Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
Lilienfelder-Voralpen Wild
Record Number: 126
Disclosure Date
There is evidence of hunting having been practiced in the region since the twelfth century.
Photo: BMLFUW/A...
Lilienfelder-Voralpen Wild
(Lilienfelder-Voralpen wild game)
Abstract or claim
Traditionally-produced specialities made from wild game meat from roe deer, wild boar, red deer, chamois and mouflon living freely in the Lilienfelder-Voralpen region.
The wild game is allowed to reach maturity free of stress and roaming free in a natural environment in meadows and Alpine pastures, contributing fundamentally to the lasting upkeep of the landscape of the region.
Name of product, Product class
Wild game, meat products
Name of region
Lilienfeld, Lower Austria, Austria
Field of search
Food and agriculture
Name of information provider
Martin Schacherl
Name of applicant for title
---
Holder of knowledge or associated resources
Hunters and users in the Lilienfeld region
Grantee(s), holder(s), assignee(s) or owner(s) of title, if any
---
Descriptors
- History:
Humans have been hunting since the Palaeolithic Age. At that time, prey served purely as a means of survival and sustenance, with pelts being used to provide protection from the elements, and bones to fashion primitive tools and weapons. Meat from animals was an indispensable basis for human nutrition. From the beginnings of such human activity as a hunter through to the seventh century A.D., all game could be caught or hunted at any time, in any place and with whatever means available.
As settlement and domestication of animals grew, however, hunting ceased to be of primary importance as a foundation for life amongst large swathes of the population, increasingly being replaced by agriculture and the breeding of livestock.
Hunting in Austria:
In the early Middle Ages, the right to hunt became ever more detached from the right to own land, and hunting developed into a privilege, as only those who owned land were also allowed to hunt. In the Middle Ages, only the regional sovereign (this might be a King, an Emperor or a Duke, or possibly a member of the upper echelons of the nobility or clergy) was permitted to own land. As a result, farmers and ordinary citizens, as well as the majority of the landed gentry, became excluded from hunting.
Areas where the king alone had the right to hunt were defined as ‘royal hunting grounds’. As centralised royal power declined in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the power of regional sovereigns grew, the hunting rights previously enjoyed by the king alone passed to these sovereigns, who claimed the right to hunt on the territory they now controlled.
At the end of the Middle Ages (from around 1500 onwards), the ‘Jagdregal’ (a law granting the sovereign the right to hunt on another person’s land) resulted in ever greater expansion by the feudal sovereigns into areas in which they were not the landowners.
The sovereigns thereby acquired land without an owner, as well as private land, and took control over it. This resulted in ever greater groups of people being excluded from the practice of hunting.
From that time onwards, baronial or knightly hunting was no longer about the prey that was being hunted, but the staging, or ‘how’ it was hunted.
The Middle Ages also saw the creation of a distinction between ‘high hunting’ – for large wild game, which was reserved for the nobility – and ‘low hunting’ (for lower clergy, etc.), for smaller animals such as rabbits and birds, as well as deer, the only type of hoofed game to be classified as small game.
Since hunting was the privilege of the exclusive society for centuries, recipes for dishes featuring wild game were initially only to be found in the cookbooks of noble-aristocratic and Church circles. Venison (meat from wild game) provided most of the fresh meat used in the kitchens of the court, monasteries and nobility, especially in the winter months.
Kaiser Joseph II (1741 - 1790) eventually lifted the monopoly on hunting enjoyed by the landowners and clergy with his ‘Josephine Patent’ of 28 February 1786.
Citizens and farmers were unable to purchase or lease a hunting ground until 1818, however.
It was only when Kaiser Franz-Joseph (1830 - 1916) repealed the hunting licence which authorised hunting on another person’s land in the mid-nineteenth century that private, or communal and cooperative, hunting became established, and dishes featuring wild game found their way into bourgeois cuisine.
The first hunting laws in Austria appeared on the statute books at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, each of the nine Austrian federal provinces has its own provincial hunting law.
Hunting in Lower Austria:
Classification by ‘high’ and ‘low’ hunting could be found in Lower Austrian hunting regulations until the reign of Joseph II.
In a decree issued to the Lower Austrian Forestry Offices in 1495, Maximilian I (1459 - 1519) declared that high hunting was to include red deer and wild boar, as well as chamois, rabbits, partridges, ducks and herons. Bears were classified as low hunting in Lower Austria, although other regions classed them as high hunting.
