The earliest depiction of the fashion police

Strips and plaid? To the gallows with him!

This is from the 12th century Life of St. Edmund (1130). Here we see St. Edmund being led away, hands bound, wearing a very elaborate striped tunic and what looks like plaid chausses. Clearly, he has violated the bounds of good taste.

John Barleycorn

This is a poem and documentation that I wrote for the 2004 Ice Dragon Pentathalon. 

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John Barleycorn

Once he was young and clad in green
Fine his hair about his head,
Both men and women did him ill
When he grew upon the hill.

Along came Sir William Whiskey
And he alone did divine
To bury him quick within the earth,
And swore he should not rise.

He saw his head began to rear
And sent for Richard Beere
Who brought with him fifty and eight
Men of war with their weapons so great

They rushed forward with sickles keen
And every one of them took a swing.
They cut him shortly below the knee
And gave him bloody wounds until he fell.

So then they took him up again,
And bound him shortly about the waist
And packed him up in several stacks,
To wither with the wind.

They brought him from the hill
Not one friend had he in this band
With rough hands they made him to stand
For they would let him lie no more.

Then Thomas Goodale a sickle he picked up
And with one swing cut through his top
And John Barleycorn without his head
Could no more hear, see nor speak.

There he lay groning by the walls
Until all his wounds were sore;
At length they took him up again,
And cast him on the floor.

Then two men with stout clubs,
Stepped foward to beat his body.
They hit poor John Barleycorn
Until his flesh fell from the bone.

Then they picked him up again,
And took his flesh away.
They cast his bones upon the floor,
Swearing John Barleycorn would die.

Then they picked him up again
And threw him in a kiln,
And his bones there was dried by fire
But still Barleycorn would not die.

To the miller he was brought
For Barleycorn's death they sought
And the miller there burst his bones
Between a pair of great mill stones.

Then before any man may quarrell
They drowned him in a barrel
And was left there all alone
Until the seasons had changed again.

But until they set a tap to him
He was still alive in that tun
And they drew out his blood
Until nary a drop would run.

But it was John Barleycorn
Who had the last laugh.
For upon ther faces he sets his mark,
Two blood red eyes and a nose to match

And John Barleycorn paid them all
For some he took their tongues away
Or their legs or else their sight.
And left the rest sleeping where they lay.



This poem was done in the style of several of the 17th century written version of the song by the same name. One of the earliest written documentation appeared during the reign of King James I, but was a common song at that time. The song so well known throughout England in the 17th century that many regional variants were recorded; Separate versions from Sussex, Hampshire, surrey, Somerset and Wiltshire were published.

In The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (by Dr Ralph Vaugham Williams and A.L. Lloyd) the following note about this ballad can be read:

"This ballad is rather a mystery. Is it an unusually coherent folklore survival of the ancient myth of the slain and the resurrected Corn-God, or is it the creation of an antiquarian revivalist, which has passed into popular currency and become `folklorised'? It is in any case an old song, of which an elaborate form was printed in the reign of James I. It was widespread over the English and Scottish countryside, and Robert Burns rewrote a well-known version."

John Barleycorn is an anthropomorphized image of the barley grain that goes into making malt beverages, whom I named in the piece, Sir William Whiskey, Richard Beere and Thomas Goodale. I wrote the poem using the style of alliteration found in past versions. I tried to bring about the same imagery without repeating what far better poets have done before me. I also tried to avoid just rewriting the entire song. In the Robert Burns' version, he gives:
They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.

In keeping with this tradition, I wrote in a less poetic style:
Then they picked him up again
And threw him in a kiln,
And his bones there was dried by fire
But still Barleycorn would not die. 

To the miller he was brought
For Barleycorn's death they sought
And the miller there burst his bones
Between a pair of great mill stones.

In an even earlier version (Allan-a-mault)
Quhy sowld not allane honorit be
Quhen he wes yung and cled in grene
Haifand his air abowt his Ene
Baith men an wemem did him mene
quhen he grew on yon hilis he
quhy sowld not allane honorit be 

His fostir faider of the toun
To vissy Allane he maid him boun
he saw him lyane allace in swoun
For falt of help and lyk to de
quhy sowld not allane honorit be

And my version:
Once he was young and clad in green
Fine his hair about his head,
Both men and women did him ill
When he grew upon the hill.

Along came Sir William Whiskey
And he alone did divine
To bury him quick within the earth,
And swore he should not rise.



References:
Thomas Robbin's Chapbook: The Arraignment and Inditing of Sir John Barleycorn, Knight. Oxford Press

Burns, Robert. Poems. 1787.

Clauge, Dr. John,  Manx Reminiscences; English Transaltion. 1911

Barley: The World's Oldest Crop. From the University of Oregon's Barley Project

The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd. Penguin Books, Baltimore, MD 1968. Originally published 1959

 Bruce Olsen's Roots of Folk: Old English, Scots, and Irish Songs and Tunes (http://users.erols.com/olsonw/)

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Observations from 2015:

I had forgotten that I had wrote this. I had found it in a zipped up archive. Not my finest piece of work, or my best documentation. 

