April 22, 2026 • 33 mins
Pretzels have morphed from a religious symbol to a bar snack to a metaphor for principles of quantum physics. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren explore the twists of pretzel history, culture, and science.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annires
and I'm Lorn vogel Baum. And today we have a
classic episode for you about pretzels. Yes, and it goes
a bit a bit back. We were younger in those days.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Uh yeah, this one is from March of twenty nineteen.
You can hear it in the just the clear excitement
in our voices and also in this might have been
the first time that we ran across one of these
Baked Goods episodes where a baked good saved a city
(00:44):
during a siege. Yeah, because I'm not impressed by that anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You're desensitized.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm desensitized to the story. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, who
hasn't saved a sa during a siege when you're a
baked good?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Do you have a mascot? A pretzel?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Does that should be the next Oh? There you go.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm still I'm still impressed by mascots.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, well, I.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Think I know the answer to this, but I'm going
to ask you anyway, was there any particular reason this
was on your mind to bring back horn?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh? I don't Now, I'm curious to know what you
think the answer is, because I'm pretty sure that I
was just browsing through our classics and like a baked
good was sort of kind of a thing that we
hadn't talked about in a second, and so I was like, yeah,
put that one in there. Although as I was going
(01:44):
through the episode, I was like, oh, man, we should
have run this before Easter because it's, as it turns out,
extremely easter codd.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh yeah, we don't get that right all too often.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
No, come out.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We certainly don't winter holiday topics in the middle of summer. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hey, but you know in Australia, right works.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, what did you think? I think I could look
this up and easily solve it. But I'm pretty sure
National Pretzel Day just happened.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, oh wow, okay, accidentally on time? Love it.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it happens. I was just getting
a lot of in our inbox, a lot of cold
call emails from companies that were that were like, oh,
National Pretzel Day, that's why Lauren did.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh there you go. No, I was I was unaware.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Maybe somehow you're in tune with the.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Pretzel that's probably it, you know, just on right, like
like on a on a deeper energetic level and probably
just in tune with what's going on with pretzels.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Makes sense, it does.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well. While I investigate this newfound facet of myself, we
should probably let former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Hello, and welcome to Savor.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I'm Annie Resa and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're
talking about pretzels.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Which, amazingly is another food that's a funny mascot, the
pretzel mascot.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I think there's more than one.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
This one is high quality. I definitely recommend looking this
one up.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yes, I do too.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
One of my favorite things when my mom and I
that we would do when I was growing up is
we would take a trip to the mall and we
would get one of those anti Anne pretzels with the
honey glaze.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Honey glaze, okay, all right, so good? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Every time I go to the mall to this day,
I'm like, can I get one?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Probably not, I.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Mean you're allowed to.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I definitely want to one day, relive it, relive it.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And we go to the Imax at the Mall of
Georgia and we would buy those Cinna bytes, which are
just like warm bite sized cinnamon and sugar pretzels.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I get a little like nuggets.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, and we would sneak them into the theater.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Those are good at times already the craving setting in
that's not good. But regular pretzels, I'm not super into them.
I turn them down on airplanes. I do like the
ones with peanut butter in the center, but that's peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
That's peanut butter related and not pretzel related.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I prefer a soft pretzel to a hard pretzel. But
I love a pretzel. Yeah, I am a sucker for
any kind of pretzel, pretzel bread. I get the most
excited about pretzel bread. And I don't know, well, I
feel like I feel like the amount of excitement that
I experience about it, it's not even disproportionate. It's just like,
I don't I don't know why it happens.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Hmmm, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I have a similar thing with a local popsicle vendor,
King of Pops. Oh yeah, because I don't really like
pops I mean, they're fine, sure, but I get so
excited when I see them. They just were really good
at marketing and making themselves seem like difficult to find.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I think so you're like, oh, man, what a treat.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
But there's literally a king of pops in this building.
I could just walk down the stairs hood but no, no,
if I see them in the wild, like oh popsicle,
I I yeah, I understand that. Me and my ex
boyfriend we were at this big comedy show a couple
(05:44):
of years ago and we hadn't had dinner and we
saw on the menu an eighteen dollars super pretzel and
we were very very intrigued, and we decided to order
it on a whim, a very ridiculous, silly whim. The
cashier was like, no one's ever ordered that before. Let
me check with my manager. I don't actually know what
(06:05):
it is. And it became a fiasco. There was all
hands on deck. Everyone was trying to figure out this
super pretzel. People were going back into the back and
like whispering.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It took like.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Thirty minutes, but finally we got this massive pretzel and
a pizza box that barely fit out like the order window.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It was the size of my door.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So at least wow, and it came with two tiny
cheese containers to diff it in.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
It was pretty hilarious.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's one of the first pictures on my Instagram.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So just a real big pretzel.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It was just a big a super pretzel. Yeah, will oh,
I will as you should. It was a waste, but
it was a fun waste.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well there you go.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, I'm not sure how they did it to this day.
I wonder if they, like who is maybe somebody went
and picked one up.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
If anyone has any background information on the super pretzel.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Very important for us to know, very important. I totally
forgot about President George W. Bush almost choking on that pretzel.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Oh yeah, that happened.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It came up a lot when I was researching. Huh
oh yeah, the pretzel.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The pretzel. But all of this brings us to the
question pretzel.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What is it? Well, pretzel can mean a lot of things.
It's a type of baked good that can be salty
or savor you're sweet, a soft, or crunchy. The word
can refer to the traditional twisty knot shape that these
baked goods come in, though pretzels can also come in
other shapes, like sticks or nuggets. Other baked goods like
sandwich rolls aforementioned, can be made of pretzel style bread.
(07:49):
But okay, I guess at the essence of pretzel.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You've got a snack made of a yeast raised wheat
flour dough that's rolled into a long rope and then
wound into a shape that's It's like a wide, rounded
heart with the with the ends overlapping at the crux
of the heart, and the ends are then twisted around
each other and pulled down to touch the lower sides
of the heart space. In the United States, the ends
(08:15):
are separated after twisting and attached one on each side
of the heart, forming a shape with three holes. Yeah.
In Europe, the ends are often kept together and attached
to the same point at the bottom, forming a shape
with only two holes. What I know, blow my mind right.
The pretzel may be treated or topped in a number
of ways, and is baked until it reaches the desired firmness.
