Fundanell-Kügerl Zu Machen

This recipe is drawn from a 1699 Viennese medicinal compendium compiled by Eleonora Maria Rosalia, Duchess of Troppau and Jägerndorf. Embedded in a trove of herbal, domestic, and culinary wisdoms, these Kügerl (little balls) reflect the blend of empirical folk medicine and learned traditions typical of early modern European noble households. Medicinal recipes such as this were often intended to be made at home by informed ladies or their trusted household staff. They provided remedies for common ailments, here likely meant as a purgative or laxative. The book itself represents a fascinating intersection of gender, nobility, and healing in Baroque Central Europe.

Historically, making these balls would require a sturdy mortar and pestle (preferably marble or heated metal for melting resins), a gentle heat source such as a hearth or brazier to soften waxes and resins, and a cool, clean working table for rolling the mixture into balls. Scales capable of weighing small quantities (to measure loth, quentchen, and gran), and parchment or boxes for storing the finished Kügerl, would also have been used.