Exploring the Medieval Garden of Haut-Koenigsbourg Castle

The Haut-Koenigsbourg castle, situated in the east of France, is amazing. Did you know that John Howe, the famous illustrator of Heroic Fantasy publications, used it as the inspiration for the design of the ‘Citadel of Minas Tirith’ after he was appointed to the post of Conceptual Designer for Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy? Or that the famous Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki was also inspired by the castle for his animated film ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’? I’ve been lucky enough to visit this medieval castle with my family, and guess what? There I found food inspiration for my kids lunch boxes!

Medieval food inspiration

When touring this medieval castle, the kitchen and the banquet room caught my attention, no doubt! But the surprise came from the medieval garden outside of the fortress.

The garden is completely enclosed and structured around a design based on squares. It gathers vegetables, medicinal herbs, textile plants, and even magical plants!

In the Middle Ages, there were no potatoes, tomatoes, or corn in Europe. They came later on, from America. Instead, you could find, as I was reading the tags while meandering in this wonderful garden, leeks, chard, turnips, fennel, cabbages, onion, lettuces, peas, thyme, parsley, chive, raspberries…

Medieval lunchbox ideas

How many of these vegetable have you already packed in a lunchbox? Explore Teuko.com to see how to assemble these foods in a kid’s lunch, and don’t forget to show us what you pack by uploading a photo!

Also, next time you’ll pack a leek soup, you can tell your kid you used Merlin’s recipe!

What new food or recipe have you tried lately? Show us what you do by tracking your ideas on Teuko.com or using the hashtag #teuko on Instagram!