The Scotsman

The ‘little reward’ which is now an old favourite

Michelle Nichols

FOOD historians claim the pretzel is the world’s oldest snack food.

They are believed to have been invented by an Italian Monk in the 6th century who was playing with dough left over from the daily baking.

He came up with a unique twist that looked like arms crossed in prayer. This baked prestzola - little reward - was given to children as thanks for their reverence. The three holes in a pretzel are said to represent the Trinity.

This treat gained popularity and spread to other monasteries over the Alps into Austria and Germany where it came to be known as the pretzel.

It became more popular with time becoming a symbol in marriage (broken like a wishbone at the ceremony), saving a city (pretzel bakers heard the Turks burrowing under the walls of Vienna in 1510 and sounded the alarm that saved the city), and becoming a religious symbol (a page in the prayer book used by Catharine of Cleves depicts St Bartholomew surrounded by pretzels which were thought to bring luck).

The pretzel first appears in the US in the record of a court case. A baker named Carl Carmer and his wife in 1652 were charged with selling pretzels to Native Americans.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2002

Answers

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/015/living/Snack_attack_boosts_profi le_of_pretzels+.shtml

Snack attack boosts profile of pretzels

By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 1/15/2002 What does it mean, in an age of tight security and international menace, when the president of the United States gets beaten up by a pretzel?

The pictures don't lie, after all. The commander in chief appeared yesterday with a puffy lip and a big scrape on his cheek and made sheepish jokes all day about protecting himself from pretzeldom. This after a mysterious incident of which we have only the barest outline: President Bush, watching football with his dogs, eats a pretzel that (in the words of the White House spokesman) does not ''go down right.'' He loses consciousness and hits his head on the furniture.

Thump - bam - and for a few lonely seconds, we're a rudderless nation. Could it be that we've been worried about the wrong things, all along?

If it seems that way today, imagine how it must have felt to be part of the pretzel industry, to turn on the radio Monday morning and, in those fuzzy, just-awake moments, hear about the president's pretzel attack. To imagine the covers of news magazines: ''Pretzels, the Untold Threat.'' ''Terror With a Twist.'' Several snack-food representatives confessed that they started the day with a sinking feeling.

By midafternoon, though, they had settled on a spin. ''We're very happy that the president's OK,'' said a spokeswoman for the Snack Food Association. ''But we're also glad that he enjoys savory snacks.''

Yes, this being America - open exchange of ideas, presumption of innocence - the pretzel people were quick to chime in with their positive messages. Some tried to minimize the fear: ''Pretzels are as safe to eat as any other solid food,'' said Laura Kuykendall, marketing manager of Snyder's of Hanover.

Others tried to deflect the blame. ''My question to him was, do you chew your food well enough?'' said Bill Dougherty, vice president of the Wege (pronounced wee-gee) Pretzel Co.

Still others chose the practical approach. ''It's probably a good example of how these freak things can happen to anybody, anytime,'' said Ed Herr, executive vice president of Herr Foods, who pointed out that it was easy to feel calm about Bush: ''I don't think he's going to sue anybody.''

And pretzel flak after pretzel flak pointed out that, when you thought about it, wasn't it awfully nice that President Bush had chosen a wholesome low-fat option for his football snacking? And dared they say safer? ''I have more problems eating a potato chip stuck in my throat than eating a pretzel,'' Dougherty said.

In the cutthroat world of snack foods, every bit of help counts. Right now, potato chips rule the snacking scene, with half of the US market share, Dougherty said. Corn chips come in at 35 percent. Pretzels, a $1.2 billion US industry, make up 10 to 15 percent.

Unless, of course, the president's odd and unfortunate incident raises the pretzel's profile. (Or sparks sales from a horde of he- men, eager to prove that, unlike Bush, they can eat pretzels without fainting.) The bottom line of Monday's news, after all, was that ''the president's eating pretzels!'' said Ken Potter, president of Martin's Kettle-Cooked Chips, who distributes his chips and Wege's pretzels to Air Force One.

Potter doesn't know who holds the White House pretzel contract, and on this and other important issues the White House is shockingly mum. Did the president battle a salt-coated nugget? A rod? A knot? A stick? All we can do is guess, and scrape together clues: Aboard Air Force One, according to Potter, the president snacks on miniature twists.

That's what Bush sent to the White House press corps on board the airplane yesterday, along with a handwritten note to ''Chew slowly.'' A kind warning, perhaps. Or was he sending them a dangerous weapon?

The people can only speculate. But when Bush made a series of watch- out-for-those-pretzels jokes on his tour of the Midwest yesterday, he got a lot of sympathetic laughter.

In the fight against sinister snacks, we've got to stand together.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2002

well, I like pretzels, especially chocolate covered ones. We bought some 'Original Choczels,' made by Toad-Ally Snax, Bristol PA 19007.

They are a mix, some white chocolate, some dark. Can't find a website for them.

-- Anonymous, January 15, 2002