Leipziger Lerche

The Leipziger Lerche is a pastry specialty from Leipzig, whose name recalls the earlier in Leipzig as a culinary delicacy in particular consumed on feast days songbirds. The pastry was invented after the official ban of bird trapping in the urban area in 1876. It is a variant of the Makronentörtchens, which consists of pastry and is filled with a paste of crushed almonds and walnuts. It is studded with two crossed strips of dough. The term Leipziger Lerche is protected by the Landesinnungsverband Saxonia since 2004.

History

Songbirds have been eaten since the Middle Ages in Europe, even in Germany. Larks were considered a delicacy and the Leipzig region was for centuries a major fishing area. Recipes for Leipzig larks were found in the 18th and 19th century in any known cookbook. The birds were fried in homes and guest houses, trained with a thread and baked with herbs and eggs or cooked as a pie and also sent abroad. Only in 1720 were sold to the Leipzig city gates over 400,000 larks. During the Leipzig Trade Fair every year they have been prepared in large quantities by the local bakers.

In the 19th century, the animal protection movement grew in importance and influence, and the consumption of songbirds has been increasingly criticized. Animal protection groups demanded to generally emphasize songbirds from the list of game animals. Finally, the Saxon King Albert I in 1876 officially banned Lerch hunting.

According to tradition, the pastry was a replacement for the no longer prepared songbirds. " While it is not clearly documented, but there is evidence suggesting that the first impulse for a corresponding pastries emanating from the Leipzig bakers who had been baked the larks for the freight teamsters in their ovens. (...) Even if the form has become increasingly easier over the years, to name and pastries should now have received over 100 years. "