FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

But court records in the state of New York indicate some sort of pretzel made its appearance much earlier. In the mid-seventeenth century trouble broke out when a local baker was arrested for selling pretzels to the Indians, using the best flour for the Indians’ “bread,” and the leftovers for the settlers of Beverwyck, NY. “The heathens were eating flour while the Christians were eating bran,” the town history reports. Too bad the towns people didn’t understand about the benefits of eating whole grains.

Indeed, pretzels today are made from many different grains.

Toppings go beyond coarse salt, poppy or sesame seeds, and now boast such exotic coverings as cheese, chocolate and pizza flavorings. Although pretzel rods, ultra thin pretzels and pretzels chunks, clumps, sticks, rings and chips are also sold by such companies at Bachman, Snyder’s and others, the original “pretiola” shaped snack still sells best, the hard sourdough kind being Oprah Winfrey’s reputed favorite snack food.

Interestingly, the crunchy hard pretzel evolved from the error of a baker who put them in the oven without rising and forgot about them. Baked too long and unrisen, the pretzels grew dark, hard and crunchy—and turned out to be a wild success. Recipes exist for home-baking both the favored hard pretzel, or the chewy “midwestern” type. People who remember the Depression era recall the pretzel vendors in the cities, especially the cities of the Midwest, where inexpensive hot pretzels sold and eaten on the street were lunchtime sustenance.

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