In Lower Austria, the ruler of the surrounding region played a dominant role in hunting. As a major landowner, moreover, he had the right to hunt across large parts of the province.
Lower Austria was given its own hunting law in 1901.
Professional hunters were not always a legally-recognised group in Lower Austria. In 1995, the Niederösterreichische Berufsjägervereinigung (‘Lower Austrian Professional Hunting Association’) was founded by the Lower Austrian Regional Hunting Association in cooperation with the Regional Chamber of Labour and Regional Chamber of Agriculture. The profession of ‘hunter’ was reintegrated into Lower Austrian hunting law in 1999.
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
There is evidence of hunting having been practiced in the region since the twelfth century.
Lower Austria maintained the ‘Jägeratzung’, a legal obligation to provide the owner of the hunting ground, hunters and their hunting dogs with food and lodging during the hunt. The regional sovereign would often commission the monasteries under his rule with doing this. A decree of 6 January 1632 to the Abbot of Lilienfeld Monastery shows that the monasteries of Melk, Göttweig, St. Pölten, Lilienfeld, Klosterneuburg and Zwettl had been performing this service for many years. Although the monasteries made considerable efforts to rid themselves of these duties, this was not so easy. Lilienfeld Monastery was one of the first monasteries since 1631 to defy this obligation.
Poaching was not punished as strictly or brutally in Lilienfeld as it was in other provinces of Austria. As the ‘hunters‘ regulation’ of Lilienfeld Monastery of 1699 substantiates, hunters were not permitted to take poachers’ weapons away from them, or the illegally acquired wild game. Only the abbot could impose punishments.
Members of the order were not permitted to hunt. As a result, Lilienfeld Monastery has hired secular professional hunters to oversee all the work connected with hunting since the beginning of the eighteenth century. The monastery also introduced ‘quiet zones’ in its hunting grounds, where hunters were only allowed to hunt ‘dangerous wild game’ (bears, wolves and lynxes). By providing wild animals with a chance to withdraw, such quiet zones were designed to ensure the wild game could reproduce, keeping the stock at healthy levels.
- Region:
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
The municipality of Lilienfeld is the most densely-forested region in Austria (around 78 % of the region is covered in forest, as a result of which it is also referred to as the “österreichische Waldmark” or “Austrian forest march”). The region consists of the Traisental and Gölsental valleys.
The Lilienfeld region lies in the Lower Austrian ‘Voralpen’ (‘Alpine foothills’), and takes in parts of the Lower Austrian-Styrian Limestone Alps, the Gutenstein Alps, and, in the north-eastern part of the region, the Wienerwald forest.
The highest elevations in the region are the Ötscher, at 1,893 metres above sea level, and the Göller, at 1,766 metres.
Climate:
Atlantic conditions dominate the region. The volume of rainfall is around 800-1000 mm per annum.
Summers in the Alps tend to be cool, and the mountainous regions are rich in snow in the winter.
The median annual temperatures reach 8.3 °C in Lilienfeld. The average temperature in summer is 15.5 °C and –4.9 °C in winter.
Flora and soil conditions:
The region is shaped by a long vegetation period of about 240 days.
The flora in the region is caused by soil and climate conditions, and distinguished by a wide diversity of special plants.
From a geological viewpoint, the Alpine foothills belong to the Molasse Zone. Its Tertiary Era deposits have been cut through by the rivers of the Alpine foothills such as the Traisen, as a result of which terrace landscapes have formed with marshlands lying in between them. In the interplay with climatic and other influences, these elements of the landscape have created a broad spectrum of soils.
Habitat:
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
There are 219 hunting grounds in the Lilienfeld municipality, covering a total area of some 94,000 hectares. The stock of wild game includes more than 15,000 animals, which live and roam freely in natural conditions year-round on meadows and mountain pastures, at altitudes ranging between 300 and 1,900 metres above sea level.
- Wild game:
The term ‘wild game’ is used to describe animals living free in a natural environment, subject to the hunting laws of the province in question.
- Lilienfelder-Voralpen Wild (Lilienfelder-Voralpen wild game):
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
One-third of the entire Lower Austrian stock of wild game comes from the Lilienfelder-Voralpen region.
Production process:
Some 900 hunters devote their time and energy to feeding and hunting the wild game in the Lilienfeld hunting grounds. This figure includes 185 persons authorised to hunt, i.e. landowners of the hunting ground or tenants from outside the area, fellow citizens with hunting passes taking part in the hunt as guests or trackers, and 10 professional hunters.
