Do you love pretzels? You’re in good company – over $7.2 billion are sold each year.
Soft or hard, flavored, baldie, dipped, or salted – the world adores pretzels. In Israel you might eat pretzel beigales; Icelanders snack on kringla; and the Dutch have krakeling. The average American gobbles two pounds of pretzels every year. If you’re from Philadelphia – the “pretzel capital of the U.S.” – you will consume 12 times that amount.
What’s so great about twisted “bread?”
No one really knows where it began. There are a lot of legends. Let’s start 1,400 years ago.
The year was 610.
A Northern Italian monk was teaching children how to pray. He wanted to reward them when they got it right. The monk took leftover bread dough, rolled it in long strips, and twisted it into the shape we know today. He called it pretiola (little rewards) because it looked like a child praying.
According to Wikipedia, “within the Christian church, pretzels were regarded as having religious significance for both ingredients and shape.” Pretzels were hidden, like today’s eggs, on Easter morning. They were considered good luck at weddings – “tying the knot” – and served at festivals and holy days.
Fast forward to the Middle Ages.
Germans claim they invented the pretzel. According to pretzel.com “as early as the 1100s, German pretzel bakers used the pretzel shape in the emblem for their guild, and also their coat of arms.”
