehog (of figs)

The transliteration, translation and re-creation are my own work. Gwen.