(08:37):
The result has a deep brown crust with a pale interior,
a slightly tangy flavor, and a texture that's somewhere from
chewy soft to like crispy crunchy. Hmm. There are a
lot of variations. Philly style pretzels are shaped like an
elongated figure eight. I know. Hard baked pretzels tend to
(09:00):
be smaller, like bite sized often come in other shapes,
sticks and twists. Soft baked ones tend to be bigger.
You could use yeast dough or sour dough, plain wheat flour,
incorporate other grains, can top them with cinnamon and sugar,
powdered mustard, powdered dill, pickle flavoring, Bake them up with
cheese on top. You can serve them with all kinds
of dipping sauces, though for the savory ones, whole grain
mustard is perhaps the most common, and cheese sauce perhaps
(09:22):
the most delicious. Agreed science fact. You can stuff them
with stuff, as Annie mentioned a minute ago. Yeah, nutrition wise,
you know, depends on your type of pretzel. Perhaps Obviously,
Hard snack pretzels have some protein and a tiny little
bit of fat, but they're mostly carbs, so they'll fill
you up like briefly, but won't keep you going for
(09:43):
too long. Soft pretzels tend to have a little bit
more fat, less protein. I mean, neither is ideal. It's
bread or like crackers, so smalls into the category of
what I would call like nutritionally math. It's not like
a decadent treat, but you probably shouldn't plan your daily
diet around them if you can otherwise avoid it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
No, Unfortunately, unfortunately, Like I, I was on a film
set once and as people probably heard of, like the craft,
the snacks that they provide. Sure, and I was pretty
good about not indulging in.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
All of the candies.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
But the pretzel, the combos with peanut butter, oh yeah,
get me every time. And then I saw the calorie
information in them, and I like staggered away in shock,
Like I knew it would be high. I didn't know
it would be that high. Yeah, And I haven't really
had one since. Sometimes I let myself have two. We
do have a large and there are some here, and
(10:44):
the temptation is always there.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I had a couple yesterday while I was researching this article, yeah,
this podcast episode thing, this.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Thing that we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
If we look at pretzel numbers, pretzels are the most
popular in the United States and Germany. Americans consume an
average of one point five pounds of pretzels annually, and
that comes out to be three hundred and twenty four
million pretzels a year in twenty thirteen, which comes out
to five hundred and fifty million dollars a year in
the US alone. Eighty percent of those come from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Also, the average pretzel consumption is much higher in Pennsylvania,
about twelve pounds a person.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh, he said, like one point five pounds for the
rest of America, but twelve pounds for Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Twelve pounds listeners from Pennsylvania, I mean, right in? Does
that sound correct? I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I lived in Pennsylvania briefly, and I have to say,
like that sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, really, Yeah, that's the second time my mind has
been blowed. In very early part of this episode, Anti Ann's,
that preveyor of soft pretzels usually found in malls or
in airports, makes five hundred thousand pretzels a day. In
two thousand and seven, Joey Jaw's Chestnut eight twenty one
soft pretzels in ten minutes and became the world pretzel
(12:08):
eating champion.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
The record for largest pretzel is continually contested, but right
now Guinness has the record holder as coming from a
San Salvador bakery in twenty fifteen. It weighed one thousand,
seven hundred and twenty eight pounds and measured twenty three
feet and three inches long by thirteen feet and three
inches wide. For a metric friends, that's seven hundred and
(12:33):
eighty three point eighty one kilos and eight point nine
three meters by four point oh six meters.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Always wonder about these things. Did they just invite the
entire town and then everyone.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Eats pretzel for I think, like a day.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I think that's basically yeah, okay, cool is not going
to waste. Pretzels are a popular bar snack because they
make customers thirsty so that you will hopefully order another
drink and famous Seinfeld line, these.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Pretzels are making me thirsty. That was the first episode
I ever saw.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I remember, oh wow, yeah, because we couldn't get the
TV to work, and we were like, you know you
tuning no one knows what tuning it and like hitting it,
and I just remember, like getting snippets of.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So Seinfeld called the episode, which brings us to how
are they made?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh? Okay, all right? The making of pretzels touches on
a lot of the areas that make baking such an
interesting intersection of sciences. I really nerded out about this. Okay,
all right, First of all, you're making a yeast dough,
which means a yep, we're talking about fermentation. YEASTO Baker's
(13:54):
yeast is a single celled fungus that basically eats sugars
and poop's carbon dioxide, alcohol and a few other compounds
that we humans can experience as flavor in pretzels. The
carbon dioxide bubbles are going to give you that nice puff,
a good airy lift in the dough. Yeah, the alcohol
will largely boil off in the oven, but that and
those other compounds help flavor the dough. Recipes recommend allowing
(14:18):
the yeast to work in the dough for a full
twenty four hours to allow all that good flavor stuff
to happen before you even shape the pretzels. And at
that point you've probably also got some of that ubiquitous
lactic acid bacteria working for you too, creating a little
bit of extra tang in the dough bacteria.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Whoa wharemy?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah. After shaping the pretzels, you let them rest again
to rise. But then we get to the crust, that
delicious crust. Have you ever noticed how pretzels have that
huge color contrast that that mahagony brown crust and like
basically pure wet interior. Yeah, well, I mean they should, okay,
(14:57):
And that's because the crust is traditionally treated with an
alkaline solution before the pretzels are baked. That the shaped
risen pretzels are dipped in a solution of lye or
baking soda dissolved in hot water right before they're baked,
and this messes with the surface of the dough in
really delicious ways. Okay, We've spoken before on the show
(15:17):
about the Mayyard reaction. This is a browning process that's
a heat activated chain reaction among amino acids and sugars
that creates deeper colors and tastier flavors in anything from
the surface of a steak to the surface of a
loaf of bread. When you dip a pretzel into an
alkaline enough solution, some of the complex proteins in the
(15:40):
surface of the dough will break down into their component
amino acids, which means that you've got more fuel for
the Maiard reaction in this treated pretzel dough than you
would in like your average bread dough, which makes the
crust of the pretzel darker and more flavorful. I didn't
see any art discussing the chew or crisp of the
(16:03):
pretzel crust, but I would suppose that, similar to how
you parboil bagels to gelatinize the starches in the crust
and make the crust chewy, a combination of the heat
from the alkaline water dip and maybe even the alkalinity
itself will create like a lesser but kind of similar
chew in a well made pretzel. That's I'm guessing going
(16:23):
out on a science limb here. Yeah, if you're looking
to make pretzels at home, by the way, you totally can.
