In June of 2024 I taught a class on medieval pretzels. Most of the class was devoted to the actual information we know, and can confirm, related to the history of the pretzel, as well as my hypothesis as to where the shape came from. The last 15 or 20 minutes was me ranting about all of the stupid origin stories that have sprung up around pretzels. I likened it to a conspiracy theory. Not in the sense that pretzels didn't exist, or that certain people have a hidden agenda to keep us from knowing "the truth".
I liken it to a conspiracy theory because, like flat Earth, ancient aliens, mud floods, or the "fake" Moon landing, there is so much false and misleading information about pretzels that are passed around as if every word is the absolute truth and that if anyone says otherwise they must be lying. I have been told, in person as well as on social media and online conversations, that I didn't know what I was talking about or reading the incorrect books. I have been told that "pretzel" is only the modern word and that I need to search on the medieval word. I have been accused of being anti-Christian for saying that there is no link between pretzels and religion prior to the 1950s. I have been told, multiple times, that no one has ever written down a recipe or a description of bread in the middle ages. I have been told that pretzels were only ever made during Lent. I have been told many things by people who have never thought twice about pretzels before listening to me talk about my research.
I have also had wonderful conversations with many people who share my curiosity of the weird and obscure. So many friends and passing strangers who were super engaged with a subject that was unknown to them.
This class was the culmination of 15 years of off and on research. This post will contain my notes for the class and will be light on proper citations and will be presented in an easy to read format instead of like a research paper. I will clean up my notes so that they are in complete sentences, and so that they don't make me sound like a crazy person. I am thinking about writing an actual book about pretzels and I need to get all of my duckies in a row before I can do that. I only touched on pretzels in artwork in the class; I plan on a separate post on that subject. With that in mind, here are my notes.
Class notes:
I introduced myself and my purpose to the class; using similar words that I used above.
List of period written sources for pretzels not directly associated with art: (pre-1800)
A German ordinance from 1316 that banned the production of pretzels so that any flour that was available could be used for bread (1315-6 had catastrophic rains and floods across Northern Europe that led to a famine that killed off 7-12% of the population of Europe and washed away enough topsoil that some places couldn't grow anything for almost a century).
Two recipes in "Ein New Kuchbuch" (1581) that use pretzels as ingredients (one is like a pretzel bread pudding) and two recipes for cookies twisted into pretzel shapes. "push them in a warm oven/ and bake them nicely slow/ like this it will be beautifully white. And one calls it precedella made from almonds." As far as I can tell, "precedella" only appears in this cookbook and is translated as pretzel in modern work. None of the other gebacken (a hard-baked cookie) recipes in the book say to twist them into knots or are called precedella. Interestingly enough, precedella is not used for the two recipes that call for pretzels as ingredients; "brezel" is used, which is the German spelling of pretzel.
Another 16th century German cookbook with a recipe for something like marzipan twisted into pretzel shapes. (I misplaced the name of the cookbook and could not track it down for this class)
A 14th century Catholic handbook written for the newly converted Poles that stated that pretzels should only be eaten every other day of Lent. The book did not define what a pretzel was or how to make it, which implies that the Poles already knew what pretzels were.
A 15th century German manorial account that mentioned the yields of red wheat for pretzels.
A 16th century French reference to spelt being used for pretzels in a book that recommended what to plant for best profits.
A late 16th century English diary entry complaining of a terrible day ending with "and the baker had sold out of pretzels. (1581, William Barthowmew.)
Johannes Kepler’s 1609 work,
Astronomia Nova describes the motion of Mars as "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," which is often attributed to a pretzel, but Kepler might have been referring to Paska or obwarzanek krakowski (Kracow bagels). Or circuli or even praczliki (often called "ring pretzels" which first appeared in print in 1502)
A case was taken to court in 1654 in Beverwyck (near Albany, NY) against the local bakers for using good flour to make pretzels to sell to the First Nations people. “Upon the complaint of the burghers here, the petitioners find and have daily experienced that the bakers do not act in good faith in the matter of baking bread for the burghers, but bolt the flour from the meal and sell it greatly to their profit to the savages for the baking of sweet cake, white bread, cookies and pretzels, so that the burghers must buy and get largely bran for their money, and even then the bread is frequently found to be short of weight, and they ask one guilders, yes, as much as 24 stivers for such poor and short-weight baked bread." The previous year the bakers had asked for this ordinance to be done away with and pretty much went ahead without waiting for permission.
What isn't found: (again, pre-1800)
Any actual recipes for pretzels.
Any instructions on how to twist a pretzel.
Any town or city ordinance setting the price or weight of pretzels.
Any guild record describing journeyman or master pretzel makers.
Any court records describing someone as a pretzel maker, either as a criminal or victim of crime.
Any court records of a baker making shitty pretzels and being punished. Bakers making shitty bread? Yes. But not specifically a pretzel maker or a description of a baker having bad pretzels hung around their neck to shame them.
Any town or city claiming to be the birth place of the Pretzel.
Anyone complaining about how pretzels are different in other places; flour used, shape, number of twists, size, hard or soft. With as much as people complain about "foreign" food, surely someone would have complained that the Bavarians used rye flour, or that the Spanish style was the worst. Read the comments on any YouTube video about making pretzels; people have opinions.
Any monastery record detailing how many pretzels they made for the poor to go along with the number of loaves of bread baked for the poor.
Any record of any member of nobility or local government placing an order for a large number of pretzels for some celebration or another, like we can find for loaves of bread.
Any mention on any menu that has survived to modern times. They might have been on restaurant and bar menus in the late 19th century, but I can't find any in prior centuries.
Any reference to pretzels in any of the Colonial America era cookbooks. Or in Mrs. Beaton's famous 19th century book. Or in Digby's cookbook. Or "The Goodman of Paris." Or in any surviving cookbook prior to 1800. Nothing in the "Bread Bible". 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. In "Six Thousand Years of Bread", H. E. Jacobs mentions that pretzels were enjoyed throughout the year but were especially sought after during lent but does not give any actual historical facts. Madamme Toussaint-Samat's "The History of Food" lists nothing about pretzels. The last are modern books but case in point; pretzels were not important enough, even in near-modern times, to write about. Even the plethora of pretzel cookbooks published in the last 20 years fail to provide the amount of historical information that I have written here; just the usual falsehoods which I will cover in the rant portion of this work.