Polka dot stags

I think AEthelmearc needs a new award: a Polka Dot Alce. To go along with the Golden Alce and the Silver Alce. And I have period documentation for it:

Perhaps for silly and strange martial skills. Or period rap battles. The image is from Luttrell Psalter, England ca. 1325-1340. British Library, Add 42130, fol. 296r.

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 3

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 3

This is from The Rochester Bestiary: British Library, Royal 12 F XIII, fol. 39v. It looks like a lovely image but it is one ass licking another ass's ass. That's right: medieval ass licking. Just don't do it. Perhaps if you replace the one ass with a cake....?

I'm not saying it's aliens.

Weird things you find in medieval manuscripts.

From the The Rutland Psalter, England ca. 1260, British Library, Add 62925, fol. 57r

How to get a Golden Alce

Where Golden Alces come from.

When a yellow doe and a red buck love each other very much, they give each other a special hug and, a few months later, a golden alce is born. 

The Pretzel

This is documentation that I wrote for the 2007 Ice Dragon Pentathalon.

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Figure 1

The Pretzel

A pretzel is a baked snack that is ordinarily twisted into a unique knot-like shape. The pretzel is usually made from wheat flour with yeast; the dough is briefly dipped in lye water before baking, and usually salted. In Bavaria it is obligatory in a Weißwurst breakfast.
- From Wikipedia [1]

The history of the pretzel is shrouded is mystery and rumor. It is, perhaps, the oldest, continuously eaten snack food ever developed. It was adopted by almost every country it was introduced in and spread through Europe faster than the Black Plague. Almost every country, in Medieval times, adopted an "origin" story that placed the birthplace of the pretzel in their most beloved city. (Sigmaringen, Vienna, Rome, Paris and London have all claimed to be the birth place of the pretzel). [2] Separating fact from fiction seams to be as twisted a job as the pretzel itself. It’s ingredients, it’s shape, it’s origins, even it’s name is shrouded in mystery, rumor and fiction.

The most common origin of the pretzel is set in a monastery in the 4th, 5th, 6th or 7th century depending on the source (Bunch and Hellemans place the date at 210AD). The monastery is claimed to have resided in either Northern Italy, Southern France, Alsace, Southwest Germany or somewhere in Austria. [3] Time and place aside, one of the most often quoted origin of goes as follows: A monk was preparing a traditional Lenten bread when it occurred to him to arrange long skinny pieces of dough into the shape of arms folded at prayer, so as to remind his brothers to pray. An explanation of why monks living in a monastery needed to be reminded to pray in the first place is curiously absent. And anyway, since when do monks "fold their arms" to pray? Medieval illustrations uniformly portray monks praying in the same, physical way it is today: kneeling, head bowed, palms either pressed together or open to the sky.

Figure 2

A variation of the story, almost as well quoted, has this unknown monk using scraps of bread to make treats to bribe or reward children who had memorized their Bible verses and prayers. "The monk called it a pretiola, Latin for ‘little reward’" [4]. I find this explanation just as unlikely as the previous one. One, when baking bread, there are no scraps; all of the dough is used. Two, children were more likely punished for not learning their lessons than rewarded for doing what they were ordered to do. Using vague entomology, food historians have "documented" the travels of the pretiola over the Alps, through Austria, and into Germany, where it became known as the Bretzel. Once it reached England, the "B" had changed to a "P" and the English gained the Pretzel. Other sources derive the name from Latin bracellus (a medieval term for "bracelet"). [5] Some sources say that the shape of the Pretzel is of a "B" because in Germany, where they were invented, they were called Bretzels. [6]

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, gives the Etymology as:

The German word Brezel or Pretzel, which was borrowed into English (being first recorded in English in 1856) goes back to the assumed Medieval Latin word *brachitellum. This would accord with the story that a monk living in France or northern Italy first created the knotted shape of a pretzel, even though this type of biscuit had been enjoyed by the Romans. The monk wanted to symbolize arms folded in prayer, hence the name derived from Latin bracchiatus, "having branches," itself from bracchium, "branch, arm."

There is another legend that tells us of a baker, from whichever is your favorite city, [7] accused of larceny was offered the opportunity to cancel his sentence if he could make a piece of bread through which the sun could be seen thrice; the ingenious baker, inspired by the way his worried wife held her arms, twisted his dough into a pretzel before baking. Personally, I cannot see any intelligent person telling a baker that he will be acquitted of a crime if he bakes something with three holes in it. And this does little to explain the shape of the pretzel; why not instead take an ordinary lump of bread dough, poke three holes in it and call it a day. Another variation on this myth is that the baker committed his crime during Easter and was commanded to produce something that represented the Trinity. [8] In that case, why didn’t the baker bake something in the form of a cross, or three pieces of bread. Or even two pieces of bread and claim that the missing third piece represents the Holy Spirit, which cannot be seen.

