After a two-year corona break, there will be another Andech Christmas market on the second weekend of Advent – with the famous living bed, but for the first time without the popular places of rural women.
andechs – In the year Since the first Christmas market in 1977, the Platzerl stand has been run by the women farmers of Erlingen with great success – with mulled wine, cookies and Christmas stole. In the pre-Corona years, twelve women were part of the group of bakers. “It used to be 20,” says Sylvia Issig, who organized the market for the Andechs community on the Holy Mountain. For over 40 years, each baker has baked around 1500 kilos of cookies and over 1000 stolen cookies each for sale on the stand, ensuring many Christmas items at the Christmas market. Platzerl is always first produced in early November, then Stollen – with quark or yeast. Finally, Elfriede Bauer always used a sprinkler based on her mother-in-law’s recipe. Every farmer’s wife had her own Platzerl favorites. There were about 30 recipes immortalized in the Mayor’s cookbook.
Sheetz calculates that an unimaginable 1.3 tons of dough was made just for Platzerl. People were lining up. Christmas pastries had fans beyond the district borders. Elfriede Bauer said a few years ago with a smile on her face, “Every year there is someone from Cologne to buy cookies.” She has been looking forward to this Christmas bakery for 44 years. If the ovens run out, they will be baked at night. All these years, the steady rush to Erling farmers has not stopped.
Now that’s over. The dedicated women’s group has said goodbye to a well-deserved “retirement” – at least for the Christmas market. Mayor Sheetz thanked the three bakers – Elfriede Bauer, Barbara Graf and Anna Schmaus – for their “huge success.”
In the future, the stand will be run by two local farmers, Sonja Frei and Beatrice Sheetz, with many hardworking hands – not just Erling’s rural women. “It’s the position of the rural women of Andichser right now,” says Tricy Sheetz, deputy local farmer in Erling and district farmer since this summer. It is a generational change.
Andean women continue to offer wine and children’s punch. Instead of platzer, however, there are Christmas cakes – walnut corners or red wine cakes. 20 young rural women from all three districts of Andech will participate in baking. “We have a few caves too, but not as big,” says Trixi Sheitz.
The Andechs Christmas Market is traditionally held on the second weekend of Advent on the Holy Mountain, this time from December 2nd to 4th. It is open every day from 12 pm to 8 pm. The living bed can be seen again, and Saint Nicholas comes to visit. Andechs musical groups sing and play.