Any official Papal bull or church ordinance actually saying that pretzels are kosher for Lent or that it was time to eat up the "non-Lent" pretzels and make new ones for Lent. Pretzels are not associated with Shrove Tuesday in any way. The Vatican Library has no refence to pretzels, in any language, before 1800, that are not directly related to artwork in the Vatican's collection. No sermons, no instructions (other than the one book for the Poles which is not in the Vatican Library's database), or guidelines.
No references during the Protestant Reformation decrying pretzels as Catholic symbols. Or any legal cases where someone was turned in for eating the "wrong" kind of pretzels. We do have plenty of references of court cases of people being turned in for eating eggs during Lent, and the like.
No references to pretzels during the reign of Oliver Cromwell. With the head of state outlawing all religious icons and symbols, there is not a single note outlawing pretzels as a papal icon.
No satire or allegory of Lent mentions pretzels - the 14th century "Book of Good Love" by Jaun Ruiz describes a literal battle between Lent and Carnival; one that is told through the use of puns. No pretzels. Not even a pretzel knot pun as Lady Corned Beef and Sir Lard are ordered to be hanged by Lady Lent.
Any reference to any religious nature of pretzels. The 13th-14th century Raymond Lull wrote several books on the religious symbolism of things: trees, armor, castles, swords: but never mentioned pretzels once. With the modern forced association of Lent and pretzels, there do not appear to be any counterparts prior to modern times. There is one line from one book and one painting from 1559 that links pretzels directly to Lent.
What we do know:
There is an old joke: a mall cop was making his rounds of the parking lot one night. In the distance he sees someone wandering around under a light. He drives over and asks the man what's going on. "Oh," the man replies, "I lost my car keys." "Okay," said the mall cop, "Where did you lose them?" "Over there." said the man waving towards a car in the darkness. "Over there? Then why are you looking over here?" "Well," said the man, "the light's over here."
When I started thinking of this as a conspiracy theory, it freed up my mind to some critical thinking. If there is next to nothing from the middle ages, what can we find from today and then work our way backwards through time to see how far we can get.
Starting with the OED, we see that they only date the word "pretzel" to 1824: “Our honest, good-natured Dutch ancestors, who in their time were satisfied with the Oly Cookes, Pretzies, “[etc.]. G. Furman, Antiquities Long Island (1874) 261. There is something wrong in the world where I have more information than the OED. As of the time of me writing this post, I have submitted my information about the English references of the pretzel to the OED and have received a response that they will review.
A newspaper account details that Daniel Christopher Kleiss was selling soft pretzels on the Philadelphia streets in the 1820's. The article only mentions the pretzel in passing and was more focused on the business opportunity and the number of workers he employed. I am intrigued that the newspaper specifically said soft pretzel. Does that mean that hard pretzels were the norm in 19th century Philly?
The oldest instruction guide to twisting a pretzel I could find was the 1953 edition of the Girl Guide Handbook. More on that, later.
Earliest known pretzel recipe that I could find is from 1881. "PRETZELS. Made of ordinary bread dough with an extra amount of salt; roll the dough to a proper thickness and form into pretzel shape; throw them into a cauldron of strong hot lye made from wood-ashes; as soon as they rise to the surface, throw them on fine salt; immediately after put in the oven and bake; it requires about an hour to perfectly bake them." (Gill, Thomas. The Complete Bread, Cake, and Cracker Baker. 1881. Chicago.) No other information is given, such as how to twist the pretzel, or even a picture of what a pretzel looks like. The book is sorted alphabetically; under Bretzel it says, "See Pretzel".
A 2007 paper ("Some Technological Studies on Pretzel" by J. Agric, et al) states that the researchers could only date the use of lye solutions for pretzels to 1861. The paper details, among other things, the preservative properties of the lye solution on the pretzel. This would have been important for the 19th century mass produced pretzel industry in the days before modern chemical engineering to keep baked goods from going stale or moldy.
US Congressional committee hearings in the late 19th century talk about increasing red wheat production for domestic pretzel production as well as for export.
Pretzels were the first mass produced snack food. Late 19th century trade papers detail how to make hard or soft pretzels using the same dough and methods. That way one bakery could make soft pretzels for street vendors and ball games and hard pretzels that could be boxed or bagged for grocery stores. The paper states that if you make your dough, form the pretzels, and immediately put it into the boiling lye solution and then bake them, you will end up with a hard pretzel. If you form the pretzel and let it sit for 20 or 30 minutes, and then boil and bake them, you will end up with a soft pretzel. No other changes or equipment are needed.
In 1906 new food label laws were enacted that required manufactures to list the major ingredients used in packaging. In 1920, pretzel manufactures started adding barley malt into their flour. Why? What happened in 1920 that would require them to change their recipes? Prohibition happened. So, why would prohibition force almost all of the nation's pretzel companies to change their recipes overnight? Could it be that they were brewing ale (beer without hops) for the purpose of making pretzels? The ale would provide the yeast and the maltose sugars that make pretzels so tasty. Once prohibition happened, they had to stop brewing ale, and just started adding barley malt, water, and yeast directly to the wheat flour. Once prohibition ended, they had completely moved away from the brewing aspect of the old process and probably got rid of the brewing equipment to make room for more mixers and ovens. Unfortunately, trying to pin down trade secrets from 100 years ago is beyond my abilities. Good pretzels are still made with barely malt and I have made pretzels using fresh ale and they are so delicious.
An 1893 labor report from Ohio described the working conditions of the people who physically made the pretzels for the big bakeries; mostly young women who were considered unskilled labor. Machinery would measure out the dough for each pretzel, dough made by more skilled and better paid people. The women would roll it out the dough, shape it and place the pretzel on a tray that would hold 800 pretzels. I will assume that this report was detailing the production of small pretzels. For every tray filled the woman would earn 3 1/2 cents. Working 10 hour days, these women would earn between $1 and $3 per week depending on how many trays they filled. Which is around $1.80 to $2.25 an hour in today's money. Oh, and the women would have to clean up their work areas after their shifts. (Ohio Bureau of Labor Statistics. Annual Report. Vol. 17. 1893.)
