pretzel – podictionary 902
Dec 5th, 2008 | 
The story goes that pretzels were invented by a monk in Germany who wanted to teach children to pray and so gave out pretzels as reminders and rewards, the crossed branches of the pretzel representing arms in prayer.
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Although there isn’t authoritative evidence to back this story up, the etymology of pretzel tends to support at least part of the story.
Pretzel is indeed thought to come from a German word bretzel described as referring to a kind of thin bread roll twisted into a knot and salted before baking. This word in turn points back to a Latin bracellus also a bakery item.
The image of crossed arms also comes through in the name because brachium was Latin for “arm.”
Some association between prayer and pretzels could also be inferred in that these kind of baked goods seemed to be particularly associated with religious holidays.
The first citation for pretzel in English comes in the 1820s in a collection called Antiquities of Long Island. There too we find a connection between religious observance and pretzels.
The author talks about how in his day it is a New Year’s ritual to welcome all manner of friends, neighbors and even strangers into one’s home. He credits his honest good-natured Dutch ancestors for the habit and tells how they had been happy with pretzels, Christmas nuts, beer and cider.
The religious observance drains out of his account however when he relates that such good food was enhanced with Madera and other wines, cordials and liquors but that the temperance movement has caused these to be replaced with coffee and lemonade.
The publication of the book in which we find this first citation is a little unusual.
Some 50 years after the author wrote Antiquities of Long Island the publisher found the manuscript among piles of other papers in a used book store. He liked it and published it, seemingly with no further involvement of the author.
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