Getting the shape right is not as easy as they
make it look, but you know, technically, baking it is
no harder than any other yeast dough adventure. Just be
careful if you choose to go that lie root or
even with baking soda, because you're creating a very alkaline
(16:45):
solution like that will. There are lots of recipes online
with appropriately cautious warnings and procedural notes, because that stuff
will burn the heck out of you if you do
not respect it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Have you ever made pretzels?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We should all.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Wait, there's like something at the back of my brain
that's pinging that, Like maybe when I was a tiny child.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
M h you remember making the shape?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah? Or maybe I just did that with I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I feel like that was a Christmas ornament thing that
I did, where you like melted peppermints into that shape.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, maybe one day we'll make pretzels, even though if
there's like a warnings around it, probably we shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We'll get at those goggles.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, yeah, okay, Now, I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The pretzel is pretty ubiquitous nowadays, but it used to
be really fancy and religious. Yeah, and we'll get into
that after a quick break forward from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
All right, So the first pretzels most likely go back
to sixth century Europe, either French, Germany or Italy. And
with all of these food origin stories, it's really difficult
to bend down the first because people were probably doing
whatever the thing is earlier than the earliest recorded date.
It kind of depends on how you define like the
ancestor of a thing. Sure records that get lost or
(18:17):
were never made. Same thing with the pretzel, although actually
there is no actual documentation from the from the time
to back this up. It's kind of like retroactive. Somebody
said it happened later, sure, but anyway, okay, okay, The
generally accepted story of the pretzel is as follows. In
six hundred and ten CE, an Italian monk was looking
(18:40):
for a way to get his students to pay attention,
so he rolled out some dough into ropes, twisted and
arranged them so that they looked like hands folded over
the chest in prayer. Okay, Then he baked them up
and named them prettiola, the Latin word for little reward,
because he gave them the children who memorized their prayer.
(19:01):
Perhaps the original name was procele, which is.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
The Latin word for little arms.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
When the pretzel made its way to Germany, it got
the name bretzel.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Pretzel. I think that's a pretty I can see how
that happens.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Jump.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, yes, Now another piece of this has to do
with lint, which was much stricter at this time. No meat,
no dairy, no eggs, only one meal a day, and
it couldn't be from animals. But pretzels. They were an
ideal snack because there's just water, flower and salts. Catholics
in particular once considered pretzels as the official food of Lint.
(19:37):
In fact, some theorized that pretzels were developed specifically four lents.
Oh wow, Pretzels are just about the most symbolically religious
food there is. I know, right. The folds are meant
to represent holding hands in prayer, the three holes, the
Holy Trinity, the Father Son, holy Ghost. They were seen
(19:59):
as good luck, as the sign of prosperity, and symbolic
of spiritual fulfillment. As such, they were often given to
the knee.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Some sources describe the practice of hiding pretzels from children
in an early version of the modern day Easter egg hunt.
What can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I can.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That's great, it is side note, I was so competitive
at Easter egg hunts as a child. My family put
a limit on how many golden eggs I could find
because we had like the you know, it's a crim
de la crim oh okay, and everyone else is allowed
a two minute and start.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
This information does not surprise me at all.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Uh my mom still does an Easter egg hunt for
me to this day.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, it's like just me. She is the best.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
She's out there like cheering me on.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And I get I'm so competitive. I get into it.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I still even though no one else is playing No No.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Every now and then, if someone else is home, they'll
indulge me. But sometimes it's just me and we do
it at night with Flashlah Anyway. Yeah. One of the
first recorded documentations of a pretzel comes from eleven to
eleven ce on the crest of a German baker's guild. Okay,
and some sources mention something called an escort pretzel.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Escort pretzel.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So around the same time, since traders attending the Frankfurt
Fair were at risk of being robbed, townspeople rode out
to meet them, bearing gifts of wine and pretzels.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And that sounds lovely.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That does sound I want escort pretzels and we need
an escort pretzel.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Okay, I bring that back.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yes, a pretzel was depicted in the twelfth century Hortois
daili Yarum The Hordest Daily like Jaram was an illustrated encyclopedia,
the first put together by a woman Harad of Landsberg,
who was a German nun. The imaging question is sort
of a biblical dinner party with Queen Esther and King
ahaz Uarus, and on their table is a fish, played
(22:05):
fish dishes and goblets and a single pretzel and it's
very clearly a pretzel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It's like, obviously a pretzel, Like that is what that is?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, huh yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
A fourteen forty prayer book owned by Catherine of Cleaves
contained a picture of Saint Bartholomew with pretzels on all side,
like he's surrounded by pretzels. Pretzels were used as decorations
for Christmas trees in sixteenth century Austria. Love It and
European baker's guilds frequently used the pretzel as a symbol,
and the loops were handy for storing and carrying pretzels.
(22:37):
Vendors would carry them on sticks and sell them on streets,
similar to bagels or donuts. Oh yeah, the past episodes
we've talked about that, and modernly you might see the
symbol of a lion holding a pretzel shaped shield outside
bakeries in Austria. This allegedly goes back to fifteen ten CE,
when Austrian bakers and or monks in a monastery depending
(22:58):
on what you read. Where doing their pre dawn pretzel
prep and heard the sounds of tunneling under Vienna Ottoman
Turks during the siege of Vienna, and they rang the
horn and bell. They let the authorities know, and the
King of Austria rewarded them with.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Their own coat of arms. Wow, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, h and up until this point, the pretzels we've
been talking about are of the soft variety. Hard pretzels
came on the scene in the late sixteen hundreds. Again
multiple versions of the story, but here's a popular one.
When a baker in Pennsylvania fell asleep while baking a
batch of pretzels. His boss took a spiteful bite out
(23:37):
of one of the pretzels. Is to drive his angry
point home, but then he was like, whoa, these are good.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
We should sell the delicious Yeah, never mind, not mad
at you anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
In sixteenth century Germany, pretzels were a traditional good Friday food,
and apparently on New Year's Day in Germany, children wear
pretzels around their necks for a luck, a practice that
got started in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Listeners, let us know.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I'm picturing more like a necklace with a pretzel on
it than like a pretzel that is, it's open. Yeah,
although I like that second thing.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, well, I have made many a pretzel necklace at
beer festival sharing.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Just get a string, put all the pretzels on them
and eat.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Them throughout the day. That's very handy. Another pretzel tradition
I sincerely hope is true. From what I read, the
phrase tying the knot comes from the Swiss wedding tradition
where newly weeds would make a wish and break the
lucky pretzel, kind of like how we do with a wishbone.