By 1933 machines had almost completely replaced human hands and the mass-produced pretzel process was almost completely automated. I was unable to find any newspaper articles lamenting the jobs lost by the women who once stood for hours each day hand rolling and twisting each pretzel. I don't think anyone even noticed.
Mass produced pretzels were inexpensive snacks sold either on the street or at ball games, or in bags or boxes to be enjoyed at home. I see on Ebay a box which contained 4 hard pretzel sticks (brand name "Prezies"), made by the Pioneer Specialty Co. in Brooklyn, NY, sold for $0.01 in 1939. In 1943, one of the major NYC pretzel makers, selling soft pretzels at ball games and from street carts, raised the price from $0.05 to $0.10, citing the increased cost of wheat due to the war. There was an city wide uproar in the newspapers. Raising the price would directly affect the working poor who had little cash to spend on luxuries and a soft pretzel purchased while going to or from work was a necessary treat. They dropped the price back down to a nickel.
So, what have we learned?
Pretzels were made from red wheat or spelt, which are high protein grains, which means lots of gluten.
Were probably made with fresh ale, and then with the yeast and barely malt added to the flour after prohibition.
They were boiled before they were baked, but only in a lye solution after 1861, and we can't say for certain if that was the de facto standard for all pretzels, across the entire world.
Were made by non-skilled labor in food factories before machines took over operations.
Were sold cheap to the working poor.
No one bothered to write down anything about them before food industrialization, and most of what was written down related to the industry maximizing profits.
If we were to go back in time and look for pretzels, we might see evidence for them throughout Europe. The shape of the pretzel is considered the universal sign for a baker. Almost half of all European baker's guilds used the pretzel as part of their arms. The same with the local bakeries. Almost half used the sign of three sheaves of wheat in the form of a crown. And the last 1% used other signs and symbols. In heraldic terms, a pretzel was a sure bet that the bearer of the arms was a baker.
Based on paintings, woodcuts, and manuscript images of working people, the pretzel was often depicted hanging in baker's windows or being sold from "pretzel trees", where were like coat racks that were carried by street vendors; the pretzels hanging from the arms at the top of the tree.
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from the 15th century chronicle of Ulrico de Richental
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In paintings of the Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo periods, tend to show pretzels hanging from hooks, but there are plenty of paintings of street scenes and still lifes the pretzel is hanging over something, a book or a plate, and drooping. But not always. So we can't even be certain that pretzels were hard or soft. One of the recipes from "Ein New Kuchbuch" say to "Take pretzels/ and soften them in salt water" ("Nimm Bretzel/ und weich sie im Salzwasser"). Are the pretzels soft and we need to turn them into mush? Or are they hard pretzels? Or are they stale? The book does not say. I will have to schedule a separate rant about lazy cook book authors.
There are a few aspects of pretzels that we can only make assumptions on. The first being why there are so few written references to them. Particularly why no one complained about any regional differences. What group of people generally do not complain about food? Or leave any written accounts of their lives. And who are most likely to buy food from a vendor on the street? And generally don't travel long distances? I think that pretzels were made for the working poor. Based on images of the people who sold pretzels and those who ate pretzels, (I will make a separate post about pretzels in artwork), we see people in working-class clothes, many with visible holes and patches.
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| Fortunat Bergant's "Man with a Pretzel" - 1761 |
I think that pretzels were made as inexpensively as possible. I believe that the addition of salt sprinkled on top of the pretzel is a modern invention: none of the paintings showing the surface details of pretzels show that anything was on the pretzel. In period, salt was a commodity that could be too expensive to carelessly sprinkle on top of something that was going to be carried around on a hook. I think that it was more likely that the pretzels were boiled in salt water. This would leave a thin layer of salt on the entire surface of the pretzel. This was also give the baker the best value for their dollar: all of the salt would remain in the boiling pot and not on a table or in the oven. Or rubbed off of the pretzels as they are jostled about. As mentioned earlier, the use of a lye bath only dates back to 1861; none of the modern recipes call for adding salt to the lye bath. I did some research while typing up this section as to why salt isn't added to the bath; I was expecting some kind of bad chemical reaction. Instead I discovered that nothing will happen. The best answer I found (best as in clearest explanation for someone who hasn't sat in a chemistry class in 38 years) is as follows:
Nothing happens chemically, but the dissolved NaOH will reduce the amount of NaCl that can dissolve in solution (because NaOH is more soluble than NaCl, and there's a common ion effect with the sodium ion). What may be happening is that you're causing the NaCl to crash out of solution when you add the NaOH. You couldn't solve this problem by working in the reverse order though (adding NaCl to NaOH). (From Chemical Forums website.)
While this was an answer to a soap maker, the same would be true for a pretzel maker. There would be no point in adding salt to the lye solution as the salt crystals would drop to the bottom of the pot. Nowadays, salt is cheap and we can waste as much as we want by sprinkling it on the dough when they come out of the bath. In places that had a high salt tax, it would have been a waste of money.
In the last 150 years, the pretzel has become the world's most popular snack food, outselling potato and corn chips by 50 to 60% in gross sales. Historically, at least up until modern times, pretzels were made on the cheap: only 4 ingredients and twisted by low paid, unskilled labor. And the pretzel industry has always made a profit without delving into unsavory additives. Pretzels are so simple that if you make them too cheap, i.e. using sawdust in the flour, people will immediately notice. I was unable to find any major scandals in the pretzel industry up until the last 20 years: In 2004 there was an E coli contamination in one factory; in 2010 there was a recall of pretzels made by National Pretzels due to salmonella contamination; and in 2024 30 different brand name pretzel products were recalled also for salmonella contamination. But I was unable to find any public safety notices over non-food items being used like I can find related to plain old bread. Particularly during the mid to late 19th century where the use of sawdust was common in flour, chalk and borax were added to milk, and arsenic added to candy to make it green. (Note: while proof-reading, I found a government website that listed a number of "default decree of condemnation and destruction" orders since 1948 against pretzel manufactures for items contaminated with insect parts, rodent hairs, or general filth. None of the orders listed anything other than unsanitary conditions as the reason for the judgement. So, nothing about cheap or dangerous substitutions for good flour or malt.)
