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Yesterday we had a lot of fun exploring the derivation of Italian "Panettone: augmentative of the diminutive" and beyond.  Another Yuletide cake I'm eating these days is German stollen, but its etymology is not so exciting:

Middle High German stolle < Old High German stollo ("post, support"), documented since the 9th century, from the Indo-European root (*stel- "to set up; standing, stiff; post, trunk") and thus related to stable (compare Greek στήλη (stēlē) ("pillar, post"). From "supporting support, post" the meaning "underground passage" (13th century) developed; the meaning "Christmas biscuits" arose from a comparison with the block-like support (18th century).

modified GT of:

mittelhochdeutsch stolle < althochdeutsch stollo „Pfosten, Stütze“, belegt seit dem 9. Jahrhundert, zur indogermanischen Wurzel *stel- „(auf)stellen; stehend, steif; Pfosten, Stamm“ und damit verwandt mit Stall (vergleiche griechisch στήλη (stēlē)  „Säule, Pfosten“). Aus „tragende Stütze, Pfosten“ entwickelte sich die Bedeutung „unterirdischer Gang“ (13. Jahrhundert) heraus; die Bedeutung „Weihnachtsgebäck“ entstand aus einem Vergleich mit der klotzartigen Stütze (18. Jahrhundert).

(Wiktionary)

Although this explanation may be academically impressive, it leaves much to be desired in terms of what "stollen" really means.  Here I turn to the folkish "Advent Calendar 17 – 'How to gain weight fast'” by Emanuel in YourDailyGerman (2/5/21):

der Stollen

Wow, what a name for a pastry. Stollen. Katchung. Sounds uber German. And it’s actually not only the name for a cake, it’s also what mining tunnels are called. How do these two things connect? Well, the origin of Stollen is actually a word we all know really well: stellen (to put).  A Stollen originally had the idea of “thing that stands/makes stand” and before it was used for the mining tunnel itself, Stollen was the word for the rough, wooden posts and lumps that were used in mining.

And that’s what probably inspired people hundreds of years ago to name their cake-bread after it –  because Stollen isn’t an elegant, noble cake. Not at all. It’s a bulky lump. And it’s super heavy, too. Like… the average weight of one pound of Stollen is 2.3 pounds. I know, sounds surreal, right?

The rest of Emanuel's post is super entertaining and informative, and even includes a meme about not being able to un-stollen Christmas as well as two YouTube recipes, both under ten minutes, spoken in very clear German, one my a motherly older woman and one by a vivacious younger woman.

Enjoy!  But try to limit yourself to one slice of stollen per day.  Otherwise, you might end up being lumpy, dumpy, stumpy yourself.

 

Selected readings

• "Panettone: augmentative of the diminutive" (12/21/24)
• "Stollen history", Dresden Stollen Bakers — they're all sold out for 2024; best to make an order for the 2025 holiday season now

 

Afterword:  Dresden Stollen festival

Every year the Stollenfest takes place in Dresden. This historic tradition ended only in 1918 with the fall of the monarchy, and started again in 1994, but the idea comes from Dresden's history.

Dresden's Christmas market, the Striezelmarkt, was mentioned in the chronicles for the first time in 1474.

The tradition of baking Christmas stollen in Dresden is very old. Christmas stollen in Dresden was already baked in the 15th century.

In 1560, the bakers of Dresden offered the rulers of Saxony Christmas Stollen weighing 36 pounds (16 kg) each as gifts, and the custom continued.

Augustus II the Strong (1670–1733) was the Elector of Saxony, King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania. The king loved pomp, luxury, splendour and feasts. In 1730, he impressed his subjects, ordering the Bakers’ Guild of Dresden to make a giant 1.7-tonne stollen, big enough for everyone to have a portion to eat. There were around 24,000 guests taking part in the festivities on the occasion of the legendary amusement festivity known as Zeithainer Lustlager. For this special occasion, the court architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann (1662–1737), built a particularly oversized Stollen oven. An oversized Stollen knife was also designed solely for this occasion.

Today, the festival takes place on the Saturday before the second Sunday in Advent, and the cake weighs between three and four tonnes. A carriage takes the cake in a parade through the streets of Dresden to the Christmas market, where it is ceremoniously cut into pieces and distributed among the crowd, in return for a small payment which goes to charity. A special knife, the Grand Dresden Stollen knife, a silver-plated knife, 1.60 metres (5.2 ft) long weighing 12 kilograms (26 lb), which is a copy of the lost baroque original knife from 1730, is used to cut the oversize Stollen at the Dresden Christmas fair.

The largest stollen was baked in 2010 by Lidl; it was 72.1 metres (237 ft) long and was certified by the Guinness Book of World Records, at the railway station of Haarlem.

(Wikipedia)

See here for a large photograph of the Grand Dresden Stollen knife, escorted by a pastry chef with an appreciable stollengirth.

 

December 22, 2024 @ 8:05 am · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and culture, Language and food

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