This dates back to royal couples in sixteen fourteen incorporating
(24:40):
the pretzel as a symbol of undying love in their ceremonies.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I think that the tying the knot thing is like
old like like not tying ceremonies, like where the couple
would hold a rope and not night.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I like this too, I know, well, I hope
that they help this both they are true, Yes, it can, yes,
why not both?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Another another tradition, Oh, German boys again, please write in
if this is true. German boys would paid a pretzel
on the doors of the people they fancied, and in
Luxembourg there was or is something called Pretzel Day, where
you would give gave the person you were in love
with a pretzel or a cake shaped like a pretzel.
(25:24):
I love it, okay, listeners were giving you a lot
of homework, har Yees. Historians think pretzels probably made the
journey across the Atlantic with the Pilgrims and may have
even been used to trade with Native Americans. In either case,
German immigrants arriving to Pennsylvania in seventeen ten Foreshore brought
pretzels with them. The first written mention of them in
(25:46):
America appeared in eighteen twenty four. One story goes that
the Dutch introduced the pretzel to America, and in sixteen
fifty two Yacham Wessel was arrested for using good flour
in quothes to me pretzels for sale to Native Americans
when white colonists were using brand flour. The first commercial
(26:07):
pretzel bakery opened in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in eighteen sixty one,
operated by baker Julius Sturgis. The story goes Surgis got
the recipe for his pretzels after he provided a free
dinner to a man who's struggling to make in his
meat cool. If true, Surgis served up hard pretzels on purpose,
there is a story that he is the one who
(26:27):
came up with them. Their longer shelf life made them
a popular option. Some historians, yeah, they give him the
credit for this invention of the hard pretzel, but some
specify on purpose inventor Oh histories mysteries.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, you can still visit that original bakery. By the way,
They've got a sort of like interactive museum there, and
the Sturgis family is still in the pretzel making business
five generations in.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I want to visit.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Pretzels were a handmade venture until the nineteenthies. One person
could turn out about forty one minute, which is really
impressive to me. The first automated pretzel machine debuted in
nineteen thirty five from the Reading Pretzel Machinery Company, and
this baby could turn out two hundred and forty five
pretzels a minute, or about five times a day.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
In nineteen thirty one, Hammond's Pretzel Bakery opened its doors
in the nearby to Let its Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They are
now the oldest continuously family operated handmade Pretzel Bakery in
the United States.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Ah, this is around the same time the chocolate covered
pretzel was introduced.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Those I love. Apparently chocolate covered potato chips are older.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
If you've never had those, they are worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, oh yeah ha.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Pretzel bread came to us sometime during the nineteen eighties,
probably from Chicago.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Also in the eighties, one Anne Builer bought a stand
in a farmer's market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which would be
come the national chain.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Anti ans yes, and then we get many iterations of pretzels.
You get pretzel sticks, those flat pretzels.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, the like pretzel thins.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's are good. Those are good.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Those weird me out. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I
don't I don't think they're right. I don't think it's
right to just have a crest. And no, it's not right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's not right. Learning a lot about this.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Indenture endeavor that we're going on, Man, I really want
to sell pretzel now I can tell you that.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, this was a serious craving episode, and we've got
a little bit more science for you. But first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
And we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, thank you. So I wanted to mention that pretzels
come up a lot when math humans want to explain
extremely complex theories to lay people.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Really yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
For example, not theory, all right, not theory is a
it's spelled knot not like not like the antithesism, right, yeah, yeah,
I can't tell you about that one. But not theory
is a branch of mathematics that it examines closed three
dimensional shapes, like like a ring. Would be the simplest
(29:34):
mathematical not in this in this concept. Other simple examples
include an infinity or figure eight and a trefoil and
a pretzel. The ways in which these knots can be
manipulated and their distinct physical properties have applications in everything
(29:54):
from chemistry like molecular knots, to biology like like protein
knots folded protein. Yeah, to physics because it works as
a metaphor for the properties and behavior of subatomic particles
in quantum mechanics.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
One example of this, of this quantum mechanics thing. Okay,
all right, Back in the late nineties early two thousands,
there were these experiments out of the Thomas Jefferson National
Accelerator Facility in Virginia that showed that at any given point, Okay,
you think you think of a proton as being a sphere, right, sure,
But these experiments showed that at any given point, a
(30:32):
proton might exist as any number of shapes, and the
probability of all of those different shapes it might be
will smudge out into more or less rounded sphere on average.
But they were saying, like, you might as well call
a proton's real shape a peanut, or a doughnut or
(30:52):
a pretzel. So cool. And then in twenty sixteen, when
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of
the Nobel Prize for Physics, they demonstrated the concept with
a cinnamon role, a bagel, and a pretzel. To oversimplify
their simplification, okay, okay. The work that they were honoring
(31:14):
here was, in their words, theoretical discoveries of topological phase
transitions and topological phases of matter. I do not understand
this very well, but I think that this work has
to do with how we can study and identify the
state of a quantum system, sort of obliquely by studying
the energy of the electrons in that system, and by
(31:38):
bringing out these baked goods, the Academy was making an
analogy to the ways that you can identify a baked
good obliquely by studying some of the physical properties of
that baked good, like how is it noted? How many
holes does it have? I take it that this is
(31:59):
super hilary, if you like speak quantum mechanics. And I
wish I'd got the joke better and could explain it
to y'all, But I just love that they did it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Oh, I do too. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Who knew pretzels, cinnamon rolls, It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
So so useful for so many, so many quantum mechanical concepts.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed hearing it for the first
time the second time who knows how many times, as
much as we enjoyed bringing it back.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And update.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I looked it up and a National Pretzel Day is
April twenty sixth, and we record this it's April twenty first.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, so we're heck and timely as heck it.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
You and the pretzels, you're resonated.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You knew this is such delightful news.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You're gonna have to look into this and see how
deep the connection goes.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Oh yeah, all right, fun homework, Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Well, listeners. As always, we would love to hear your
thoughts about pretzels, any recipes, if you've seen the pretzel mascot,
Oh my gosh, oh yeah, yeah, please let us go.
You can email us at hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Instagram and blue Sky at saber pod, and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks us always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
(33:46):
we hope that lots of more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome to Saber production of iHeartRadio. I'm Annires
and I'm Lorn vogel Baum. And today we have a
classic episode for you about pretzels. Yes, and it goes
a bit a bit back. We were younger in those days.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Uh yeah, this one is from March of twenty nineteen.