Figure 3

Another myth is that the pretzel was not invented in Europe, but in the Americas. The story goes, that to keep animals from eating surplus wheat, Native Americans would bake the surplus grain into rings and then hang them on tree branches high above the ground. Unfortunately, wheat was not introduced to mainland North and South America until the late 15th Century. [9] The main grain of the Americas prior to this time was Maze. Since Maze contains no gluten, the protein structure that makes bread chewy, flour made from maze is not have the stronger structure to be made into bread that can support it’s own weight when hung from a tree (compare the durability between a "corn" and "flour" soft taco shells). Aside from this, we know the pretzel were made (and eaten) in Europe prior to 1492 and this myth does nothing to explain why the bread was twisted into a knot. Would it not be easier to make a plain ring. Besides, birds love bread and they live in trees.

Figure 4

A French web site gives the following explanation of the shape:

Son origine semble déjà remonter a l’époque celtique, ou l’on représentait les planètes et les saisons sous forme de pâtisseries. Ainsi le pain en forme d’anneau, dit Jula, (début février), se gardait jusqu’aux moissons; on le réduisait en chapelure pour la mélanger à la semence nouvelle. En Alsace, l’anneau était garni de quatre rayons en pâte, que l’on réduisit plus tard. Charles Gérard dans L’Ancienne Alsace a Table semble croire que les Romains l’aient introduit chez nous sous le nom de "panis tordus ". [10]

Its origin already seems to go up has the Celtic time, or one represented planets and the seasons in the form of pastry makings. Thus the bread in the shape of ring, known as Jula, (at the beginning of February), was kept until the harvests; one reduced it in chapelure to mix it with the new seed. In Alsace, the ring was furnished with four rays in paste, which one reduced later. Charles Gerard in Old Alsace has Table seems to believe that the Romans introduced it on our premises under the name of "twisted panic grasses". [11]

Figure 5

The web site www.bretzelforbush.com states that the "Pretzel is the same shape than the traditional Alsacian hat from Kocherberg." [12] This is an interesting ideal, but I was unable to find any pictures of this particular hat, nor was I able to find any other resource that made a similar claim. The same web site also gives the following tid-bit:

Another legend tells that St Florentin tried to draw a cross inside a circle and did it badly. The cross with the ring was supposed to symbolise a christian symbol (the cross) and a pagan symbol (the sun).

This is another claim that I could not find independent collaboration of. I included it because this quote, word for word, is repeated on several dozen English language web sites, linking back to www.bretzelforbush.com. I also found over 50 web sites in French, German, Dutch and Italian with the same quote, and link, only in the local language. This is a perfect example of how misinformation becomes the "Truth." Saint Florentin did live in the 5th century AD [13] which put him in the right time period for the birth of the pretzel. However, no correlation between pretzels and the saint can be found in my research. Nor do the town, village, city and canton named after the saint mention anything about pretzels, either. One would think that the saint who created such a wonderful snack item would be the patron saint of it; but the pretzel is most associated with Saint Joseph. [14]

One of my favorite myths about the shape of the pretzel combines the three "L’s;" larceny, law enforcement and laziness. Apparently, crime was quite high around insert-your-favorite-city-here. So high that the local law enforcement was always in armor and in the saddle. When word came that some merchant was being robbed, they would sally forth. Since they are always so busy, the local sheriff asked the bakers to bake a round bread so that the soldiers could slide it on their spears so that they could eat without letting go of the horse’s reigns or the spears. The bakers, the story goes, baked the bread in a pretzel shape so that the soldiers could eat the pretzel’s outer rings without banging their noses or lips on the bread closest to the spear. This myth is so unlikely and improbable that I will not waste the reader’s time by debunking it. I will only say; how incompetent a calvary soldier do you have to be to not to be able to eat on the move? This story is very reminiscent of the legend of the donut, which was apparently stuck on one of the spokes of a sailing ship’s wheel so that the pilot could eat it while using both hands to steer. [15]

Figure 6

What about hard vs. soft pretzels? Which one came first; that should be simple to figure out. Legend says fate was kind to a young baker who fell asleep and left his turn of soft pretzels in the oven too long. When the fire died down, the pretzels toasted and GBD. [16] Fortunately, the employer liked the nutty flavor of the hard pretzel and didn’t fire the young baker. [17] This would suggest that the hard pretzel followed the soft pretzel. Unfortunately, this is another twisty region of doubt. Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa dates the pretzel back to ancient Rome to the Picenum, a twice baked flat bread, similar to hard tack, that contained no eggs, sugar or milk that could spoil on long marches. [18] In The Larder Invaded, the authors date the soft pretzel to 19th century Philadelphia as nothing more than "a fresh version of the hard pretzel." On the other hand, Diane Spangen wrote, "the hard pretzel came into existence by accident in the late 17th century in Pennsylvania."

Sturgis Pretzels’s web site says that the first recipe for hard pretzels was given to the company’s founder, Julius Sturgis, by a drifter. [20] William Harlan Hale equates the soft pretzel to a twisted variation of the bagel, [21] which was first documented in 1610. In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten notes that "The first printed mention of bagels...is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 - which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth." He adds that the word is derived from the German word beugel, meaning a round loaf of bread. There are those who dispute this and claim that it derives from the middle High German word bugel,’ which means a twisted or curved bracelet or ring..." [22] On the other hand, Wikipedea, the Word Net Dictionary and the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink all say that the bagel descended from the pretzel.

