Around 1250 in the Hanseatic city of Lübeck, in present-day northern Germany, artisans began producing marzipan, a sweet confection made from ground almonds and sugar that became a signature luxury product of the Baltic trade network. Lübeck's access to both Mediterranean almonds and Eastern European sugar through Hanseatic trade routes made it an ideal center for marzipan production. The confection quickly became associated with festive occasions, guild celebrations, and gift-giving throughout Northern Europe, establishing a sweet food tradition that survives essentially unchanged today.

Medieval German meistersinger poetry and guild chronicles from Hanseatic cities frequently referenced marzipan and other confections as symbols of civic pride and artisanal skill during feast descriptions. The tradition of associating specific regional sweets with local identity in German-language poetry and song helped establish conventions that later Romantic poets, including Heinrich Heine, would draw upon when writing about childhood memory and regional belonging through food imagery.