Deae elvinlam,
Being German myself, and also very interested in history, I think that
I can provide you an answer to your question.
I assume that your question relates to the times before the mid-19th
century, since the first German railway was built in 1835 and the
network of railways developed over the following decades.
Before that time, food was seldom transported over noteworthy
distances, with some exceptions. Generally, each region was depending
on the food produced locally. Overland highways were usually very bad,
usually not more than unpaved dirt roads. This made transport of food
in great quantities impossible. Only in the late 18th and early 19th
century, some German states began improvement of the main highways by
broadening them and covering them with macadam. However, even then the
means of transport available were very limited and basically unchanged
since medieval times. There were carts of various sizes, drawn by
dray-horses or sometimes oxen; and there were mules used as
pack-animals. With such means of transport, it was not possible to
transport large quantities of food. Besides, the slowness of this kind
of traffic made it impossible to transport perishable food.
Keep also in mind that pre-1871 Germany was not a unified country, but
several independent principalities and free cities. Before the
Napoleonic Wars (1804 to 1815), there were up to 300 German states,
and all of them imposed duties on any goods crossing their borders.
Thus, food transported even through only some states would have been
incredibly expensive at the end. During and shortly after the
Napoleonic Era, most of the small prinicpalities vanished by merger
with the more important states, but still the country was fragmented
in 41 states with import duties. It was not before the foundation of
the Zollverein (Customs Union, 1834) by many states and the later
unification of all states in a German Empire (1871) that these duties
disappeared.
Despite limited means of transportation, bad roads and high duties,
some kinds of food have been transported over far distances even in
pre-railway times. One example is herring. This popular was in high
demand; it was fished in the Baltic Sea and in the North Sea, freshly
brought to the coastal cities and preserved in salt. Then the salted
herring was traded all over Central Europe. Food like salted herring
was transported in wooden barrels; other kinds of containers, such as
crates, were not very common.
Wine, and sometimes extraordinarily famous beer, was also transported
over long distances. For liquids too, barrels were used as containers.
The use of bottles was unsually limited to very expensive wines and
uncommon before the 18th century.
Besides transport on carts and pack-animals on highways, the only
other traffic routes were rivers; artificial canals did not become an
important factor before the 1820s, although canals were built since
the Middle Ages. Freight boats had various sizes, depending on the
river they were used on. Some were small and narrow, others long and
broad. They usually had little gage and were often drawn by horses
walking on paths along the banks, others had sails. Usually, and
especially on smaller rivers, these boats were very slow. They too
were not made for transporting huge quantities of food. And like the
roads, the rivers did often cross various states' borders, so duties
had to be paid. Steamboats came in use after 1815, and on the big
rivers the old freight boats were slowly replaced with trains of
barges towed by steamboats; but it was not before the mid-19th century
that rivers and canals became important for long-distance transport of
food.
Best regards,
Scriptor |
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