Figure 7

Surely we can track the pretzel down by what it is made of. The one thing that is known definitively is that at some point the pretzel came to be associated with Lent, the Catholic pre-Easter fasting period. It’s not hard to see why, since it’s a perfect Lenten food: Plain; No meat; No dairy; No sugar; No eggs [23] or any of the other foodstuffs that Catholics have averred at various points through history. As to when that happened, there are only guesses. Paintings by the Dutch Masters depicting early Christianity featured pretzels, but then that just seems to be where they thought pretzels came from. If they had any evidence linking the two, it’s since been lost to us. So, we have a bread like food that’s made only with flour, water, yeast, salt. Surely that can be simple to document. The Catholic Cookbook was kind enough to provide the following information about traditional Lenten pretzels:

The one traditional Lenten food is the pretzel. In the early Church the rules of fasting did not allow meat, dairy products or eggs. These small breads made from flour, water and salt were made to accompany the simple meals of fish, fruits and vegetables. The breads were shaped in the forms of arms crossed in prayer to keep a reminder that Lent was a time of prayer and penance. The Latin term for these was bracellae, or "little arms" (bracellae). The word "pretzel" comes from the German word brezel or prezel. 

1 Tablespoon honey or sugar 
1 1/2 cups lukewarm water (100 - 110 F) 
1 envelope active dry yeast 
1 teaspoon salt 
4 cups flour 
Coarse or kosher salt 
1 egg, beaten 

DIRECTIONS
Let the warm water, yeast and sugar stand for hour. Mix with the flour into the water mixture. Add the honey to the water; sprinkle in the yeast and stir until dissolved. Add teaspoon salt. Blend in the flour, and knead the dough until smooth. Cut the dough into pieces. Roll them into ropes and twist into pretzel shapes. You can make small pretzels with thin ropes, or large ones with fat ropes, but remember that to cook at the same rate, your pretzels need to be all the same size. Place the pretzels on lightly greased cookie sheets. Brush them with beaten egg. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake at 42 5º F. for 12 to 15 minutes, until the pretzels are golden brown. 

CatholicCulture.org, Trinity Communications online source for Catholic information, provides very similar information, as well as a recipe with no sugar but butter instead:

Surprising as it sounds, the pretzel has great historical and spiritual significance for Lent. In fact, it used to be the Lenten bread in the early centuries of the Christian era. The faithful in the old Roman Empire kept a very strict fast all through Lent - no milk, no butter, no cheese, no eggs, no cream and, of course, no meat. Instead, they made small breads of water, flour and salt, to accompany their meagre fare of vegetables, fruit, and fish. To remind themselves that Lent was a time of prayer, they shaped these breads in the forms of arms crossed in prayer, and called them "little arms" (bracellae). This Latin word eventually became the Germanic "pretzel." 

Thus, the pretzel is the most appropriate food symbol for the season of Lent. It still shows the form of arms crossed in prayer over the chest, reminding us that Lent is a time of prayer. It consists of flour and water only, thus proclaiming Lent as a period of fasting. That pretzels are eaten today all through the year is only accidental. In many sections of Europe they are still served only from Ash Wednesday to Easter, thereby keeping the ancient symbolism alive. 

Catholic families could well return to this religious use of the pretzel in the home. The children will be delighted when they hear the true story of this symbol of Lent; and a small pretzel at every dinner plate during Lent will certainly proclaim its spiritual message as clearly and deeply to our modern families as it did to our fellow Christians in ancient Rome - that Lent is a sacred season of prayer and fasting. 

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 
4 egg yolks 
1 tablespoon melted butter 
1/16 teaspoon salt 
cold milk 
caraway seed 
coarse salt 

DIRECTIONS: Mix together flour, egg yolks, melted butter and salt in a mixing bowl. Slowly add milk until dough is smooth. Place dough on floured board. Beat dough with end of rolling pin for about 15 minutes. Roll small pieces of dough into pencil-like strips. Form into pretzel shape. Drop into boiling water and boil for approximately 5 minutes. Remove pretzel from boiling water; place in refrigerator overnight. Place pretzels on baking dish. Brush with egg white; sprinkle with caraway seed and coarse salt. Bake at 400° until crisp and brown. 

Figure 8

The New York Carver’s web site also offers conflicting information about the pretzel: [24]

Since pretzels didn’t contain any ingredients that weren’t eaten during the pre-Easter season - eggs, milk, butter, lard - the pretzel became a popular Lenten food throughout the Middle Ages. .... The sugar or chocolate-coated varieties popular with tourists hark back to a 16th century recipe, translated below:

Take white flour, only the white of eggs and some wine, sugar and anise, prepare a dough with these ingredients, roll the dough with clean hands such that it becomes longish and round. Make small pretzels from it and put them into a warm oven and bake them so that you do not burn it but that they are well dried. This way, they will become crisp and good. If you like, you may take cinnamon as an ingredient for the dough, too (but you can leave it). This dish is called Precedella.

The web site did not provide any reference to the source of this recipe. Other recipes I discovered share the same contradiction between description and ingredient list. All mention that pretzels were prized because they didn’t contain certain ingredients but follow up with a recipe that includes the very items that are forbidden.

