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That food is of a sacred nature goes without saying. Fresh produce from the garden fits in that category for me, but foods with a history can expand our appreciation both of cuisine and human ingenuity. What food is especially associated with prayer and almsgiving, has been used to help teach religion, saved a city from destruction, was a symbol of good fortune in medieval times, serious sustenance during the Great Depression, and is now mostly enjoyed at sporting events and parties?
If you said “the pretzel,” good for you. This humble food comes in a variety of shapes, flavors, and with coatings that would have amazed the humble monk who invented the pretzel sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries. Idling with leftover strips of dough, the monk-baker supposedly twisted and turned them until they resembled a person’s arms crossed in prayer, traditional posture for prayer in those days. The brother monks approved the tidbits, and began using them as rewards for the children under their tutelage.
The monks used the inter-connected sections of the “pretiola” (literally, “little prayers”) to help the children understand the Christian Trinity of “Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” Their success with the re-shaped crusts spread to monasteries far and wide, and soon the pretzel became an important symbol in church life. A page from the prayerbook of Catherine of Cleves depicts St. Bartholomew surrounded by pretzels, which were thought to bring good fortune, prosperity and spiritual wholeness to those who ate them.
It wasn’t long before pretzels were introduced into the wedding ceremony:the couple wished upon and broke a pretzel like a wishbone, then ate it to signify their oneness. A 17th century woodcut, copied from a cathedral in Bern, Switzerland, depicts the “marriage knot” as being a pretzel! But even earlier, the pretzel’s fame had emerged in a burst of glory from beyond the monastery walls. During the 1500’s, the city of Vienna was under seige by Ottoman Turks. Thwarted in their efforts to break through the city’s walled fortifications, the Turks began tunneling below ground. Pretzel bakers, working through the night, heard the strange noises in the cellars, and notified the guard. The city was saved, and the grateful emperor awarded the pretzel bakers an honorary coat of arms!
Despite their royal status, pretzels were a convenient way to hand food to the poor, and became a typical alms for the hungry. Apparently the homeless did not line up for soup or a sandwich, but for their daily pretzel. And those who gave the pretzels away were considered particularly blessed. Indeed, pretzels became such a sacred sign that they were often packed into coffins of the dead, no doubt replacing the jewels that were buried with the rich.
A more modern story of altruism is connected with the pretzel’s rise in popularity in this country. The first American pretzel bakery started when a kindly baker gave a drifter a free meal in the 1850’s. In turn, the drifter gave the baker a recipe for European pretzels, and soon became employed as the baker’s apprentice. As they whipped up batches of a new style of pretzel, they won the h nor of baking and selling the first hard and crusty version of the Pennsylvania Dutch hard pretzel.
But court records in the state of New York indicate some sort of pretzel made its appearance much earlier. In the mid-seventeenth century trouble broke out when a local baker was arrested for selling pretzels to the Indians, using the best flour for the Indians’ “bread,” and the leftovers for the settlers of Beverwyck, NY. “The heathens were eating flour while the Christians were eating bran,” the town history reports. Too bad the towns people didn’t understand about the benefits of eating whole grains.
Indeed, pretzels today are made from many different grains.
Toppings go beyond coarse salt, poppy or sesame seeds, and now boast such exotic coverings as cheese, chocolate and pizza flavorings. Although pretzel rods, ultra thin pretzels and pretzels chunks, clumps, sticks, rings and chips are also sold by such companies at Bachman, Snyder’s and others, the original “pretiola” shaped snack still sells best, the hard sourdough kind being Oprah Winfrey’s reputed favorite snack food.
Interestingly, the crunchy hard pretzel evolved from the error of a baker who put them in the oven without rising and forgot about them. Baked too long and unrisen, the pretzels grew dark, hard and crunchy—and turned out to be a wild success. Recipes exist for home-baking both the favored hard pretzel, or the chewy “midwestern” type. People who remember the Depression era recall the pretzel vendors in the cities, especially the cities of the Midwest, where inexpensive hot pretzels sold and eaten on the street were lunchtime sustenance. A friend recalls moving to the German section of St. Louis as a child and watching the children line up during recess to buy large, hot pretzels, probably dipped in mustard, from a street cart. Until she tried one herself, she envied them their long-lasting snack. When she tried one, she was unimpressed, but has since found a butter-flavored variety quite irresistible.
German children had other connections to the pretzel, too. They tied pretzels on a string around their necks at the beginning of a new year for prosperity, health and good fortune. An embarrassing story recalls to my mind that some people still use pretzels as decoration.In my first year back at work after raising our three children and helping to raise a few grandchildren, I was often teased by my lovable nun-boss for my single-minded ability to immerse myself in the big issues in my job, leaving minor details with scant attention. One day Sister called me into her office and asked me to do a certain chore. When she finally let me leave the room, her booming voice quickly called me back.
She asked if I noticed anything different about her. I didn’t, until she turned her head quickly from side-to-side. Only then did I see the huge pretzels, decorated with glitter and hung by bright red ribbons from Sister Jeanette’s ears! She teased me forever afterward for not noticing her holiday attire!
In modern times, pretzels find their way into salads, hors-d'ouvres and to accompany soups, dips and fruit. Obviously craftspeople, those with creative ways in the kitchen, and teachers trying to illustrate some religious point to their students still look to the pretzel for a rich resource. With beer or without, this mighty snack has won devoted followers from ballgames to classrooms. Some more modern bizarre pretzel facts include these noteworthy items: Largest pretzel ever baked:40 lbs, 5-feet across, by Joe Nacchio of Federal Baking, Philadelphia, PA; Pretzels in the movies: 20 lb., 4’ pretzel in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World”—same baker; Pretzel capitol of the world: Reading, PA., where one plant can package over 10 million pretzels per day!
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