If there is one difficult thing about moving to another country other than adjusting to new cultures and missing family and friends from back home, I think it would have to be adjusting to not being able to find certain food items that you have been use to for so many years. Almost ten years ago when I moved to New Zealand I had a longing for pretzels and they were no where to be found. I had tried all the major supermarkets in our region and no one had even heard of them here. I then made it my crusade to find a grocery store that would be willing to go the extra mile to find a distributor that would able to supply the store from some of the food manufacturers back in America. After a few months the New World Supermarket started stocking their shelves with hard pretzels....the little twisty ones. After several more months it started to catch on in the other supermarkets and now pretzels are a major craze at barbecues and parties. However I have yet to see the long log pretzels come along, so that will have to be my next endeavor as those are my favorites, especially for making chocolate covered pretzels. Now you can use the smaller twisted hard pretzels for making chocolate covered pretzels too, so don't let the lack of the log pretzels stop you from making a very special treat. Chocolate and pretzels go so wonderfully together.Here is a recipe for Chocolate Covered Pretzels, and bear in mind too that you can use either milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white chocolate for this recipe. They are all wonderful and make a fantastic snack for any party.
INGREDIENTS:
2 (10 ounce) packages pretzels
1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
DIRECTIONS:
Melt chocolate and cream in double boiler over low heat, stirring constantly. Dip pretzels one at a time quickly to coat while mixture is still very warm. Decorate with sprinkles or jimmies.
Place pretzels on wax paper to set and cool.
History Of The Pretzel
As we are with a lot of foods the exact origin of the pretzel is unknown.
As early as 610AD at a monastery somewhere in Southern France or Northern Italy, where monks used scraps of dough and formed them into strips to represent a child's arms folded in prayer. The three empty holes represented the Christian Trinity.
The monks offered the warm, doughy bribe to children who had memorized their Bible verses and prayers. The monks called it a Pretiola, Latin for little reward. From there, the pretzel transformed into the Italian word, Brachiola, which means little arms.
The Pretiola journeyed beyond the French and Italian wine regions, hiked the Alps, wandered through Austria, and crossed into Germany, where it became known as the Bretzel or Pretzel.
In medieval times merchants traveling to the Frankfurt Fair risked being robbed by bandits. In order to guard the tradesmen, the towns' people would ride out, greet the vendors and offer them pewter pitchers of wine and loads of crisp dough on their spears, called Geleit-pretzels.
The Whimsical Pretzel shape worked its way into the culture not only as a reward but as a symbol of Good Luck and prosperity. I suppose it had the same effect as a logo did appearing in festivals and celebrations, as well as a quick snack available from street corner vendors.
Probably two of the most fascinating things about the pretzel is it was served on Easter with 2 hard boiled eggs and hidden around the farms, for the kids to find. This very likely was the forerunner of the Easter egg hunt. Weddings in Europe for a time used the tradition of the bride and groom tugging at a pretzel like a wishbone, the larger piece assured the spouses fulfillment of their wishes.
There are pictures of pretzels in paintings that help us to find how old their existence really is. Here is a one of the more famous pictures in which we find pretzels, called "The f ight between carnival and lent" by Pieter Bruegel in 1559. You can see the pretzels in the lower right hand corner.
From this came the saying we still use, "Tying the knot".
So how did the hard pretzel spring into existence? Skip ahead to late seventeenth century Pennsylvania. A baker's helper fell asleep tending pretzels baking in the hearth. When he awoke, the flames had died, he believed the pretzels hadn't cooked long enough and started the fire up again. When the Master Baker came in, he was furious that an entire batch of pretzels wasn't fit to eat. In the process of throwing them out, he tasted one and realized he was on to something big! Not only did he like the taste of these delicious crunchy morsels but realized due to the moisture being baked entirely out, that freshness was preserved and they would keep longer to sell.
It was the immigrants from these countries who brought the "bretzel" to our shores during the 1800's, later becoming known as the "pretzel". Some believe that the pretzel recipe was brought over on the mayflower and they were made and sold to the Indians who loved them.
The first commercial pretzel bakery was established in the town of Lititz in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania by Julius Sturgis in 1861. The modern age of pretzel making began in 1935 when the Reading Pretzel Machinery Company first introduced the automatic pretzel twisting machine. Prior to that, most commercial pretzels were actually shaped by a cracker-cutting machine, then placed on baking pans and put into the baking ovens by hand. This innovation made pretzels available to people in all parts of the country, and helped the fledgling industry grow...
Some more modern bizarre pretzel facts include these noteworthy items: Largest pretzel ever baked:40 lbs, 5-feet across, by Joe Nacchio of Federal Baking, Philadelphia, PA; Pretzels in the movies: 20 lb., 4’ pretzel in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad World”—same baker; Pretzel capitol of the world: Reading, PA., where one plant can package over 10 million pretzels per day!
Annual pretzel sales top $180 million and are the second most popular snack, right behind potato chips and just in front of popcorn.
Source: Snack Food Association