At least we can all agree that pretzels are coated with salt. Many experts say that the salt helped to preserve the pretzel and made the eater more thirsty and more inclined to buy another beer.

...pretzels keep extremely well, and their saltiness has made them a favorite accompaniment to alcoholic drinks throughout northern Europe. [25]

Except that I can find no reference to other salty food being served in taverns to encourage their patrons to drink more for beer or wine. Besides, I have found many references to pretzels being sold outdoors by people who sold them to the general public; not in taverns and inns which sold alcoholic beverages. On top of that, none of the period illustrations that I have found show anything on the pretzels that can be associated with salt. [26] Also, in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, in France, a pretzel loving country, [27] there was a large tax on salt. So large that many bakers were only using the bare minimum for their goods. "At the time of the Revolution, when the price of salt dropped from 4 sous to 1 sou, bakers were able to indulge their liking for both salt and liberty." [28] If pretzels were salted, then they would have been a luxury item in France at this time period.

What about the "glaze." Modern pretzels are dipped into a lye solution; were they in period times? Roland Murten’s web site gives the following story:

Even the coating of lye on the Pretzel arose quite by chance: the baker’s cat, sleeping in front of the warm oven, jumped up and knocked the pretzels into a pan of hot lye solution which had actually been prepared to season other dishes. There was no more time to prepare a new batch of dough, so the batch covered with lye had to be baked. At first only the baker was amazed by the result, but later.... Or, there is the story told by a royal messenger. While breakfasting in a coffee house, he noticed that the Pretzels there tasted quite different to the usual sugary "Lenten Pretzels". On this particular day the baker had accidentally glazed his pretzels with a sodium lye used to clean the pans instead of with sugar water. And, thanks to this mistake, the salty lye pretzel was born...

Harry N Abrams’s History of Bread only mentions pretzels six times: three times in the descriptions of illustrations and three on the same page when describing Lenten bread. Abrams wrote that, in Germany and France, the pretzel was eaten plain during lent but throughout the rest of the year, the pretzels were cut open when hot and slathered with butter. In Six Thousand Years of Bread, the author mentions that pretzels were enjoyed throughout the year but were especially sought after during lent. [29] Jacobs also repeats several of the myths that I have detailed earlier.

I was surprised that Sir Digby did not mention anything like pretzels in his great book. I was similarly surprised to find out that Take 1000 Eggs also listed nothing. Perhaps Madamme Toussaint-Samat could shed some light on the pretzel. I reached for my copy of The History of Food. I read the entire section on bread three times. I searched the index over and over. I checked the chapter on lent. Then I checked again. Nothing. Not an electronic sausage. Not a single reference to pretzels. How can the most popular snack food in the world, with so many stories and legends relating to it, not show up in The History of Food? It was at this point that I gave up trying to document the pretzel and started to write up my notes.

So, after five months of researching the topic, I can faithfully report on the following details of the pretzel in medieval times. I think that I can speak without fear of contradiction when I say: No one knows who invented the pretzel; No one knows where or when it was invented; No one knows why they are the shape they are in; No one knows if they were soft or crunchy; No one knows why they are called pretzels and no one can agree what they are made out of, but they were eaten during Lent. And at every other time of the year as well.

So, is there anything that we do know? Well, we do know that pretzels were popular and we know what shape they were in. They appeared in the art work and doodles of the time period. They appeared in church documents and the name appeared in non-cooking references as descriptors.

Figure 9

The Hours of Catherine of Cleves (1440) has a plate of St. Bartholomev’s death with little people, angels, devils or children holding pretzels in the marginallia. (Figure 9) Woodcuts of street merchants often showed pretzels. Johannes Kepler’s 1609 work, Astronomia Nova, [p. 3] mentions pretzels, not by name but by description, in describing the perceived retrograde motion of Mars, Venus and Jupiter.

HÆC omnia si quis fasciculo uno componat, simulque credat, solem revera moveri annuo spacio per zodiacum, quod credidere Ptolemæus & Tycho Braheus; tunc necesse est concedere, trium superiorum Planetarum circuitus per spacium ætherium, sicuti sunt compositi ex pluribus motibus, esse revera spirales; non ut prius, fili glomerati modo, spiris juxta invicem ordinatis; sed verius in figura panis quadragesimalis, in hunc fere modum.

"If one puts all of this information together in one bundle, and at the same time believes that the sun truly moves across the Zodiac over the space of a year, as Ptolemy and Tycho Brahe believed, then it is necessary to concede that the circuits of the three above planets through etherial space are, as it were, a complex of several movements, that they are actually twisted; not like a knotted wire, with  twists in a sequential order, but rather in the image of a lenten bread, as the following diagram shows..." [30]

Figure 10

I decided to base my recipe on the assumption that there was only one recipe for making pretzels. The method for making them for lent would also prove to be very profitable the rest of the year round. My pretzels would use nothing more than flour, water, yeast and salt. Christina Krupp posted similar thoughts on Stefan’s Florilegium:

I don’t have any information on what Breughel’s pretzels are actually made from, but as a Lenten food, it would not surprise me to find it was simple flour, water, yeast, and perhaps a touch of salt.... I presume you know that flour can vary greatly in protein and gluten content, from very soft to quite hard. For pretzels and bagels and such you want the hardest flour you can get. In period that would have been durum (in Italy and southern France) or northern, Russian, or Middle Eastern wheat (in northern Europe). The English liked their native soft flour, but then they didn’t go in much for pretzels. Nowadays, I’d use a bread flour (such as King Arthur unbleached) if making it by hand. If you have a mixer with a dough hook you can use the King Arthur Special for Bread Machines, which is very high gluten. I suspect our modern American/Canadian hard wheats (bred from the hardest Russian/Armenian strains) are even harder than the strongest period flours. But in any case, avoid "general purpose" flours such as General Mills, Pillsbury, etc for this purpose. What King Arthur calls "General Purpose" flour is already harder than the mainstream brands. This is particularly true in the Southern states, which have a preference for softer flour, so the General Mills, Pillsbury, etc meant to be sold there are formulated differently than the same brands sold in New England.

So, bread flour it is. For yeast, I will use beer yeast instead of modern bread (instant) yeast, more fitting in what was available to bakers in period times. I used kosher salt because it contains neither anti-clumping agents nor iodine. I found the following recipe from The World Wide Gourmet:

The traditional method for making pretzels involves several steps: first, water, flour, salt, yeast and malt extract are carefully kneaded, either manually or mechanically, to form a sticky dough. After considerable manipulation, the dough is cut into lengths about 1 5 cm (6") long that the baker rolls under his hands, one at a time, to create slender dough "sausages." Each one is then knotted into a pretzel shape, with the tapered ends folded back over the pretzel’s thicker central part (this makes an important difference to the final taste). Then the pretzels are placed, four at a time, on racks and left to rise for 2 hours, after which they are placed by twos or fours into a boiling water bath containing baking soda or a salt brine and left until they float to the surface. As they come up, the baker places them on a wooden peel, sprinkles them with coarse salt and puts them into the oven until they are golden brown; they can be eaten an hour after they are baked. In fact, pretzels must be eaten fresh on the day they are made and so are delivered immediately. One day later they begin to dry out and harden.

Ingredients
300g (3 cups) flour
200 ml (generous 3/4 cup) warm water
2 egg whites
65g (2oz.) baking soda
15g (1/2oz.) dry yeast
Coarse salt or sea salt
Cumin (Mattekümmel) Boiling water

Make a firm dough with the flour, warm water and yeast; let rise in a draft-free place, covered with a cloth, until the dough has doubled in volume; cut the dough into strips and form into knot shapes; drop the pretzels, two at a time, into boiling water to which you have added the baking soda. When they float to the surface, drain them and place on an oiled baking sheet. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with coarse salt and cumin. Bake in the oven until nicely browned and dried. Enjoy the fresh pretzels with a mug of beer.

By modifying this recipe, I was able to come up with something that would be "kosher" for lent and in keeping with what a period baker would have been able to make and make a living off of:

3 cups of Bread flour (King Arthur band Artisan, Organic flour from hard red wheat, unbleached)
3/4 cup warm water
1/2 oz. ale yeast (Mutton’s Ale yeast)
Kosher salt
Boiling water

This is in keeping with period bread making techniques:

THE MAKING OF FINE MANCHET
Take half a bushell of fine flower twise boulted, and a gallon of faire luke warm water, almost a handful of white salt, and almost a pinte of yest, then temper all these together, without any more liquor, as hard as ye can handle it: then let it lie halfe an hower, then take it up, and make your Manchetts, and let them stand almost an hower in the oven. Memorandum, that of every bushell of meale may be made five and twentie caste of bread, and every loaf to way a pounde besyde the chesill. [31]

While the yeast bloomed in warm water, I mixed together the flour and water with a pinch of salt. Once I was certain that the yeast was alive, I mixed it in with the flour and kneaded it together. I covered the dough with a cloth and let it "rise until it has doubled in volume." I rolled the dough out by hand and shaped them into pretzels. I made small pretzels to better fit with my working area and oven. I also discovered that I would have made a lousy baker and claim that my lumpy, misshapen pretzels are "period" because there are no period recipes for them and none of the period illustrations are clear enough to prove me wrong. I am certain that there is a technique for twisting the pretzel shape, but I was not able to master it. I boiled half of the pretzels (because I couldn’t find any evidence for or against the practice) and covered half of each batch with a light layer of salt. I discovered that the salt stuck to the boiled pretzels better than the un-boiled ones. I baked them for 20 minutes in a 425 degree oven. When done, it appeared that the boiled pretzels came out soft and the non-boiled ones were harder and crunchier. Both batches of pretzels came out of the oven a golden blond instead of the dark brown of modern pretzels. This probably due to the lack of browning agents, such as sugar, eggs or lye. I am not too concerned that my pretzels do not look like their modern cousins: none of the color illustrations that I found show the pretzels as the mahogany brown of modern pretzels; just tan or light brown. Just as a personal note: the salted pretzels taste better than the non-salted ones.