If we use some critical thinking and assume that pretzels were made the same way before modern industrial processes, and before the lye bath, then we can see that pretzels were always, I hesitate to say cheap... inexpensive snack food. Looking at paintings of pretzels, they appear to be on the large size, perhaps slightly larger than a mall or ball park soft pretzel; but perhaps not large enough for a full meal. Certainly a welcome on-the-go snack to tide one over until the next full meal.
Knowing what we learned about 19th and early 20th century ingredients. it doesn't seem likely that pretzels in the middle ages were made differently. Red wheat, spelt, or a combination of the two; both high protein grains that can produce lots of gluten. Our medieval bakers will also need water, yeast and barley malt; all three can come from ale. Not being a baker, I've had plenty of conversations about baking with people who do spend plenty of time in the kitchen, baking bread, pies, cookies, and other wonderful things, and one of the topics that keeps coming up is the question of yeast. Before pre-packaged yeast, where do you get it?
The standard SCA demo answer is if you need yeast you go to the brewer and ask for some. I've heard that line for the last 30+ years. Bakers require a lot of yeast; would they keep running over the nearest brewer to beg, borrow, or buy yeast? They could use sourdough starters, but as the world discovered during the COVID19 pandemic, sourdough starters require a lot of care and attention. There are sourdough sitters to watch your gloop if you have to leave the house for several days. A bakery could keep sourdough starters on hand, but was every bread product made from sourdough? I don't think so.
Since all bakers require a daily dose of yeast, and buying it from a brewer would be costly, I think that bakeries brewed their own ale (beer without hops). I know, bakeries did not sell ale, but why wouldn't they brew their own ale not only to have a ready supply of yeast, but to drink: kneading, rolling, stretching, folding, and baking bread is hard work and it must have been hot around the ovens. Brewing their own ale would provide a nice perk for the people working in the bakery, and would provide a constant supply of yeast and sugar (maltose). Since bakeries were already buying grain, they would have had access to barleycorn, which could be malted in house and used to make ale. Once the beer yeast start eating the maltose, they make more yeast. All the baker would have to do is mash some more barley and mix it with the existing wort whenever the level in the barrel got too low.
Like a perpetual stew, the ale pot could be topped off every few days and the bakers will have all the yeast they could ever ask for. A scoop of the yeast foam from the top of the wort for regular breads, and the yeast and wort for pretzels. By wort, I mean the fresh ale that is fermenting away. There would be no need to let the ale ferment to completion; the necessary product wouldn't be the alcohol, but the yeast and the sugar to feed the yeast. The scientific name for baker's yeast is Saccharomyces cerevisiae; or fugus of beer. Gotta love Latin.
High protein flour, fresh ale, maybe some salt, and a lot of work by apprentices to knead and roll the dough until it becomes stretchy. Formed into pretzel shapes, dunked into boiling salt water, and then baked. The dough side of things appears fairly straight forward. We want a dough that will produce a chewy, malty, pretzel. Without gluten, it would be cake-like and might not hold together. Without the malt, it's essentially a breadstick in a weird shape.
And speaking of the shape:
Half of what makes a pretzel a pretzel is it's shape. Yes, there are pretzel sticks or logs, as well as other shapes created in the last 50 years, but looking only at medieval and renaissance art, a pretzel was defined by its shape as much as its dough. We must ignore all of the modern day stories describing the birth of the pretzel and the meaning of its shape; partly because they are not found in period, and partly because they are stupid. I will cover that in the rant portion.
Using only critical thinking, we must only consider practical reasons why the pretzel has its shape. The oldest image of a pretzel dates to 610AD. It looked more like a handlebar mustache than a pretzel, but most people can tell that it is a pretzel. The image is of the Last Supper; the artist was not suggesting that there were pretzels at the Last Supper, but was using the recognizable shape of the pretzel as a stand in to bread. Pretzels were often found on dinner tables in early manuscripts, both religious and secular, particularly those where the artistic quality was less than good. If you can't draw a loaf of bread better than a brown lump, then you used a pretzel as a stand in. As the quality of art increased, and the food on the table became more recognizable, the need to use pretzels as a stand in for bread decreased, until they disappeared from manuscript images. I only know of one medieval image of high quality that contains a pretzel on the table, but that will have to wait for another post.
If the pretzel was used as a surrogate to bread by 610AD, than we can assume that pretzels were around for a generation prior to that; enough time for them to propagate throughout Europe. So, someone invented the pretzel at the end of the 6th century, they became popular, and the concept was brought to one town after another until most of Europe knew about them. Let's put the dough to one side; there is nothing particularly special about the dough. flour, fresh ale, maybe some salt, boiled and then baked. There were, and still are, plenty of breads made of similar dough; the secret to the pretzel has to lie with its shape.
If you were a baker and had a tasty treat, how would you go about selling it before facebook? What would you do to encourage people to go to your bakery and not the one a couple of streets over? Cut your prices? Offer deals? Or make something eye catching?
In order to make them cheap, they should be easy to make and quick to bake. The best shape for both criteria would be a thin log. Roll the dough into a log, boil it and then stick it in the oven. A thin piece of bread would bake quickly, which means that you can bake more of them while the oven is hot. However a pretzel stick has some issues. 1) It would be difficult to boil and move to the oven and keep the stick straight. 2) Once baked, they would have to be kept in a basket or a box to keep them from rolling away. Using either one could trap in steam which could make the bottoms soggy, and no one likes a soggy bottom. 3) If they are in a basket or a box, they wouldn't stand out.
Hanging the pretzel from a hook or a string would allow them to cool without getting gummy and they could be hung at eye level. A round pretzel would work, but after watching videos of bagel making, I see that it takes a lot more work to make a round pretzel that doesn't fall apart. Also, if you make a thin, round pretzel, and it breaks open, it might not stay on the hook; if one end of a pretzel breaks, there is another end as a backup.
The pretzel shape is unique in the baked good world: there is nothing else like it. It must have been an acceptable shape since it became the de facto symbol for bakers and is instantly recognizable throughout the world, these days. Once you know how to twist the knot, it only takes a couple of seconds to make one. The shape would have more structural integrity than a stick shape, and wouldn't roll around in the oven. All you have to do is teach people how to make the pretzel knot. And there lies the problem: the oldest instruction I could find only dates back to 1953. Why are there no earlier instructions? I can understand why there is no written recipe for the dough; it's simple enough that you don't need a recipe. A baker would know how much ale to add to how much flour to get a dough of a certain stickiness. But how would you start to explain the shape to someone who had never seen a pretzel before? What if I were to tell you that they didn't have to explain how to make a pretzel shape; everyone already knew how to do it.