The unrestricted freedom of movement and varied range of nutrition from herbs and grasses are directly responsible for the pleasant flavour of meat from wild game. Thanks to the sustainable methods of agriculture used in the region, wild animals can also feed in areas outside the forest, the vast majority of which are farmed organically.
The beginning and end of the feeding seasons are regulated, and the feed that may be used. Wild game is only fed in the winter months. Maize silage, hay, second-growth hay and turnips from the region are used as feedstuff.
It is not permitted for medication to be used.
Hunting:
The hunting season starts at the beginning of May and ends on 31 December. In 2008, 5,190 wild game were hunted in the region.
Stocks of wild game are sustainably managed, i.e. only those animals which will “grow back” are shot. The ‘minimum kill’ should be that year’s increase in numbers of stock, with one-third of male, one-third of female and one-third of young animals each being shot.
After the hunting, the wild game is cut up and disembowelled as quickly as possible. After this, the meat is stored for about a week in a refrigerated venison chamber at temperatures of between 2 and 8 °C to allow the meat to mature.
After storage, the venison is transported to regional butchers, where it is processed and packaged.
Nutritional value:
Venison is low in calories and cholesterol, high in vitamins, and lower fat and higher protein content than meat from farm animals. Venison is rich in Vitamin B1, B2, B6 and B12 and well-known for its mineral content and trace elements such as iron, zinc and selenium.
Quality control and quality distinction:
Before hunting, the hunter inspects the wild game optically for any distinctive features.
The wild game is subjected to an official meat inspection by the hunter, and inspected for any animal diseases or parasites (such as TBC, bladder worms or trichinae) which could be transferred to humans. The meat inspection is performed by the hunter in person.
Following the inspection, the meat packaging is given a ‘health mark’, in the form either of a five-cornered stamp (meaning it can be sold both within the EU common market and the national market) or a quadratic stamp (for the national market only).
- Marketing:
Fresh venison is only available during the hunting season, from early May to end-December. Deep-frozen meat and processed products can be enjoyed year-round.
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
Traditional customs are upheld at events such as the annual ‘Jagaweihnacht’ held in the Dormitorium of Lilienfeld Monastery, when visitors have the chance to enjoy culinary specialities featuring wild game.
Connection between the geographical area and traditional knowledge:
- Special soil and climate conditions in the Lilienfelder-
Voralpenregion, with its diverse range of local Alpine
flora, enable wild game to reproduce sustainably.
- In harmony with the native soil: feeding of the wild game with meadow grasses
and herbs from the region. Any additional feeding takes place exclusively in
the winter months.
- Lilienfelder-Voralpen Wild lives and roams freely in a natural environment
year-round, reaching maturity by natural selection in the Lilienfeldregion.
- Thanks to its husbandry, wild game can be produced with a characteristic
composition. The meat has a unique aroma and flavour, both of which are
directly related to the local Alpine flora ingested by the animal.
- Production of Lilienfelder-Voralpen wild game is the result of traditional
knowledge handed down to those active in this field. This takes in the traditional
knowledge and experience of hunters (compliance with closed seasons, and
hunting methods), and the know-how of processors as well as restaurant
owners and caterers.
- Utilisation:
Photo: BMLFUW/Rita Newman
Hoofed game is also available in bulk from the hunter or retailer.
