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The Swabian Seele (soul)

 Lilo Nold

The Swabian "soul" is a typical Swabian bread made of white flower, water and salt and belongs to the group of "shaped breads" i.e. breads formed by hand. The term "soul" points out that this bread can be seen in connection with the double feast of All Saints Day/All Souls Day, a feast to commemorate the dead. Today you can get this kind of bread the whole year round in the Swabian bakeries. In the past it was domiciled mainly in the area of the Allgaeu and of the Lake of Constance.

History:

A large number of cults and worships of the dead were known already in pre-Christian times and non-Christian cultures. In 835 Pope Gregor IV fixed the 1st of November as the Feast of all the saints - i.e. All Saints Day, a date, which has been retained unchanged until today. The feast was introduced to Germany by Ludwig the Pious. If this date served to commemorate the saints, All Souls Day was the commemoration day of the dead. In 998 it was introduced by the church und fixed on the 2nd of November.

We can assume that All Souls Day has a connection to a pre-Christian feast of the dead. Fixing the date to the turn from autumn to winter is characteristic for these ancient feasts, as this was a period with a special status in the cycle of the year. It was seen as the moment of the opening of the underworld and in this connection the ritual of offering food plays an important role. Both go back to the idea that the dead were situated in a constant cycle, but that they would resurge out of their graves every year on the turn from autumn to winter in order to demand from offering of food from the living. If this wish of the ancestral spirits was fulfilled, this should bring a rich harvest and health to those bereaved during the next year. So the All Souls' day was accompanied by many different customs.

Customs:

The feeding of the "Poor Souls" played a very important part. Bread and wine were put on the graves as a meal for the dead. For a long time the church forbade these old cults and the food offerings to the dead or looked them suspiciously. By and by a symbolic offering in the form of donations was introduced instead of the material offerings for the dead. Bread-loafs called All Souls-Bread were given to the poor, the servants und the children. These could be either yeast breads in the form of a plaid called "Saints' bread" or "Souls' Bread" - the form of these breads differed from region to region and they were given in addition to money and clothes. Monasteries and communities and guilds spent large sums of money to provide these loafs of Souls' bread for the poor people. In many places it was the godfather who offered this kind of bread to his godchild. So there was a very close connection between the bread made by hand and given a particular form and the soul of the dead - the feast of All Souls' Day in former times was one of the most important dates for the production of hand shaped breads.

In many regions so-called "Armen Seelen-Geher" (Poor-Souls-Walkers) went form house to house during the days of the double feast of All Saints' day and All Souls' Day begging for an offering in favour of the dead by reciting sayings and subsequent thanks like for example "God bless the poor soul". These collectors of offerings were seen as the embodiment of "Poor Souls" to whom one presented the bread of All Saints in place of the dead. On the other hand these loaves of bread represented the wishes for a blessing of the dead on behalf of the givers of these offerings. From these donations they expected a happy new year and a rich harvest for themselves. A refusal would have brought bad luck and economic plight. A donation in the form of bread could not only free a poor soul from the purgatory but would also increase the blessing for the giver of the donation.

Development and changes:

I don't remember having seen this kind of bread during my childhood in the region of Ulm. I only got to know it in the sixties' when I came to my parents-in-law at the Lake Constance. Every bakery in this region sold "souls". In the seventies you could find this sort of bread now and then in the bakeries of our region. Today you can get them nearly everywhere.

My personal relationship:

The simple kneaded dough results in a very crunchy bread. Due to its baguette form it has a lot of very crispy crust. I like it much more than a simple roll.

Recipe:

Pre-dough:
250 g wheat flour, type 550, 150 g water, 3 g yeast

Main dough:
1250 wheat flour, 860 g water, 50 g yeast, 30 g salt, 30 g bakery malt, 20 g lard

Prepare a pre-dough from the flour, water and yeast and let it rest for 14 hours covered by cloth. Add the rest of the ingredients and knead well until you get soft dough. Let the dough rest for 80 minutes, put it on a table sprinkled with water and break baguettes of 20 cm from this dough using both wet hands. Put the baguettes at once on a baking sheet, sprinkle them with salt and caraway seeds and cook them in an oven at 250 C for about 23 minutes

Literatur: "Brotkultur", Hrg. Herr Dr. Eiselen
Dr. Irene Kraus "Die Schwäbische Seele", ABZ