I had a pretzel based epiphany while preparing for my class. I was trying to come up with phrasing about how, sometimes, you have to work around missing information in order to narrow in on your subject matter. Then it hit me. Instead of looking for some significance of the pretzel knot, or trying to hunt down instructions on how to make twist a pretzel, what if everyone already knew how to make a pretzel knot? What if it was an actual knot. Or, almost an actual knot.
Behold: the Stafford Knot. Or the Staffordshire Knot. Or the basic stopper knot. Or a hundred of other regional names. Known as the Basic Overhand Knot, today. A most useful knot, particularly useful for tying off the end of a rope to keep it from unraveling. If we twist dough into a pretzel shape and pass one arm under the loop, we would have a Stafford Knot. The pretzel maker doesn't make a useful knot, just the appearance of one, with the arms pressed into the top of the main loop.
Most people today only know how to tie one or two knots; the square knot to tie one's shoes and one of 151 knots that can be used to tie a necktie. But, when everyday society is held together by rope and string, everyone would know how to make multiple kinds of knots, and the overhand knot is one of the most basic and most useful in everyday life. The name "overhand knot" only dates back to 1789, but it looks like physical examples of the actual knot can be dated to the 7th century BCE and can be found in stone carvings where one knot loops into another and then into another. The knot might date back much further, but in terms of teaching someone how to make a pretzel, "Start making a whosie-whatsit knot, but don't tuck the end under. Just push them on top of the loop," is easy to say if everyone knew how to make that knot.
Images of how to tie a knot look remarkably similar to how to twist a pretzel. Manuals showing how to make knots show the rope or string laid out on a flat surface, and I have a vague memory of being taught how to make knots like that, when I was a little kid.
I have absolutely no proof (another bakery pun) that this is what happened, but I cannot think of a more simple and logical explanation. The pretzel shape was invented somewhere in Europe; that shape spread throughout the continent. The instructions on how to twist the dough weren't written down until the 1950s, as far as I could find. The method would have to have been easy to describe for it to spread solely by word of mouth, or with minimal hands-on instruction. If everyone already knew how to make the basic overhand knot, it would take under 10 seconds to tell someone how to twist a pretzel. I do not think that there is another explanation that is as simple.
Occam's Razor tells us that the simplest explanation is most often the correct one. On the one hand, we have my idea, and on the other hand we have all of the origin stories that try to give the pretzel a mythical origin. The shape is how people use to pray; it represents the Holy Trinity. It represents the Earth, Moon, and Sun. It was designed to fit on a lance or the spokes of a steering wheel. It represents how couples are joined in marriage. I will go into details in the next section on these stories, but you can get a flavor for the alternative explanations. Someone had an idea that attracted attention; that idea spread from baker to baker, town to town, country to country over the course of a century. Eventually it became so ingrained into daily life that the shape became synonymous with bread makers. I do not think there is anything more to the pretzel then the following: cheap dough; distinctive shape; sold on the street for a pittance; yummy eats. It irritates me that there are so many stories trying to make them more important than they actually were. None of them make any sense and they just make it next to impossible to find any actual information. With that said:
Time To Rant:
First of all, my research of academic sites was hampered by a Ph.D. medieval historian with the surname of Pretzel. And they do not specialize in medieval baking. I am mad at the universe for creating a Doctor Pretzel who knows less than I do about baking bread.
That being said, I think I figured out why there are so many conflicting and confusing origin stories about the pretzel. At least in part. While most of the stories came from ad copy of pretzel manufactures, I have an interesting theory about why there are so many that place the pretzel in so many places. During WWI there was strong anti-German sentiment. So strong that certain food was either banned or renamed: German fried potatoes became "home fries". Sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage". German style lagers became "American beer". Frankfurters were already called hot dogs but the word frankfurter became verboten for a decade. Hamburgers were called "liberty steak". German shepherds became “Alsatian Wolf Dogs". The German language itself was banned during the war. And pretzels were on the chopping block as bars stopped offering them to thirty drinkers, and stores stopped putting them on the shelves. In 1918 the Los Angeles Times wrote that the pretzel was “too German to be taken seriously." Pretzels were a multi-million dollar industry, at the time, and no one wanted to lose out on all of that cash. So, we start seeing ad copy and newspaper articles pushing non-German origin stories. They were invented in Italy, or southern France, or Spain. They were invented by sailors. They were invented during the siege of Vienna. They were created by the Native Americans and Columbus brought them to Europe. And, most importantly, the hard pretzel is an all-American invention brought to us by Julius Sturgis who learned how to make them from an all-American hobo (that is the official story from Sturgis, although they have removed the word "hobo" from their website). Even the word got a makeover.
You will often see the following line in the "history" of pretzels: “The monks called the creation 'pretiola' a Latin term that means "little reward.” Where did this definition come from? Was it a medieval book? An Elizabethan dictionary? A Hanover cookbook? No, it came from the 1917 edition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. It does not show up in the 1905 edition. I wonder what was happening in 1916 and 1917 that would make an American dictionary company decided to invent a non-German origin for the word pretzel. It it often stated that "Pretzel" is the English version of the German "Bretzel", certainly the word Bretzel appears in print a couple of centuries before the word Pretzel, but here is a trusted source that says that "pretzel" comes from Latin roots and not German. By the time WWII started, the "all American" pretzel had lost most of its German reputation. Like Coca-Cola, pretzels followed American soldiers where ever they were deployed. (Pretzels were not part of C-rations issued to soldiers, but they were added to MREs starting in the 1980s. Vacuum packed pretzels and crackers replaced the hardtack biscuits found in the C-rats.)
On the Internet, we find a number of sources that claim that the oldest pretzel recipe dates from 1111, but none of these sources will list a manuscript or book. Instead the proof is that a baker's guild was founded in 1111 and had a pretzel as part of its crest. A baker's guild where? Europe is a big place. You often see references to a "Swabian" and a "Bavarian" style pretzel which is used to "prove" that the pretzel was invented in Swabia or Bavaria. The style difference is that the Swabian version has skinny arms and the Bavarian style is of a uniform thickness. This fact does not prove anything, but it is an example of how incredibly low the bar is.