[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breze
[2] Various
[3] Various
[4] OED
[5] E.g. OED s.v.: "[G. pretzel, bretzel, in OHG. brizzilla = It. bracciello (Florio) a cracknel; usually taken as ad. med.L. bracellus a bracelet; also a kind of cake or biscuit (Du Cange).]"
[6] Dear Yahoo
[7] http://www.joepastry.com/index.php?s=pretzel lists variations naming cities in Italy, Germany, France even colonial America
[8] http://www.answers.com/topic/pretzel and Wiliopdia
[9] Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella requesting that more wheat and livestock would be needed for the next voyage to the colony on Hispanola.
[10] http://www.epicerieduval.fr/Cat/P5YX1 .htm
[11] Translation by Alta Vista’s Bable Fish
[12] Bretzel for Bush
[13] Was martyrized in 406
[14] Women for Faith & Family
[15] Various
[16] Golden, Brown and Delicious
[17] Sturgis, Answers and Bunch & Hellemans
[18] p. 58
[19] p. 52
[20] Sturgis
[21] p. 644
[22] Claiborne, p23
[23] Various
[24] http://www.newyorkcarver.com/inventions5A.htm
[25] Olver
[26] Such as dots or specs
[27] Mariani, p.255
[28] Toussaint-Samat, p.238
[29] p.115
[30] Translation by Wikipedea
[31] David, E. From The Good Huswife’s Haindmaide for the Kitchen, 1594

Bibliography

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1968.

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Foley, Michael P. Why Do Catholics Eat Fish on Friday?: The Catholic Origin to Just About Everything. Palgrave Macmillan: Boston. 2005.

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Hammond Pretzel Bakery. How we make Hammond’s Pretzels: History of the Pretzel [http://www.hammondpretzels.com/Hammond%0Pretzel%0how.htm]

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Society of Pennsylvania: Philadephia. 1987.

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Chemists, 1994.

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htm]

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Sache, Ivan. Presentation of Saint-Florentin. Saint-Florentin (Municipality, Yonne, France) [http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/fr-89-sf.html] December 23. 2006.

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36070]

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Sturgis Pretzel House. Pretzel History [http://www.sturgispretzel.com/PrezHist.htm] 2000.

Sullo, Eleanor. Pretzel history: some little known facts. Essortment Home. Pagewise. [http://oh.essortment.com/pretzelhistory_raxn.htm] 2002.

Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne. History of Food. Translated from the French bu Anthea Bell. Barnes & Noble Books. 1992.

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Wikipedia. Pretzel [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breze]

Image References

Image 1: The Last Supper. Ottonian, Regensburg, about 030 - 040. From MS. Ludwig VII , FOL. 38. From The J. Paul Getty Trust. [http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/objects/3194/unknown-maker-the-last-supper-ottonian-about-1030-1040/]

Image 2 : Queen Esther and Ahasuerus at a banquet, including a pretzel. From the 12th century Hortus Deliciarum. From Wikipedia. [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hortus_deliciarum#/media/File:Hortus_Deliciarum_1190.jpg]

Image 3: Job Berckheyde, The Baker, about 1681. From Worcester Art Museum [http://www.worcesterart.org/Exhibitions/Past/favorite_baker.html]

Image 4: Merchant’s stall. c. 483. From A Feast For The Eyes [http://www.godecookery.com/afeast/kitchens/kit010.html]

Image 5: Bakers. From A Feast For The Eyes [http://www.godecookery.com/afeast/kitchens/kit044.html]

Image 6: Guards with Pretzels. Unknown source: found on web site and did not notate the URL.

Image 7: Close up of The Fight Between Carnival and Lent. by Pieter Brueghel. From The Web Gallery of Art. [http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/bruegel/carnival_and_lent.jpg.html]

Image 8: Pretzel making in the New World: 17th Century New Amsterdam. From Pretzel House. [http://www.sturgispretzel.com/PrezHist.htm]

Image 9: Detail from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves. From The New York Carver. Medieval Inventions:
The Pretzel [http://www.newyorkcarver.com/inventions5A.htm] [http://www.themorgan.org/collection/hours-of-catherine-of-cleves/87]

Image 10: The retrograde motion of Mars relative to Earth, from Astronomia. From Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Kepler#/media/File:Kepler_Mars_retrograde.jpg]

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Observations from 2015:

This was both a fun and frustrating research project. I found a lot of evidence for pretzels in art but nothing from any period source about them. Only legends, myths and nonsense. My paper does "rely" on less then accurate sources, such as Wikipedia, because I had no better sources to work from. I basically gave up during the research phase and just started listing the myths and legends, each one dumber then the last. I left out dozens of period images of the pretzel and left out some whoppers of origin stories. 

There is the legend that the pretzel was invented in Vienna in the early 16th century, during a Turkish siege. Bakers, who were up early baking bread, heard the Turkish sappers and either alerted the city guards or lay in ambush for the invaders. The pretzel, was then created in honor of the saving of the city, with the shape representing the defeat of Islam. I'm calling major BS on this one. 1) We have evidence of the existence of the pretzel before the 1529 siege of Vienna. 2) There is nothing to tie the shape of the pretzel with Islam or with any of the Ottoman attackers. 3) This is the exact same story that is told about the origin of the croissant. The croissant story is almost equally unlikely (a French pastry invented to celebrate the victory of a Austrian city) but at least the French can tie the shape of the croissant to the Islamic crescent. 

