About the Author
My name is Alina, and I am a 4th grader. For over 3 years, I have liked to write and read as well as taking lessons. I am 10 years old, and I like to bake lots of yummy food. I hope you can learn about the history of pretzels. I want to create and publish more stories and articles. I encourage you to write in many ways on your own. I would love to become an author one day.
The Twisty History Of The Pretzel
by Alina H.
The history of the pretzel is twisty because it was made by accident.
An uprising of pretzel popularity was in the 1400s as street sellers went door to door welcoming people to the Frankfort fair by handing pretzels out to people, protecting them from Bandits trying to steal pretzels. This helped pretzels become more popular because people went to go buy them at the Frankfort Fair. In other words, vendors sold pretzels stuck on spears so that “receiving the doughy treats from armed escorts helped protect visitors” (Helmer, par. 3). Thus, visitors would not only be drawn to the fair but also to the pretzels, making it fairly popular.
While a war between the Ottoman Turks and Austrians was happening in the 1510s, Austrian bakers were hard at work: “While baking their treats for the next morning, the bakers heard the suspicious sounds of digging from their cellar bakeries” (Helmer, par. 5). They sounded the alarm to warn other people in the town of the attack. Soon, the Viennese army was waiting at the other side of the tunnel. After that, the Viennese people saw the bakers as heroes. This led to many more people buying pretzels.
In the late 1600s, the hard pretzel was made by accident in Pennsylvania. On a perfect afternoon a baker’s assistant fell asleep on the job: “He woke to find that the fire in the oven had gone out. Worried that the batch of pretzels was ruined, he yanked the trays out. Much to his surprise, he found the extra baking time had turned the soft pretzels into a crunchy, delicious treat” ( Helmer, par. 7). In the present day, the hard pretzel worked its way all over the world just by the baker’s assistant falling asleep.
Work Cited
Helmer, Marilyn. “The Twisted History Of The Pretzel.” Commonlit, 17 March 2023, https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/the-twisted-history-of-the-pretzel