The oldest story about the origin of the pretzel is the one that is most often quoted; the monk in the monastery. The story goes as follows: In 610AD a monk in a monastery was teaching little kids and was so impressed that the kids had learned their lessons that he, the monk, went to kitchen to get them a treat. Seeing scraps of bread dough on the counter, he quickly twisted them into the now familiar shape of a pretzel, tossed them in the oven to bake, and then gave them to the children. This story first appeared in newspapers in the US and across Europe without a byline in the 1870s. The location of the monastery changed depending on where the story was published; in Germany, in Italy, in England, etc. We don't know who wrote the story, and none of the usual suspects claimed credit: Twain, Irving, Thurber. There are some major issues with this story.
1) In the 7th Century, monasteries were closed institutions: outsiders were rarely allowed inside. Abbeys had open spaces for outsiders, so the author did not know the difference.
2) In the 7th Century, education was based around the principle of "spare the rod, spoil the child." Children would have been punished for not learning their lessons, not rewarded for doing as they were told.
3) The monk/teacher left the little children alone while he went to get them a treat from the kitchen? Not the pantry? Not the buttery? Not the wine cellar? Okay, perhaps not the wine cellar, but why go to the kitchen where other monks would have been hard at work? Why not go to where apples are stored and grab a handful for the kids? Wouldn't that be an easier treat to procure?
4) "Scraps of bread dough?" When you make bread, there are no scraps. You make a lump of dough and then divide it up into quarters, or eights, or whatever, and make how ever many loaves you need. There are scraps of pie crust, once you finish trimming up a pie, but pretzels aren't made from pie crusts.
5) Have I mentioned that the teacher/monk left the little brats alone?
6) He invented a treat just by looking at scraps of bread dough? It does nothing to explain the shape of the pretzel. Was he teaching the kids how to tie a knot?
7) Was the bread oven still hot? Medieval bread ovens didn't have an on/off switch. "Hmmm, should I get the little tikes some fresh bread and honey? No, I'm going to invent a brand new treat out of table scraps and, oh goody, the oven is still rocket hot."
8) Why aren't we talking more about how the dude left the kids alone while he baked something which could have taken an hour or more.
In the 1950 the story was modified; the lesson that the monk was teaching the kids was how to pray. You see, according to the "The Easter Book", by Franz Xaver Weiser, Christians used to pray by folding one's arms across the chest, making the arms look like an upside down pretzel.
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| Mary protecting Jesus (on the next panel over). |
Except that this is not true. Martyrs were shown in this pose at the moment of their death, although not always. The Virgin Mary was shown with arms crossed as a sign of protection against evil, although not always. Early Christian artwork, as well as Greek and Roman art depicting Christians, show that they prayed either with their palms together or with their arms spread wide in a pose called orans or orante. This form of prayer appears to have disappeared from artwork by the 6th century.
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| Totally not jazz hands. |
Some Muslims pray with their arms crossed over their chests, as do members of the Church of Later Day Saints, but I don't think a Catholic monk in the 7th Century would have been teaching children about how Muslims prayed or about a sect of Christianity way off in the future would pray. Someone with more free time than myself looked at the line drawing in "The Easter Book" and traced it back to the source. I had said that it was from an image of the Martyr St. Martin, in my class, but I was mistaken. The Martyr St Martin, as opposed to the five other St. Martins, is considered the patron saint of pretzels, although I have been unable to discover why. No, the line drawing in "The Easter Book" comes from a 15th Century, French Book of Hours (MS M.105 fol. 71r) to a page depicting the 4th Century Martyr Juliana of Nicomedia being boiled to death. Juliana of Nicomedia has nothing to do with pretzels other than this one image was used to embellish a fake story. And that both Juliana and pretzels were boiled. (NOTE: I did not come up with this joke, someone in my class did and I had to include it in my notes for complete documentation.)
In the 1960s the story was modified, again. This time the children were replaced by the teacher's fellow monks. So, the monk invented pretzels to reward his fellow monks for learning how to pray by inventing the pretzel. If monks need to be taught how to pray, after they have already taken vows to leave the earthy world for a life of work and prayer, than I think they picked the wrong profession. While doing some research on Lent, I ran across two blogs of two different churches describing children's activities for Lent; both talked about teaching kids to make pretzels and both blogs pointed out that they don't pray with their arms crossed over the chest, therefore the pretzel used to be a different shape.
Unfortunately, I can't find the other blog, which had better pictures. You can see that the pretzel that this child is holding has the arms of the pretzel folded upwards to the top, like hands pressed together. Both posts were from 2023, so the conspiracy mentality to invent stories is still alive and well.
The second most quoted story is of the siege of Vienna. Stories date back to the 1940s and 50s and appears to be a wholly American story as I was unable to find any references of this story in any European source prior to 2010. It looks like it was created as ad copy simultaneously by several pretzel companies. I was unable to track down the ad companies involved, but due to the variation of the stories, my guess would be that each ad company was working off of the same source material and ran their ads in separate markets. The story was further spread by comic books and kid's magazines. There are two major branches of this story, which goes thusly: During the 1529 siege of Vienna the bakers were up early in the basement of their bakery, which was next to the city walls. They were either baking bread or pretzels, depending on the story. The story goes on to say that the bakers heard the Turkish sappers digging under the floor and they either ran to get the city defenders or they picked up whatever was nearby to repel the invaders. In either case, the Turks broke through the floor and were fought back into the tunnels or killed to the man. In the aftermath of this victory, the bakers either painted a large pretzel on a banner and had it raised from the highest tower in the city to show everyone that they bakers saved the city, or the bakers invented the pretzel on that day to commemorate their victory over the Turks.
Where to begin? Why would they be baking in the cellar? It seems like extra work for bakers: everything would have to be carried downstairs; dough, water, wood, and then the baked bread would have to be carried back up the stairs. And the smoke from the ovens would go where? Up to the ground floor? People who know more about medieval bakeries can answer that question, so let's move on to why bakers would be baking pretzels during a siege, particularly if this story was supposed to describe the invention of the pretzel. I would think that during a major siege, which the 1529 conflict was, all grain, flour, and resources would have been consolidated in one centralized location, so, why would a bakery be in operation next to the outer walls of the city?