- Protection:
-
Key Words
Food and agriculture, traditional knowledge, Austria, Lower Austria, region, Lilienfeld, Voralpen, Alpine foothills, meat, wild game, venison
Bibliography / References
- Amt der Niederösterreichischen Landesausstellung,
Abt. III/2-Kulturabteilung. Jagd einst und heute, Katalog
zur Niederösterreichischen Landesausstellung Schloss Marchegg,
Wien, 1978
- BAUER, J. Die Flora der Eisenwurzen, Kulturpark Eisenstraße-Ötscherland
http://schatzsuche.eisenstrasse.multimediaplan.kosnet.com/docs/flora_der_eisenwurzen.pdf
- Bezirk Lilienfeld
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezirk_Lilienfeld
- Bundesgesetzblatt für die Republik Österreich, 108. Verordnung der
Bundesministerin für Gesundheit und Frauen über die Direktvermarktung
von Lebensmitteln (Lebensmittel-Direktvermarktungsverordnung)
- Das Haarwild
http://www.jagdverb-ooe.at/Wildkunde/Haarwildarten/HAARWILD.htm
- Das Mostviertel
http://schule.josephinum.at/fileadmin/data/projekt_regionalitaet/Zusammenfassung-mostviertel.pdf
- Das Mostviertel
http://www.mostviertel.at/birnmost.cfm
- Die Fleischqualität ist abhängig von:
http://www.8ung.at/kirischitz/beschau.htm
- Die Jörger
http://www.araburg.at/die-joerger
- jagd.wien.at
Das Webportal des Wiener Landesjagdverbandes
http://www.jagd-wien.at/Weidmannsheil.1128.0.html?&no_cache=1
- Gasthof und Fleischerei Gnedt
http://www.gnedt.at/inhalte/voralpenwild.html
- Genussregion „Lilienfelder Voralpen Wild“ beim „Klingenden
genussvollen Traisental-Fest“, nöwi, Zeitung der Wirtschaftskammer
Niederösterreich, Ausgabe 8, 7.März 2008, S. 34
http://wko.at/wknoe/presse/nowi/n0808.pdf
- Jagd
http://de.wikipedia.org./wiki/Jagd
- Kennzeichnung durch den Tierarzt
http://www.8ung.at/kirischitz/beschau.htm
- KULTURABTEILUNG-KÄRNTNER LANDESAUSSTELLUNG. Alles Jagd…eine
Kulturgeschichte, Kärntner Landesausstellung Ferlach 1997, S. 220
- LEBERSORGER, P. Die Jagd in Niederösterreich. In: Niederösterreich.
Eine Kulturgeschichte von 1861 bis heute, Band 3, Böhlau Verlag Ges.m.b.H.
und Co.KG, Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2006, S. 213-235
- Lilienfeld – BILDER
http://www.tiscover.at/at/guide/32336sy,de,SCH1/objectId,RGN129706at,season,at2,selectedEntry,pict/pict.html
- Lilienfelder-Voralpen Wild
http://www.genuss-region.at/article/archive/24600
- MAIER-BRUCK F. (2003): Wild. In: Klassische Österreichische Küche,
Seehamer Verlag GmbH, Weyarn, S. 357-360
- MAIER-BRUCK F. Vom Essen auf dem Lande, 2. Auflage, Verlag Kremayr
& Scheriau, Wien, 1995, S. 162,
- MISCHEK, M. Die Jagd in Niederösterreich vom 16. bis zum 18. Jahrhundert,
Diplomarbeit, Wien, 1990, S.70ff., 110
- Mostviertel
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostviertel
- Niederwild
http://www.jagd.it/niederwild/index.htm
- PROSSINAGG, H. Heimatkunde des Bezirkes Lilienfeld, 6. Band,
Bezirksheimatmuseum Lilienfeld, 1995, S. 13f., 41-49, 75-78, 109-121
- RAUCHENECKER, K. BECKMANN, V. Jagdgenossenschaften im Wandel –
Ist die Zwangsmitgliedschaft gerechtfertigt?, Humboldt Universität zu
Berlin, Berlin, 2004
http://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/06//igt/papers/Workshop11/Abstracts/Dr_V_Beckmann_Fr_K_Rauchenecker/Rauchenecker_Beckmann_IGT_2004.pdf
- Regionales-Gemeinden / Lilienfeld / Statistik
http://www01.noel.gv.at/scripts/cms/ru/ru2/stat.asp?NR=31407
- TAUNER, J. Klimadaten vom Einzugsgebiet der Schwechat/Niederösterreich,
Projektpraktikum „Flussmorphologie“, 2005
http://www.unterach.com/rollo//FluMor/Handout_Praesentation.pdf
- Über Land & Leute
http://www.mostviertel.info/mostviertel/portal/default.asp?tt=MOSTVIERTEL_R3
- Wild
http://www.spezifleischer.at/wild.html
- Wild, en.: game, fr.: gibier, it.: cacciagione, caccia, es.: salvajina, venado
http://www.lebensmittellexikon.de/w0000450.php
- Wildbret – ein Beitrag für gesunde Ernährung?
http://www.raumberg-gumpenstein.at
All internet references last accessed on 28 May 2009.
Language Code
German
Product of www.genuss-region.at
Yes
Regional contact
Mr. Martin Schacherl
Gasthof zum Goldenen Ochsen
Markt 10
3184 Türnitz
Phone: 02769/8323
E-mail: info@goldenerochse.at
Authors: Doris Reinthaler, Eva Sommer, Erhard Höbaus
14.12.2011, Lebensministerium III/4