I can have 80% hydration

Yay me! A measuring mishap involving gravity led to this magnificent result. Quite chuffed.

#bread #brot #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig @brotbacken@fedigroups.social

The Flora is a park and botanical garden in Cologne. See: www.stadt-koeln.de/leben-in-…

Foe several years new greenhouses for tropical, subtropical and desert plants had been constructed, getting the climate right was apparently a real challenge, some contractors want bankrupt, getting the systems just right, … anyway, now they are open. The first few weeks it was almost impossible to get in, because many more people wanted to see than the climate in the tropics house allowed for.

But today it was merely well visited, so we had a good time. I‘ll have to come back another time, early on a rainy weekday perhaps, to have more leisure for photographs.

Here are a few along the lines of abstract surfaces.

#photography #fotografie #macroesk @photography@fedigroups.social

Sometimes a 300 mm lens comes in handy

So, how is my “research” going?

The answer is “perhaps” - new sources are going into my stash (Obsidian), information piles on, BUT, the goal remains elusive.

The goal remains, spent my retirement time cycling with my camera to places where trading goods of medieval Cologne had been produced, traded or used.

After the “success” of looking at Rhenish Stoneware I thought that medieaval harnesses might be a good next topic.

Oh my.

Getting the internet to even acknowledge an armour making industry in medieval Cologne was tricky. Mainly because the internet focuses on the flashy princely armour made in places like Augsburg and Nürnberg and ignores the workman like stuff, provided to troops in the 30 and 80 year wars.

Also the scholarly reception of armour and of specific guilds and trades seems to be sketchy. Here I’m open (desperate) for correction.

What we know:

• There is a guild of armour makers (Sarwörter)
• They are the naming guild of the Sarwörter Gaffel, one of 22, which are important parts of the constitutional reforms of 1396 in Cologne. A Gaffel sent elected representatives to the City Council, was responsible for the defence of a section of the city wall, …
• Cologne traded armour
  • in the City
  • in the Rhine and Maas Region
  • south, down the Rhine into France, Switzerland, …
  • north, up the Rhine into France, Netherlands, England, Skaninavia and the Baltics
  • etc.

But all that is not really cyclable or photographable

Thankfully @bookandswordblog@scholar.social helped with some sources, of which

• Pierre Terjanian, “The Armourers of Cologne: Organization and Export Markets of a Foremost European Armour-making Center (1391-1660),”
• Hermann Kellenbenz und Klara von Eyll eds., Zwei Jahrtausende Kölner Wirtschaft, Band I (Greven Verlag: Köln, 1975)

proved especially helpful.

The “Zwei Jahrtausende …” confirmed what I already knew, but also provided a few hundred suources for my overall “trading goods” search, but also for the harnesses. In the meantime I found a physical copy online for 7 € including shipping, so I’ll never be without it again, even when I get my loaner back to the library.

“The armourers …” went into details and also provided more sources, many of which were downloadable which is kind of ideal for Obsidian ;-)

I’m now more confident, that I can find places to cycle to and photograph.

So, thanks to @bookandswordblog@scholar.social and @mrundkvist@archaeo.social who made the connection

Best forming, we’ll not talk about the cuts (‘twas the angle, always the angle).

BUT I like colour and the smell.

#bread #brot #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig #Molke #whey @brotbacken@fedigroups.social

Focaccia molto crocante … by accident

Forgot to turn the oven down after heating to 250 C + But it was still very tasty. On top pieces of Gouda, which also got cross.

Also, forgot to take a picture of the finished product.

#focaccia #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig @brotbacken@fedigroups.social

I keep having to do this…

#bread #brot #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig

I did it again, more oven spring, not quite sure why? The unseasonal temperatures?

#bread #brot #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig

Today visit was a little frustrating.

Nice exhibits, appropriately labelled, starting with Roman period earthenware and continuing to contemporary and technical ceramics.

How clay is dug, how a potters wheel is used, how stoneware is burnt, including a very nice replica Kannenofen.

Of course Bartmänner are also on display.

Some of the connections to Siegburg, Raeren, Frechen, Cologne are mentioned, but, of the complex trade that carried the finished wares all over the world, no mention.

Of how the decorations on the stoneware aimed at a growing affluent group of lesser nobility, clergy and trades and let the potters compete with cheaper earthenware and more expensive pewter, no word.

There is a whole wall of stoneware bottles. There is a mention, that they were produced to order for Portuguese wine, English gin, sparkling water… But again, no mention of the trade routes.

The website is better, but has no links to sources. Still, if you are close, a fun morning or afternoon.

#historycycle #RhenishStoneware #photography #fotografie @photography@fedigroups.social

www.keramikmuseum.de/home-engl…

Crust ☑️ Crumb ❓

Have to wait till it cools

#brot #bread #sourdough #LievitoMadre #Sauerteig #molke #whey @brotbacken@fedigroups.social