You can hear it in the just the clear excitement
in our voices and also in this might have been
the first time that we ran across one of these
Baked Goods episodes where a baked good saved a city
(00:44):
during a siege. Yeah, because I'm not impressed by that anymore.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You're desensitized.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I'm desensitized to the story. Yeah, I'm like, Oh, who
hasn't saved a sa during a siege when you're a
baked good?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Do you have a mascot? A pretzel?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Does that should be the next Oh? There you go.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, I'm still I'm still impressed by mascots.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, well, I.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Think I know the answer to this, but I'm going
to ask you anyway, was there any particular reason this
was on your mind to bring back horn?
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Oh? I don't Now, I'm curious to know what you
think the answer is, because I'm pretty sure that I
was just browsing through our classics and like a baked
good was sort of kind of a thing that we
hadn't talked about in a second, and so I was like, yeah,
put that one in there. Although as I was going
(01:44):
through the episode, I was like, oh, man, we should
have run this before Easter because it's, as it turns out,
extremely easter codd.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Oh yeah, we don't get that right all too often.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
No, come out.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
We certainly don't winter holiday topics in the middle of summer. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Hey, but you know in Australia, right works.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, what did you think? I think I could look
this up and easily solve it. But I'm pretty sure
National Pretzel Day just happened.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
No, oh wow, okay, accidentally on time? Love it.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it happens. I was just getting
a lot of in our inbox, a lot of cold
call emails from companies that were that were like, oh,
National Pretzel Day, that's why Lauren did.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Oh there you go. No, I was I was unaware.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Maybe somehow you're in tune with the.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Pretzel that's probably it, you know, just on right, like
like on a on a deeper energetic level and probably
just in tune with what's going on with pretzels.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Makes sense, it does.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Well. While I investigate this newfound facet of myself, we
should probably let former Annie and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Hello, and welcome to Savor.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I'm Annie Resa and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we're
talking about pretzels.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Which, amazingly is another food that's a funny mascot, the
pretzel mascot.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
I think there's more than one.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
This one is high quality. I definitely recommend looking this
one up.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yes, I do too.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
One of my favorite things when my mom and I
that we would do when I was growing up is
we would take a trip to the mall and we
would get one of those anti Anne pretzels with the
honey glaze.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Honey glaze, okay, all right, so good? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Every time I go to the mall to this day,
I'm like, can I get one?
Speaker 1 (04:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Probably not, I.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
Mean you're allowed to.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, I definitely want to one day, relive it, relive it.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
And we go to the Imax at the Mall of
Georgia and we would buy those Cinna bytes, which are
just like warm bite sized cinnamon and sugar pretzels.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
I get a little like nuggets.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Yeah, and we would sneak them into the theater.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Those are good at times already the craving setting in
that's not good. But regular pretzels, I'm not super into them.
I turn them down on airplanes. I do like the
ones with peanut butter in the center, but that's peanut butter.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
That's peanut butter related and not pretzel related.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
I prefer a soft pretzel to a hard pretzel. But
I love a pretzel. Yeah, I am a sucker for
any kind of pretzel, pretzel bread. I get the most
excited about pretzel bread. And I don't know, well, I
feel like I feel like the amount of excitement that
I experience about it, it's not even disproportionate. It's just like,
I don't I don't know why it happens.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Hmmm, uh huh.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
I have a similar thing with a local popsicle vendor,
King of Pops. Oh yeah, because I don't really like
pops I mean, they're fine, sure, but I get so
excited when I see them. They just were really good
at marketing and making themselves seem like difficult to find.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
I think so you're like, oh, man, what a treat.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
But there's literally a king of pops in this building.
I could just walk down the stairs hood but no, no,
if I see them in the wild, like oh popsicle,
I I yeah, I understand that. Me and my ex
boyfriend we were at this big comedy show a couple
(05:44):
of years ago and we hadn't had dinner and we
saw on the menu an eighteen dollars super pretzel and
we were very very intrigued, and we decided to order
it on a whim, a very ridiculous, silly whim. The
cashier was like, no one's ever ordered that before. Let
me check with my manager. I don't actually know what
(06:05):
it is. And it became a fiasco. There was all
hands on deck. Everyone was trying to figure out this
super pretzel. People were going back into the back and
like whispering.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
It took like.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Thirty minutes, but finally we got this massive pretzel and
a pizza box that barely fit out like the order window.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
It was the size of my door.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So at least wow, and it came with two tiny
cheese containers to diff it in.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
It was pretty hilarious.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It's one of the first pictures on my Instagram.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So just a real big pretzel.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
It was just a big a super pretzel. Yeah, will oh,
I will as you should. It was a waste, but
it was a fun waste.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Well there you go.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah, I'm not sure how they did it to this day.
I wonder if they, like who is maybe somebody went
and picked one up.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
If anyone has any background information on the super pretzel.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Very important for us to know, very important. I totally
forgot about President George W. Bush almost choking on that pretzel.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Oh yeah, that happened.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It came up a lot when I was researching. Huh
oh yeah, the pretzel.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
The pretzel. But all of this brings us to the
question pretzel.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What is it? Well, pretzel can mean a lot of things.
It's a type of baked good that can be salty
or savor you're sweet, a soft, or crunchy. The word
can refer to the traditional twisty knot shape that these
baked goods come in, though pretzels can also come in
other shapes, like sticks or nuggets. Other baked goods like
sandwich rolls aforementioned, can be made of pretzel style bread.
(07:49):
But okay, I guess at the essence of pretzel.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
You've got a snack made of a yeast raised wheat
flour dough that's rolled into a long rope and then
wound into a shape that's It's like a wide, rounded
heart with the with the ends overlapping at the crux
of the heart, and the ends are then twisted around
each other and pulled down to touch the lower sides
of the heart space. In the United States, the ends
(08:15):
are separated after twisting and attached one on each side
of the heart, forming a shape with three holes. Yeah.
In Europe, the ends are often kept together and attached
to the same point at the bottom, forming a shape
with only two holes. What I know, blow my mind right.
The pretzel may be treated or topped in a number
of ways, and is baked until it reaches the desired firmness.
(08:37):
The result has a deep brown crust with a pale interior,
a slightly tangy flavor, and a texture that's somewhere from
chewy soft to like crispy crunchy. Hmm. There are a
lot of variations. Philly style pretzels are shaped like an
elongated figure eight. I know. Hard baked pretzels tend to
(09:00):
be smaller, like bite sized often come in other shapes,
sticks and twists. Soft baked ones tend to be bigger.
