Do The Twist

Pretzels. Can you even think of a more inane victual?  I don’t think even condiments are taken as much for granted.   Pretzels are practically an afterthought.  A bag of something you throw into a bowl at a party to increase the appearance of hospitality.  Of course I’m referring to the workaday, bagged pretzels indigenous to every American supermarket.  However, the average American consumes 1 ½ lbs. of pretzels a year.  That translates into a $550 million a year business.  Not so inane after all.

Nevertheless, I doubt many people ever contemplate the origins or meanings of this voluble little snack.  No problem.  It’s my job to do that homework for you.  You’d be amazed how convoluted the history of the pretzel is.   Pardon the pun but get ready for a lot of twists.

To begin, there are a number of claims to the pretzel’s origin.  These include 1) the ancient Romans, 2) the Greeks of 1,000 years ago, 3) Italian or French monks in the year 610, and 4) German bakers in the year 743.  Trying to identify the specific birthplace of a food product like a pretzel is like asking when the first chicken appeared on earth.  It’s not like on one Monday millions of years ago there were no chickens and on Tuesday there were.

Chickens and pretzels are entities that develop over time with multiple influences.  Not to mention the fact that certain food products can be “discovered” by more than one independent source contemporaneously or at different times.  As for the pretzel, there were probably many “prototypes,” i.e., similarly baked items from various parts of the world that eventually morphed into the barroom nibbler we know today.

OK, so somewhere over the last 2,000 years in Europe the comestible we now call pretzels were “invented.”  Let’s twist some more.  How did it get its shape and what does a pretzel symbolize?

Well, first there’s the notion that an ancient cult of sun worshippers formed a circle of dough around a cross but this was too fragile a configuration so it was amended into the current form.  The monks who supposedly created the pretzel in 610 allegedly crossed the dough strands to represent children with their arms crossed learning their prayers.

Pretzels were popular with Christians at lent since they were devoid of any forbidden ingredients.  Moreover, the three holes came to signify the trinity.  In Germany, Catholics would form palms into pretzel shapes for Palm Sunday.  Pretzels were thought to bring luck, prosperity and spiritual wholeness.  They were considered particularly lucky on New Year’s.

Finally, some accounts claim that the marital expression “tying the knot” emanates from the pretzel shape and denotes everlasting love.  Love struck German boys would paint a pretzel on the door of their beloved.  In Luxembourg, on “Pretzel Day,” it is customary to give your inamorata a pretzel or pretzel shaped cake.

So it appears then that the meaning of the pretzel shape is as multifaceted as its origins.  Tired of drifting through all the twists?  Let’s straighten out a little by discussing what is clear cut.

A pretzel is a baked pastry product made from dough that can be soft or hard, (although originally it tended to be chewier).  Cooking time and the amount of moisture in the dough determines its hardness.   The name pretzel comes from the German bretzel which in turn comes from the Latin brachium which means arm.  Some cite this as evidence for the “crossed-arms” theory of the pretzel’s meaning.

The pretzel was introduced to America by German immigrants in the 18th century and flourished in the areas populated by the Pennsylvania Dutch.  The first commercial pretzel enterprise in America was the Sturgis’ Bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania which began in 1861.  Pennsylvania currently produces 80% of our country’s pretzels.  While pretzels are traditionally salted, there are also sweet varieties coated with glazes and other flavoring elements such as chocolate, yogurt and fruit.  But I think nothing beats a traditional New York soft pretzel with lots of salt and mustard.

An intriguing aspect of both pretzel and bagel making is that they are poached in water before they are baked.  Many people are surprised when they first learn this.  Indeed, the average person doesn’t equate a pot of boiling water with baked goods.

The reason bagels and pretzels are poached first is to set the outside crust.  This renders the final crust thicker and crisper.  It also adds density to its interior.  Too long in the hot water however and the crust becomes too thick and the interior lightens.  Typically pretzels and bagels are only poached for 30-60 seconds.

One final interesting anecdote about pretzels occurred in 16th century Vienna.  The city was under siege from the Ottoman Turks.  As the story goes, because the walls of the city were so well defended, the Turks attempted to tunnel under them.  Pretzel bakers working at night heard the commotion and informed the authorities.  The city was saved and the Emperor awarded the bakers a coat of arms.  The pretzel is indeed a microcosm of the twists and turns of history.

Chef Mark R. Vogel
FoodForThought.com

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Christmas In Italy

I asked my friend “Lola” Baldwin how she celebrates Christmas with her family in Italy where she lives with her son.  She was kind enough to share her family tradition with us in great detail and I thank her for doing so. She also shares with us a secret family recipe for Pasta al Tonno or Pasta with Tuna.  I hope you enjoy this post as much as I do. Merry Christmas Ele.