It is possible that unarmed bakers could have fended off sappers while they were trying to climb out of a hole: I would imagine that getting hit by a long, wooden peel upside the head would hurt a lot. So would having a 50 pound sack of grain dropped on your head. That's besides the point; the story sounds very contrived to make the bakers the heroes. A minor point but that leads us to why would they run up a banner with a pretzel? It wasn't like raising the flag on Iwo Jima: where American Marines could see that the raising of the American flag meant that they had taken the high ground. Without knowing anything about the failed tunneling attempt, a pretzel banner would mean nothing. "Hmm, does someone have hot pretzels available? I haven't had one since before the siege." And if the pretzel had been invented on that day, what the hell would the banner mean? "Hey, Hanns, is that a Stafordshire knot on that banner up on the tallest tower?" "No, Fritz, we're Austrians, not English. That's a Sheppard's knot." "Oh, yeah, I guess that means that the bakers defeated the Turkish sappers."
If this story sounds familiar to you, that's might be because that is is the same story as the invention of the croissant. The story is equally silly with the croissant: if someone ran up a banner with a crescent on it during a siege by Turks, the people of the city might assume that the Turks had taken the city and had run up a banner symbolizing Islam. The story of the croissant says that the pastry was created so that Christians could symbolically devour Islam with each buttery bite, but there is no similar "connection" between pretzels and Islam, Or even culturally with Turkey or the rest of the Middle East. Pretzels have only become a treat in that part of the world in the last 20 or 30 years. So, if the pretzel was invented in 1529 to symbolize the defeat of the Turks, how does that explain it's shape? As far as I can tell, Islamic artwork (and that is a very broad term) doesn't use linear knotwork, but instead used geometric patterns. If the shape of the pretzel, which has been around since the 7th Century, was created as a sign of Turkish defeat, I am unable to find any reason to explain the shape.
We could say that the shape of the pretzel represents the Holy Trinity, but there are some issues with that story. First of all, the hole are not of equal size, and unless it's a representation of the Holy Trinity based on Greek Orthodox traditions (which states that Jesus is similar, but lesser, to the God the Father and God the Holy Spirit) the argument falls flat. The other issue is that this story appears to the be the first Internet origin story of the pretzel, as I was unable to find any trace of this story in print before USENET, which was pre web pages. This story goes thusly: A baker was sentenced to death for some crime, but was told that if he could bake something that the light of the sun could shine through three times by the time the sun rose in the morning, his life would be spared. So, the baker worked all night and came up with the pretzel. And, in the morning, he showed that the sunlight shone through the pretzel three times, each ray of light represented the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The baker was thus pardoned and he became a monk so that he could teach the world about pretzels.
Do I need to explain this one? What crime would someone have to commit that would get you sentenced to death but also give you a get out of jail free card for doing something that was part of your job. "You, town crier, you are sentenced to death for kicking a puppy, but if you could shout really, really loud we'll let you go free." A baker, someone who bakes things, was told to bake something with three holes in it or else be executed. Why not a flat bread with three holes? Why not a pretzel with three equal-sized holes? Why not three donuts joined together? And this isn't even the dumbest story I've encountered.
That would be how the pretzel was invented onboard sailing ships as a way for helmsmen to eat without letting go of the wheel with both hands. The pretzel would be slipped over one of the wheel's spokes, at mouth level, and the helmsman would be able to eat and steer at the same time. First of all, this is one of the origin stories of the donut, which does have a maritime connection. Secondly, it's stupid. If it's too rough for one person to hang onto the wheel, then you don't eat when you need to concentrate. If you need to eat, someone will relieve you. Thirdly, this came from a Popeye comic strip from the 1930s. Popeye. Popeye the Sailor. With the spinach and the pipe.
Almost as stupid is the story that the pretzel was invented during the Middle Ages as a traveling food for knights. Let me explain: In {insert country here} there was a bandit problem of such extent that the local knights were always in armor and ready to ride out. The pretzel was invented so that it could be slipped over the point of their lances so that the knights could eat while at full gallop. The two big loops allowed the knight to eat without banging their noses against the lance. I was unable to track it down to an original source, but it did appear in kids magazines starting in the 1950s. One of my sources say that it even appeared in a Batman/Superman comic, although I can't find an online source of the comic to confirm it (supposedly it's DC's "World's Finest" #162 from November 1966, where Batman and Superman go back into time and are knighted by King Arthur and became members of the Round Table. Look..... DC was really weird in the '60s). I don't even know how to... Where to start? Why would anyone think..... "We put some wine and meat pies in your saddle bags. Go get them bad guys." No. That would be too easy. "Here's a piece of bread; bring your lance over here. I hope you cleaned it. And I hope your visor doesn't slam shut while you eat." If a knight, or any trained horseman, is unable to hold the reins and lance with one hand while they use the other hand to eat, then they should either go hungry for a while or spend more time in the saddle.
There are a a number of stories saying that pretzels were actually a Native American food. Soft pretzels, anyways; the hard pretzel was invented by Europeans in Pennsylvania. 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 to keep them out of reach of animals. Where does this story come from? Guess. Take a wild guess. You have a idea in your head? Good, but you're wrong; this story came from an ad that played during a "Lone Ranger" radio show. First of all, wheat wasn't introduced to the "new" world until the late 15th or early 16th Century. Secondly, I know of no Native American symbolism that looks anything like a pretzel. Thirdly, what f'ing tree do you know of that can repel birds and squirrels?
The f'ing Lone Ranger! This is why I rant about pretzels!
There is a variation of this story that pretzels are South American and were made of maize, and dates back to the early 1970s (I vaguely remember something like this when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade; it might have been one of the cards from the old SRA Reading Boxes). When Christopher Columbus landed in the New World, the natives offered him pretzels, which he enjoyed. So he took them home with him, but Europe didn't have any maize, so they had to use wheat instead, and thus, the pretzel as we know it was born. I actually had to look up to see if maize grew on Hispaniola before Columbus showed up and ruined everything. And, yes, maize was probably brought to the island, along with squash and chilis, around 500AD. But, maize doesn't have any gluten and would make a lousy pretzel. And pretzels were around in Europe in the 7th Century. I don't think that Columbus had a time...... OMG! We could do a remake of "The Final Countdown" with the Nina, Pinta, and the Santa Maria going back into time and fighting vikings!