There is a variation to the story that only soft pretzels existed before 1529. The bakers were baking pretzels (during a siege, as you do) and they over cooked while the bakers were fighting off the Turks. After the battle, the bakers discovered that the pretzels had been baked rock hard, but they ate them any ways, and enjoyed them. A third variation was that the Turks had captured the church of St. Stephen and had hung a crescent banner from the spire. When the Turks were defeated, a baker had climbed up to the spire, removed the banner and hung a pretzel. In honor of this, The Emperor of Austria bestowed a coat of arms to the pretzel bakers, containing a pretzel.  I can't buy this either.

Another legend tells that people were once married by holding on to a pretzel. The shape somehow indicates the union of two people as equals. Which is why pretzels have three holes? Ah, says several sources, the man and wife hold on to the large holes, since they are equals in the marriage, and the priest holds on to the small hole. 1) There is no contemporary evidence for this. 2) Men and women were not considered equal in the middle ages. 3) We do have plenty of surviving liturgy handbooks from the Catholic and Protestant churches that detail the exact steps in a marriage ceremony, and none list pretzels. 

In the years since I wrote this paper, I have been keeping my eyes open for better references. There haven't been many. Max Rampolt's Ein New Kuchbuch (1581) contains the following recipe:

Precedella
55. Nimm ein schönes Mehl/ lauter Eierdotter/ und ein wenig Wein/ Zucker und Aniß/ mach ein Teig damit an/ walg jn fein länglicht und rundt mit saubern Händen/ und mach kleine Bretzel darauß/ scheubs in ein warmen Ofen/ und backs/ daß du es nit verbrennest/ sondern fein außtrucknet/ so werden sie auch mürb und gut. Du magst auch Zimmet darunter nemmen oder nicht. Und man nennet es Precedella. 

55. Take a fair flour/ clean egg yolks/ and a little wine/ sugar and anise/ make a dough with it/ roll it nicely long and round with clean hands/ and make little pretzels from it/ shove in a warm oven and bake/ that you do not burn it/ but until nicely dry/ like this they will be also crispy and good. You might also take cinnamon with it or not. And one calls them Precedella. 

This isn't a recipe for pretzels, but for a sweet pastry that is rolled and twisted like a pretzel. I also came across another 16th century recipe that is for something like marzipan twisted into pretzel shapes. But, it does indicate that the pretzel was so common that no instructions needed to be given other than "make little pretzels". The writer assumed that the reader would already know how to twist dough into a pretzel shape. 

I have found a few period sources that mention pretzels; one was a Polish handbook on Lent that recommended that pretzels only be consumed every other day. But, no recipes. And no complaints. People complained in the middle ages as much as they do today. There are tons of period sources of people complaining about food. The English complained, when traveling, that no one knew how to roast. The French complained that they had to share cups with other diners. The Italians complained about the barbaric foods of the north. People commented on the food they were exposed to in letters home and we can find plenty of records detailing table manner and regional variety of food, including bread: the Spanish disliked the German heavy, black rye bread and everyone complained about the bread in those areas of France that had sky-high taxes on salt. 

People complained, also, about lent, particularly about the food that couldn't be eaten. We have plenty of letters and notes of people pining for bacon or beef during lent. I found a marginalia scribble from a monk saying something along the lines of "I hate lent. I would kill a man for just one egg and some ale."  But, no one complained about pretzels. I cannot find one single reference of anyone complaining that the pretzels tasted different during lent, or that the pretzels of Poland were different than those of Castile. One would think that if pretzels were made with sugar and eggs and spices year round, except during lent, where they were made with nothing more than flour, water and yeast, that someone would have complained that they can't wait to have a "proper" pretzel after lent. 

Personally, I think the pretzel was developed by a monk using only the most basic of ingredients, rolled into a stick to give it maximum surface area, and then twisted so that it would not be confused with round breads and sweets. The twisted shape allows the pretzel to be hung, as seen in many period illustrations. The recipe and procedure could have been communicated monk to monk and they traveled between monasteries. The "secret" could easily been learned by secular bakers who took advantage of the cheap nature of the pretzel. Soft or hard, the high ratio of surface area to volume makes the pretzel crunchy and chewy without being heavy.

From my own experiments, I think boiling the pretzels in salt water makes for a soft pretzel. I think that the boiling water gelatinizes the outer layer of starch and helps the dough retain water. As the water turns into steam, the dough puffs up. The same dough, cooked at the same temperature for the same period of time, will give a soft or hard pretzel based on which dough was boiled. 

I should revisit this project and concentrate solely on methods of making the pretzels. Mistress Katja was one of my judges and she said that my pretzels were yummy, which is very high praise, indeed.

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 2

Things you shouldn't put on an SCA Scroll part 2

This is from Pierre Boaistuau's 1560 book Histoires Prodigieuses, which was dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. The above image is from page 15. Who wouldn't want this on their scroll. I think that it's the smiling... Er. Codpiece, that makes the image. Perhaps if you replace it with a keystone badge? No! No, do not do it.