Natale - The Italian Christmas, where families join hands in the kitchen and at the table
By Eleonora Baldwin

As tradition has it, in my family we all participate in the preparation of the Christmas meals. Yes plural. Each of us helps out in building a monumental glorification of food and togetherness by cooking lovely typical foods, getting the family around the table and eating ourselves silly.

The Christmas celebrations usually involve gathering members of the family not commonly frequented during the rest of the year. And so table extensions seat far removed cousins, nieces, nephews, grandchildren, acquired siblings, second marriage spouses, uncles and aunts, parents-inlaw, plus boyfriends, girlfriends, nannies, single friends and more.

La Vigilia

Let me explain when I say Christmas meals using the plural form. In the less wealthy yet exuberant southern regions of Italy where part of my roots are the Louis IV Christmas banquet lasts two full days. Christmas Eve dinner should respect the Christian observing rule of fasting, so the menu is therefore solely based of fish.

But the bare minimum standard dinner includes: pasta with a spicy tuna sauce, steamed or baked Moby Dick-size salmon or sea bass, fresh baby sardines in lemon marinade, capitone eel, octopus casserole, and raw shell fish of every size shape and form.

A stronghold of Neapolitan Christmas cuisine is the bizarre Insalata di Rinforzo. Literally ‘reinforcement salad’, a mixture of tossed boiled cauliflower, anchovies, olives and mixed pickled giardiniera, dressed in vinegar and olive oil. The name suggests the need for support should the meal be poor, but this is rarely the case.Perhaps it dates back to an ancient tradition when Napoli’s bien être was for royalty and very few others, unlike today.

Beverages always include spumante for the antipasto, barrels of wine and dessert shots of home made Limoncello, or its winter cousin, the aromatic Nocino. An after dinner liqueur made with green, unripe walnuts, which despite antioxidant and digestive qualities and moderate alcohol content (30% proof), knocks you out cold after one sip.

Pranzo di Natale

The following day for lunch, on December 25th, the Peninsula’s pantagruelic orgy continues with an array of deep fried vegetable antipasti, lasagna or crespelle baked in the oven with some sort of interesting meat sauce; lamb, goose or turkey; glazed onions; eggplant, zucchini, pumpkin and tomatoes au gratin, and of course desserts.

My favorite, besides Panettone and Pandoro, are the delightful Campanian Struffoli, toothsome honey glazed fried dough morsels decorated with colored sprinkles. I also love the Roccocò biscuits whose onomatopoeic name matches their jaw-breaking hardness. Or the Sicilian Buccellati, moist golden, soft and chewy biscuits stuffed with dried fruits, almonds, pine nuts and seasoned with spices and Marsala wine.

Another Natale essential is Torrone. A nougat confection, typically made of honey, sugar, and egg whites, with toasted almonds or other nuts mixed in, and usually shaped into a rectangular tablet. Two varieties exist: the hard compact block of whole almonds in a brittle granite mass, defining the torrone duro kind; and the soft (torrone morbido) which is similar but where the almonds are reduced to a soft paste.

The quality (and price) of the product is determined by the quantity of almond in the mixture. Chocolate covered kinds exist, and newer ones like the pistacchio and lemon icing variations. A popular candy manufacturer made a fortune years ago with the invention of bite size soft Torroncini, a highly addictive drug.

Buon Natale a tutti!

Pasta al Tonno

Christmas Eve dinner staple, summer surprise, and delicious assortment of Mediterranean flavors. Pasta with tuna and tomato sauce is my stepfather’s signature recipe. I have carefully watched him make it over the years, observing how it has become an unwavering family heritage.

Here is the recipe, Nonno Sergio’s famous pasta contribution to the Christmas Eve all-fish meal. I have asked permission to publish it, and–after a little bit of resistance–he kindly agreed to divulge it.

While a big pot with 1 gallon of water is happily getting to boiling point, Sergio pours 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, wide high-rimmed pan over very low heat. He adds three peeled cloves of garlic and 2 potent peperoncino chili peppers and lets the oil absorb the flavors for a couple of minutes. The cloves will darken in color, but must not burn (if that happens both Sergio and I recommend you start again from scratch). Then my stepfather adds half a tablespoon of anchovy paste and stirs it into the oil.

He then pours a 14-oz can of unseasoned tomato sauce to the oil, cooks the sauce gently and lets it simmer, covered, for five minutes. In the meantime he opens a 2-cup can (or glass jar) of oil-packed tuna. Sergio squeezes the excess oil from the can and forks out the fish, flaking it with a fork. He adds it to the simmering tomatoes along with a few salted capers. Stirring well, he then covers the pan and lets the sauce cook over low heat for another 10 minutes.