Anyways....
There are multiple stories that say that the hard pretzel was invented because a young baker fell asleep and let the pretzels bake too long. He only kept his job because the master bakers loved the new crunchy pretzels. There are also variations where a young baker knocked a tray of pretzels into a tub of boiling lye solution and not wanting to throw them away, quickly stuck them in the oven and hoped that no one would notice. But notice they did.... And everyone loved the new flavor.
All stories relating to the Celtic or pagan origins started in the 1960s and 1970s with the birth and growth of Wicca.
The story of how pretzels were part of marriage ceremonies started in the late 1970s or early 1980s after Life Magazine published a photo spread of medieval stained glass windows, one of which was a window showing a married couple holding a pretzel between them (they were members of two different families of German bakers and their families paid for the window). The story says that the couple held the two large loops and the priest held the smallest loop. The main problem is that we have liturgical manuals going back 1500 years. None of them mention pretzels in any context, let alone as a prop for a marriage ceremony.
And finally, because I've been writing this for too long, the story that small pretzels were used before wedding rings, where the bride and groom would place their hands palm to palm and the priest would slide a pretzel over their ring fingers, one finger in each of the large loops. What history expert discovered this fact? Captain. F'ing. Kangaroo! He might have been the smartest person at the Treasure House, but I don't take history lessons from someone who wasn't a real captain. Ever hear about stolen valor, Mr. Kangaroo? (Note, Bob Keeshan enlisted in the US Marine Corp during WWII and left the service as a PFC. All respect to Mr. Keeshan for his service.) Mr. Moose should have fact checked him.
9800 words and it's time to end this post. I might add to this down the road, but I think that I'm done for the rant portion. I will make a follow up post about pretzels in art, but I have other things to work on. All joking aside, this has been both a fun and aggravating project. Fun tracking down real information. Aggravating that there is so much BS in the way. Not just ad copy and stories from kid's comics, but half-assed statements that are quoted and requoted with no context or verifiable sources. Look, I understand that sometimes a convenient "white lie" is necessary when trying to teach complicated subjects. It's easier to say that no one ate with table forks rather than spend several hours discussing medieval table manners, hand washing, and how rich and poor people actually cooked and ate their meals. Teaching kids that there were only knights, peasants, priests, and royalty is wrong, but it's easier than spending an entire day describing the the differences between peasants, freemen, villains, serfs, and the like. Unfortunately, these white lies tend to take on a life of their own. And even more unfortunately, it is easy to just say something with one piece of technical information, but not enough to track down the actual period source. It's next to impossible to determine what it true and what isn't if sources aren't listed.
Now, it's one thing to give a quick bit or information for a casual post, such as this one, and it's another to use vague statements as part of an academic paper. "The church decreed that pretzels were allowed during Lent." Did they? Where did they say this. Show me any official doctrine before 1800 where this was written. "Pretzels were created to represent the Sun, Earth, and the Moon." Says who? "Pretzels were soft until the 1800s." Where is your proof of that?
There are plenty of references that quote from vague sources that can't be verified. In the equally vague history of the Christmas tree, the following line can be found in both English and in German in various references: "Now, the tree was moved into the guildhall. In 1579 we read in a chronicle from Bremen how a small tree decorated with “apples, nuts, dates, pretzels and paper flowers” was erected in the guild-house for the benefit of the children of the guild members" This comes from p107 of the 1978 book "Das Weihnachtsfest. Eine Kultur- und Sozialgeschichte der Weihnachtszeit " [Christmas: A cultural and social history of Christmastide]. Unfortunately, the book does not say where this information comes from or even which guild hall. Bremen had seven different guilds with large guild halls in the 16th Century.
A Dutch "legend", that I read recently, says that the modern pretzel was invented in Holland in the 16th century as a Lent friendly version of krakelingen puff pastries. Again, no source material was given but the line is widely quoted without evidence. An Italian story says that the pretzel was invented in Italy but was given a German name because of the Lombards, who took the invention to German and stole the credit for it. Again, widely quoted but no actual medieval source given. In the last five years I've read multiple sources quoting a non-existent letter from a Pilgrim stating that The Pilgrims who sailed over on the Mayflower invented the pretzel when they landed on Plymouth Rock and that they baked pretzels at the first Thanksgiving. ("A surviving letter from a Pilgrim recounts the first pretzel baked in the New World shortly after the Mayflower bla bla bla"). I was unable to find any web pages posted, or books published, before 2019 with this information. Just the same line quoted and re-quoted without evidence. This is a problem with researching some topics, even putting the outright lies out of the picture.
We should be striving to research and preserve actual information so that it can't be lost, again. It does no one any good to bury correct information under a mound of falsehood and trendy sound bites. For the last 150 years, various people have striven to come up with an origin story for the pretzel, as if it can't exist without one. Let me be the first person to explain the origin of the pretzel: We don't know. We don't know who made the first one, we don't know why it was made or where it was made. We don't know how it became the universal snack of Europe. And we don't know why no one talked about them. Being able to say "I don't know" is vastly superior to making up a story about clumsy bakers, or besieging Turks, or attentive students. Instead of arguing about which fake story is "true" isn't it better to admit that we don't know and to look for actual proof?
I think my hypothesis is vastly superior to any of the origin stories: the most inexpensive type of bread, slightly sweet, twisted in a distinctive shape that catches the eye. Easy to make, easy to twist, and quick to bake. For 1500 years baking pretzels was like printing money; if they sold for a farthing or a groat, the baker could still make a profit. Pretzels are a billion dollar industry, today, because of the same reasons that drove bakers in the middle ages to make and sell them: They are chewy and crunchy, and malty, and salty and most people could eat an entire bag of them. I have no proof that my hypothesis is correct, and unless some written record with a recipe or a list of ingredients turns up we will have no way of seeing if I am correct or incorrect, but in the mean time, I am happy to say that we don't know and we can enjoy eating them without knowing who inventing them, regardless of what The Lone Ranger, Popeye, or Captain Kangaroo might have told us.
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