In the middle ages, living off the land was very difficult and farmers had to get by with much lower crop yields. Baking was popular, and pig farming was generally successful since the animals could graze on acorns in nearby forests.

Braced for up to 70,000 believers, Berlin’s Olympic stadium will be the site of Holy Mass celebrated by Germany’s own Pope Benedict XVI. Both wine and bread have important roles to play. The nuns at the Abbey of St. Gertrude will do their part as well. Learn about the cloister’s bakery, which has been operational now for decades, supplying congregations and cloisters throughout the region (and now the Pope himself) with this important holy emblem of the Christian faith.

The Story of Soup-Kaspar is an old children’s story from the 19th century which appeared together with a number of other moral stories in a book, written by German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann, called Struwwelpeter.