In the year 1090 in Jerusalem, at the time of the Third Crusade, two German merchants nursed and hosted a wounded knight and thus founded a "hospital-hospice" (from the Latin concept of Hospitalis=hospitality), practically giving rise to the chivalric-charitable Order of the Hospital of St. Mary of the Germans in Jerusalem, also known as the Order of Teutonic Knights. Following the fall of Constantinople, this order, like the other two great chivalric orders of the time, namely the Templars and the Knights of Malta, left the Holy Land. From the Middle East, the Teutonic Knights moved to north-eastern Europe among the Slavic peoples, where for several centuries they governed a territory as large as Italy. What interests us most about the Teutonic Knights here is the influence they had on the social fabric over 800 years of history, especially on the peoples of north-eastern Europe, and the culinary and gastronomic heritage that these knights gathered, guarded and preserved throughout this time. The order still exists today and is present and active as a charitable and solidarity organization, particularly in Germany and Austria. It is in Carinthia, in southern Austria, in the medieval fortress-town of Friesach, that I discovered a convent of nuns of the Teutonic Order who produce delicious jams, preserves and other specialties with organic fruit from their own land, strictly hand-picked and inspected, in close observance of the order's secret recipes. The "Sisters", whose full name is "Schwestern vom Deutschen Haus St. Mariens in Jerusalem", together with the Pacher family, who look after the commercial side, have therefore established the DOSPA brand to offer their delicious products beyond the walls of their convent as well.