You could use yeast dough or sour dough, plain wheat flour,
incorporate other grains, can top them with cinnamon and sugar,
powdered mustard, powdered dill, pickle flavoring, Bake them up with
cheese on top. You can serve them with all kinds
of dipping sauces, though for the savory ones, whole grain
mustard is perhaps the most common, and cheese sauce perhaps
(09:22):
the most delicious. Agreed science fact. You can stuff them
with stuff, as Annie mentioned a minute ago. Yeah, nutrition wise,
you know, depends on your type of pretzel. Perhaps Obviously,
Hard snack pretzels have some protein and a tiny little
bit of fat, but they're mostly carbs, so they'll fill
you up like briefly, but won't keep you going for
(09:43):
too long. Soft pretzels tend to have a little bit
more fat, less protein. I mean, neither is ideal. It's
bread or like crackers, so smalls into the category of
what I would call like nutritionally math. It's not like
a decadent treat, but you probably shouldn't plan your daily
diet around them if you can otherwise avoid it.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
No, Unfortunately, unfortunately, Like I, I was on a film
set once and as people probably heard of, like the craft,
the snacks that they provide. Sure, and I was pretty
good about not indulging in.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
All of the candies.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
But the pretzel, the combos with peanut butter, oh yeah,
get me every time. And then I saw the calorie
information in them, and I like staggered away in shock,
Like I knew it would be high. I didn't know
it would be that high. Yeah, And I haven't really
had one since. Sometimes I let myself have two. We
do have a large and there are some here, and
(10:44):
the temptation is always there.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I had a couple yesterday while I was researching this article, yeah,
this podcast episode thing, this.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Thing that we're doing right now.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
If we look at pretzel numbers, pretzels are the most
popular in the United States and Germany. Americans consume an
average of one point five pounds of pretzels annually, and
that comes out to be three hundred and twenty four
million pretzels a year in twenty thirteen, which comes out
to five hundred and fifty million dollars a year in
the US alone. Eighty percent of those come from Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
Also, the average pretzel consumption is much higher in Pennsylvania,
about twelve pounds a person.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
Oh, he said, like one point five pounds for the
rest of America, but twelve pounds for Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Twelve pounds listeners from Pennsylvania, I mean, right in? Does
that sound correct? I mean that's a lot.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
I lived in Pennsylvania briefly, and I have to say,
like that sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah, really, Yeah, that's the second time my mind has
been blowed. In very early part of this episode, Anti Ann's,
that preveyor of soft pretzels usually found in malls or
in airports, makes five hundred thousand pretzels a day. In
two thousand and seven, Joey Jaw's Chestnut eight twenty one
soft pretzels in ten minutes and became the world pretzel
(12:08):
eating champion.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
The record for largest pretzel is continually contested, but right
now Guinness has the record holder as coming from a
San Salvador bakery in twenty fifteen. It weighed one thousand,
seven hundred and twenty eight pounds and measured twenty three
feet and three inches long by thirteen feet and three
inches wide. For a metric friends, that's seven hundred and
(12:33):
eighty three point eighty one kilos and eight point nine
three meters by four point oh six meters.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Always wonder about these things. Did they just invite the
entire town and then everyone.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Eats pretzel for I think, like a day.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
I think that's basically yeah, okay, cool is not going
to waste. Pretzels are a popular bar snack because they
make customers thirsty so that you will hopefully order another
drink and famous Seinfeld line, these.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Pretzels are making me thirsty. That was the first episode
I ever saw.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I remember, oh wow, yeah, because we couldn't get the
TV to work, and we were like, you know you
tuning no one knows what tuning it and like hitting it,
and I just remember, like getting snippets of.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
So Seinfeld called the episode, which brings us to how
are they made?
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Oh? Okay, all right? The making of pretzels touches on
a lot of the areas that make baking such an
interesting intersection of sciences. I really nerded out about this. Okay,
all right, First of all, you're making a yeast dough,
which means a yep, we're talking about fermentation. YEASTO Baker's
(13:54):
yeast is a single celled fungus that basically eats sugars
and poop's carbon dioxide, alcohol and a few other compounds
that we humans can experience as flavor in pretzels. The
carbon dioxide bubbles are going to give you that nice puff,
a good airy lift in the dough. Yeah, the alcohol
will largely boil off in the oven, but that and
those other compounds help flavor the dough. Recipes recommend allowing
(14:18):
the yeast to work in the dough for a full
twenty four hours to allow all that good flavor stuff
to happen before you even shape the pretzels. And at
that point you've probably also got some of that ubiquitous
lactic acid bacteria working for you too, creating a little
bit of extra tang in the dough bacteria.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Whoa wharemy?
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yeah. After shaping the pretzels, you let them rest again
to rise. But then we get to the crust, that
delicious crust. Have you ever noticed how pretzels have that
huge color contrast that that mahagony brown crust and like
basically pure wet interior. Yeah, well, I mean they should, okay,
(14:57):
And that's because the crust is traditionally treated with an
alkaline solution before the pretzels are baked. That the shaped
risen pretzels are dipped in a solution of lye or
baking soda dissolved in hot water right before they're baked,
and this messes with the surface of the dough in
really delicious ways. Okay, We've spoken before on the show
(15:17):
about the Mayyard reaction. This is a browning process that's
a heat activated chain reaction among amino acids and sugars
that creates deeper colors and tastier flavors in anything from
the surface of a steak to the surface of a
loaf of bread. When you dip a pretzel into an
alkaline enough solution, some of the complex proteins in the
(15:40):
surface of the dough will break down into their component
amino acids, which means that you've got more fuel for
the Maiard reaction in this treated pretzel dough than you
would in like your average bread dough, which makes the
crust of the pretzel darker and more flavorful. I didn't
see any art discussing the chew or crisp of the
(16:03):
pretzel crust, but I would suppose that, similar to how
you parboil bagels to gelatinize the starches in the crust
and make the crust chewy, a combination of the heat
from the alkaline water dip and maybe even the alkalinity
itself will create like a lesser but kind of similar
chew in a well made pretzel. That's I'm guessing going
(16:23):
out on a science limb here. Yeah, if you're looking
to make pretzels at home, by the way, you totally can.
Getting the shape right is not as easy as they
make it look, but you know, technically, baking it is
no harder than any other yeast dough adventure. Just be
careful if you choose to go that lie root or
even with baking soda, because you're creating a very alkaline
(16:45):
solution like that will. There are lots of recipes online
with appropriately cautious warnings and procedural notes, because that stuff
will burn the heck out of you if you do
not respect it.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Have you ever made pretzels?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
We should all.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Wait, there's like something at the back of my brain
that's pinging that, Like maybe when I was a tiny child.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
M h you remember making the shape?