By this time the water has reached a rolling boil. Sergio tosses in 300gr (1 1/2 cups) spaghetti and cooks it for the amount of time printed on the package minus 2 minutes. He drains the pasta saving some cooking water and pours it all in the tuna saucepan, amalgamates it over vivacious heat and serves his droolworthy seasoned tuna spaghetti sprinkled with (very little) chopped parsley.

Grazie
Sergio!

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who celebrate this special holiday when families get together to give thanks. It is also one of those holidays where we get to test our skills in the kitchen by preparing a lot of dishes for a lot of people. I often tell readers it is the one day of the year when you get a taste of what it would be like to be a professional cook. You may be cooking for 10 or more people tomorrow but imagine cooking for 10 times that many 6 days a week.

History of Thanksgiving

No matter who you turn to for your tale of the first Thanksgiving, there’s almost always a heavy focus on what was served on that big, roughly-hewn table. Images meant to remind of us of pilgrims in crisp, clean hats and Indians sharing the bounty of the land are just about everywhere – including the cornucopia centerpieces that grace many a table and the cheerful platters we get out only this one time each year.

However, the real history of Thanksgiving – the one that tells the discomforts of people making it across the ocean in a rickety, crowded, smelly boat only to find a harsh wilderness awaiting them – isn’t one that sits well for the holidays. That’s why we’ve glossed and polished it until it looks like something we might want sitting next to Grandma as she takes a second helping of the sweet potato pie.

The Real Thanksgiving Story

Most of us associate Thanksgiving with one big meal that was presented to the starving Puritans by the native people. According to popular legend, these generous hosts brought wild game and proceeded to share their food – and their knowledge – with the newcomers.

In reality, there were several thanksgiving festivals, and many different times in history in which we can point back and say, “That was the original Thanksgiving feast.”

•    According to some accounts, the original Thanksgiving feast was little more than a blip on the historical radar. A letter sent in the early 1620s mentions one such meal, between one Native American tribe and the Puritan settlers. It was not repeated and not mentioned ever again. Many historians suspect that this letter was really a kind of pre-American propaganda, written with the intent to hype up the comforts of the New World and attract more settlers.

•    Other accounts are more cheerful, indicating that the first feast was a three-day affair in which the local Native American tribe, the Wampanoag, shared their bounty with the pilgrims who had just arrived on the Mayflower. It was a rough journey, so only half of the passengers survived. Those who did were weak with hunger and unable to find food in their strange, new environment. The Native Americans not only fed them, but also taught them how to survive by hunting and harvesting local plant life.

•    Still other stories paint a more harrowing scene, in which the Native tribes gathered for their annual harvest festival in the 1630s. The English and Dutch settlers of the time used this as an opportunity to further their wartime agenda, killing the people gathered for celebration.

Today’s Thanksgiving Story

At it’s core, the Thanksgiving myth is one that almost anyone can relate to during the holiday season. It doesn’t matter which story you want to believe: the early marketing ploy, the goodwill of two cultures coming together, or the antagonism of settlers taking over land that isn’t theirs.

The truth is that food was a scarcity in the early American times, and to be able to sit and eat with loved ones meant there was much to be thankful for. Life. Family. The promise and hope of the future.

It has also been a strong part of every culture to take a moment to be thankful for the bounty of the fall harvest. Whether you look at early Celtic, Germanic, or Asian cultures, there has always been a focus on remembering the role of nature and the deities in providing food and comfort.

These types of feelings – warm, grateful, appreciative – are the things that we carry with us to Thanksgiving today. Both George Washington and Abraham Lincoln declared official days of thanksgiving, although it was Lincoln who assigned it the date of the last Thursday in November. Even Franklin Roosevelt had a finger in the pie, so to speak, changing the official Thanksgiving date to the fourth Thursday in the month.

Remembering to be Thankful

In reality, there are few things more American than the idea of a thanksgiving holiday. As a nation, we took what was essentially one moment in history and captured it, building an entire idealized picture of early life. We wanted to celebrate the people who came before us, who paved the way for the life we now lead. And so we have. We’ve built up a mythology. We’ve had several presidents make formal declarations of the holiday’s importance. We’ve created a meal based on fall bounty like turkey, potatoes, and squash – perhaps not the foods they had at the first Thanksgiving, but foods that we know and celebrate as true American staples.

Perhaps most importantly of all, we’ve made it all about hope. While it is important to take a moment to remember the hardships endured by every man, woman, and child who died in the early American days (Puritan or Native American), the truth is that being an American means persevering and building a better future. When you sit around the table with those you love, remembering all the things you have to be thankful for, that’s what you’re really doing. You’re building a better future, and enjoying what the world has to offer you today.

Happy Thanksgiving and Good Eating