Nurnberger Lebkuchen

The protected name is a pure statement of origin. Since 1996 the EU has registered Nürnberger Lebkuchen as a PGI, and only Lebkuchen baked inside Nuremberg's city limits may carry it. German Wikipedia notes that the name sets no type and no quality bar, so in principle any Lebkuchen from the city qualifies. What most people mean by it is the large round Oblatenlebkuchen, baked on a thin wafer and sold glazed, chocolate-coated or plain with almonds and candied peel.

Quality sits in a different label. Elisenlebkuchen is a grade in the German food code, and it needs at least 25 percent almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts with no more than 10 percent flour or 7.5 percent starch. Almost every Nuremberg baker puts its Elisen at the front of the counter, and some print the grade and the city together on the box.

Nuremberg's Lebkuchen grew out of its place on Europe's spice routes and the honey from the Lorenzer Reichswald. A Lebküchner is first named in a Nuremberg record in 1395, and Wikipedia gives an earlier mention of Lebkuchen bakers in Ulm in 1296. The market's own food page says the city invented Lebkuchen in the Middle Ages, and it puts the word in quotation marks. In 1487 Emperor Frederick III handed out small Lebkuchen printed with his portrait to the city's children.

At the Christkindlesmarkt, the market's own tour of local originals starts at the Lebkuchen-Schmidt stall near the Schöner Brunnen for fresh Lebkuchen, then sends you to the stall of the Lebküchner Wolfgang Woitinek for handmade ones. The vegan tour points out that almost every Lebkuchen stand now has a vegan version.