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Yeah? Or maybe I just did that with I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
I feel like that was a Christmas ornament thing that
I did, where you like melted peppermints into that shape.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Well, maybe one day we'll make pretzels, even though if
there's like a warnings around it, probably we shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
We'll get at those goggles.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yeah, yeah, okay, Now, I mean.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
The pretzel is pretty ubiquitous nowadays, but it used to
be really fancy and religious. Yeah, and we'll get into
that after a quick break forward from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
And we're back.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
All right, So the first pretzels most likely go back
to sixth century Europe, either French, Germany or Italy. And
with all of these food origin stories, it's really difficult
to bend down the first because people were probably doing
whatever the thing is earlier than the earliest recorded date.
It kind of depends on how you define like the
ancestor of a thing. Sure records that get lost or
(18:17):
were never made. Same thing with the pretzel, although actually
there is no actual documentation from the from the time
to back this up. It's kind of like retroactive. Somebody
said it happened later, sure, but anyway, okay, okay, The
generally accepted story of the pretzel is as follows. In
six hundred and ten CE, an Italian monk was looking
(18:40):
for a way to get his students to pay attention,
so he rolled out some dough into ropes, twisted and
arranged them so that they looked like hands folded over
the chest in prayer. Okay, Then he baked them up
and named them prettiola, the Latin word for little reward,
because he gave them the children who memorized their prayer.
(19:01):
Perhaps the original name was procele, which is.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
The Latin word for little arms.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
When the pretzel made its way to Germany, it got
the name bretzel.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Pretzel. I think that's a pretty I can see how
that happens.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Jump.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, yes, Now another piece of this has to do
with lint, which was much stricter at this time. No meat,
no dairy, no eggs, only one meal a day, and
it couldn't be from animals. But pretzels. They were an
ideal snack because there's just water, flower and salts. Catholics
in particular once considered pretzels as the official food of Lint.
(19:37):
In fact, some theorized that pretzels were developed specifically four lents.
Oh wow, Pretzels are just about the most symbolically religious
food there is. I know, right. The folds are meant
to represent holding hands in prayer, the three holes, the
Holy Trinity, the Father Son, holy Ghost. They were seen
(19:59):
as good luck, as the sign of prosperity, and symbolic
of spiritual fulfillment. As such, they were often given to
the knee.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Some sources describe the practice of hiding pretzels from children
in an early version of the modern day Easter egg hunt.
What can you imagine?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
I can.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
That's great, it is side note, I was so competitive
at Easter egg hunts as a child. My family put
a limit on how many golden eggs I could find
because we had like the you know, it's a crim
de la crim oh okay, and everyone else is allowed
a two minute and start.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
This information does not surprise me at all.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Uh my mom still does an Easter egg hunt for
me to this day.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Yeah, it's like just me. She is the best.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
She's out there like cheering me on.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And I get I'm so competitive. I get into it.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I still even though no one else is playing No No.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Every now and then, if someone else is home, they'll
indulge me. But sometimes it's just me and we do
it at night with Flashlah Anyway. Yeah. One of the
first recorded documentations of a pretzel comes from eleven to
eleven ce on the crest of a German baker's guild. Okay,
and some sources mention something called an escort pretzel.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
Escort pretzel.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
I love this.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
So around the same time, since traders attending the Frankfurt
Fair were at risk of being robbed, townspeople rode out
to meet them, bearing gifts of wine and pretzels.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
And that sounds lovely.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
That does sound I want escort pretzels and we need
an escort pretzel.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
Okay, I bring that back.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Yes, a pretzel was depicted in the twelfth century Hortois
daili Yarum The Hordest Daily like Jaram was an illustrated encyclopedia,
the first put together by a woman Harad of Landsberg,
who was a German nun. The imaging question is sort
of a biblical dinner party with Queen Esther and King
ahaz Uarus, and on their table is a fish, played
(22:05):
fish dishes and goblets and a single pretzel and it's
very clearly a pretzel.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
It's like, obviously a pretzel, Like that is what that is?
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Yeah, huh yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
A fourteen forty prayer book owned by Catherine of Cleaves
contained a picture of Saint Bartholomew with pretzels on all side,
like he's surrounded by pretzels. Pretzels were used as decorations
for Christmas trees in sixteenth century Austria. Love It and
European baker's guilds frequently used the pretzel as a symbol,
and the loops were handy for storing and carrying pretzels.
(22:37):
Vendors would carry them on sticks and sell them on streets,
similar to bagels or donuts. Oh yeah, the past episodes
we've talked about that, and modernly you might see the
symbol of a lion holding a pretzel shaped shield outside
bakeries in Austria. This allegedly goes back to fifteen ten CE,
when Austrian bakers and or monks in a monastery depending
(22:58):
on what you read. Where doing their pre dawn pretzel
prep and heard the sounds of tunneling under Vienna Ottoman
Turks during the siege of Vienna, and they rang the
horn and bell. They let the authorities know, and the
King of Austria rewarded them with.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
Their own coat of arms. Wow, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, h and up until this point, the pretzels we've
been talking about are of the soft variety. Hard pretzels
came on the scene in the late sixteen hundreds. Again
multiple versions of the story, but here's a popular one.
When a baker in Pennsylvania fell asleep while baking a
batch of pretzels. His boss took a spiteful bite out
(23:37):
of one of the pretzels. Is to drive his angry
point home, but then he was like, whoa, these are good.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
We should sell the delicious Yeah, never mind, not mad
at you anymore.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
In sixteenth century Germany, pretzels were a traditional good Friday food,
and apparently on New Year's Day in Germany, children wear
pretzels around their necks for a luck, a practice that
got started in the seventeenth century.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Listeners, let us know.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
I'm picturing more like a necklace with a pretzel on
it than like a pretzel that is, it's open. Yeah,
although I like that second thing.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, well, I have made many a pretzel necklace at
beer festival sharing.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Just get a string, put all the pretzels on them
and eat.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Them throughout the day. That's very handy. Another pretzel tradition
I sincerely hope is true. From what I read, the
phrase tying the knot comes from the Swiss wedding tradition
where newly weeds would make a wish and break the
lucky pretzel, kind of like how we do with a wishbone.
This dates back to royal couples in sixteen fourteen incorporating
(24:40):
the pretzel as a symbol of undying love in their ceremonies.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I think that the tying the knot thing is like
old like like not tying ceremonies, like where the couple
would hold a rope and not night.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
But I like this too, I know, well, I hope
that they help this both they are true, Yes, it can, yes,
why not both?
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Another another tradition, Oh, German boys again, please write in
if this is true. German boys would paid a pretzel
on the doors of the people they fancied, and in
Luxembourg there was or is something called Pretzel Day, where
you would give gave the person you were in love
with a pretzel or a cake shaped like a pretzel.
(25:24):
I love it, okay, listeners were giving you a lot
of homework, har Yees. Historians think pretzels probably made the
journey across the Atlantic with the Pilgrims and may have
even been used to trade with Native Americans. In either case,
German immigrants arriving to Pennsylvania in seventeen ten Foreshore brought
pretzels with them. The first written mention of them in
(25:46):
America appeared in eighteen twenty four. One story goes that
the Dutch introduced the pretzel to America, and in sixteen
fifty two Yacham Wessel was arrested for using good flour
in quothes to me pretzels for sale to Native Americans
when white colonists were using brand flour. The first commercial
(26:07):
pretzel bakery opened in Lititz, Pennsylvania, in eighteen sixty one,
operated by baker Julius Sturgis. The story goes Surgis got
the recipe for his pretzels after he provided a free
dinner to a man who's struggling to make in his
meat cool. If true, Surgis served up hard pretzels on purpose,
there is a story that he is the one who
(26:27):
came up with them. Their longer shelf life made them
a popular option. Some historians, yeah, they give him the
credit for this invention of the hard pretzel, but some
specify on purpose inventor Oh histories mysteries.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, you can still visit that original bakery. By the way,
They've got a sort of like interactive museum there, and
the Sturgis family is still in the pretzel making business
five generations in.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
I want to visit.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Pretzels were a handmade venture until the nineteenthies. One person
could turn out about forty one minute, which is really
impressive to me. The first automated pretzel machine debuted in
nineteen thirty five from the Reading Pretzel Machinery Company, and
this baby could turn out two hundred and forty five
pretzels a minute, or about five times a day.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
In nineteen thirty one, Hammond's Pretzel Bakery opened its doors
in the nearby to Let its Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They are
now the oldest continuously family operated handmade Pretzel Bakery in
the United States.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Ah, this is around the same time the chocolate covered
pretzel was introduced.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Those I love. Apparently chocolate covered potato chips are older.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
If you've never had those, they are worthwhile.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Yeah, oh yeah ha.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Pretzel bread came to us sometime during the nineteen eighties,
probably from Chicago.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Also in the eighties, one Anne Builer bought a stand
in a farmer's market in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which would be
come the national chain.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
Anti ans yes, and then we get many iterations of pretzels.
You get pretzel sticks, those flat pretzels.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Oh yeah, the like pretzel thins.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's are good. Those are good.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Those weird me out. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I
don't I don't think they're right. I don't think it's
right to just have a crest. And no, it's not right.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
It's not right. Learning a lot about this.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Indenture endeavor that we're going on, Man, I really want
to sell pretzel now I can tell you that.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
Yeah, this was a serious craving episode, and we've got
a little bit more science for you. But first we've
got one more quick break for a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
And we're back, Thank you, sponsor.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Yes, thank you. So I wanted to mention that pretzels
come up a lot when math humans want to explain
extremely complex theories to lay people.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Really yeah, okay, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
For example, not theory, all right, not theory is a
it's spelled knot not like not like the antithesism, right, yeah, yeah,
I can't tell you about that one. But not theory
is a branch of mathematics that it examines closed three
dimensional shapes, like like a ring. Would be the simplest
(29:34):
mathematical not in this in this concept. Other simple examples
include an infinity or figure eight and a trefoil and
a pretzel. The ways in which these knots can be
manipulated and their distinct physical properties have applications in everything
(29:54):
from chemistry like molecular knots, to biology like like protein
knots folded protein. Yeah, to physics because it works as
a metaphor for the properties and behavior of subatomic particles
in quantum mechanics.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
One example of this, of this quantum mechanics thing. Okay,
all right, Back in the late nineties early two thousands,
there were these experiments out of the Thomas Jefferson National
Accelerator Facility in Virginia that showed that at any given point, Okay,
you think you think of a proton as being a sphere, right, sure,
But these experiments showed that at any given point, a
(30:32):
proton might exist as any number of shapes, and the
probability of all of those different shapes it might be
will smudge out into more or less rounded sphere on average.
But they were saying, like, you might as well call
a proton's real shape a peanut, or a doughnut or
(30:52):
a pretzel. So cool. And then in twenty sixteen, when
the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced the winners of
the Nobel Prize for Physics, they demonstrated the concept with
a cinnamon role, a bagel, and a pretzel. To oversimplify
their simplification, okay, okay. The work that they were honoring
(31:14):
here was, in their words, theoretical discoveries of topological phase
transitions and topological phases of matter. I do not understand
this very well, but I think that this work has
to do with how we can study and identify the
state of a quantum system, sort of obliquely by studying
the energy of the electrons in that system, and by
(31:38):
bringing out these baked goods, the Academy was making an
analogy to the ways that you can identify a baked
good obliquely by studying some of the physical properties of
that baked good, like how is it noted? How many
holes does it have? I take it that this is
(31:59):
super hilary, if you like speak quantum mechanics. And I
wish I'd got the joke better and could explain it
to y'all, But I just love that they did it.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Oh, I do too. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Who knew pretzels, cinnamon rolls, It's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
So so useful for so many, so many quantum mechanical concepts.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed hearing it for the first
time the second time who knows how many times, as
much as we enjoyed bringing it back.
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And update.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
I looked it up and a National Pretzel Day is
April twenty sixth, and we record this it's April twenty first.
Speaker 2 (32:50):
Yeah, so we're heck and timely as heck it.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
You and the pretzels, you're resonated.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
You knew this is such delightful news.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
You're gonna have to look into this and see how
deep the connection goes.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Oh yeah, all right, fun homework, Yes.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Well, listeners. As always, we would love to hear your
thoughts about pretzels, any recipes, if you've seen the pretzel mascot,
Oh my gosh, oh yeah, yeah, please let us go.
You can email us at hello at savorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Instagram and blue Sky at saber pod, and we do
hope to hear from you. Savor is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks us always to our superproducers Dylan
Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
(33:46):
we hope that lots of more good things are coming
your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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