Weird and wonderful

Twisted past

The pretzel�s cross-continental journey

Did you Know? The largest pretzel ever baked weighed 88 kilogrammes and was 1.5 metres wide.

Did you know that there was an attempt on US President George W. Bush�s life several years ago? By a strange twist of fate, Bush managed to survive the attack. The culprit wasn�t some mad man who hated the leader, but an unassuming pretzel.

The president fainted and hit his head after choking on the snack food while watching a football game on television. If the assassination really happened, it would have been one of the most bizarre events to ever go down in history. Let�s take a closer look at this strange and popular snack.

The pretzel�s origins go back almost 1,400 years when a monk from a monastery in Southern France twisted leftover strips of dough from his bakery into a pretzel. He shaped the dough to look like the arms of a child folded in prayer, and he would give them away to kids who memorised their prayers.

From bretzel to pretzel

From the monastery in France, the pretzel journeyed through Austria, Switzerland and into Germany, where the Germans gave it the name �bretzel� because it was shaped like the letter B. The name was changed to pretzel after it crossed the ocean to America.

Before arriving in the US, the pretzel was a soft bread, but by accident the pretzel later became hard and crispy. Story has it that a baker fell asleep and left the pretzels to bake in his oven for too long.

Another baker, named Julius Sturgis, established the first commercial pretzel bakery in Pennsylvania, USA in 1861 and it is still baking the pretzels today.

The pretzel has come a long way, but sadly it won�t make it onto the White House menu again.

Questions

1. Why did the Germans name the snack the bretzel?

2. How did the pretzel become hard and crispy?

3. Who was the first person to shape the pretzel?

                a. A baker who fell asleep.

                b. Julius Sturgis.

                c. A monk in France.

4. Why did the monk give away pretzels to children?

5. When was the first commercial pretzel bakery established?

Vocabulary

twist of fate (n): an unexpected change or development in a story or situation
culprit (n): a person who has done something wrong or against the law
faint (v): to become unconscious
choke (v): to be unable to breathe because the passage to your lungs is blocked and you cannot get enough air
monk (n): a member of a religious group of men who often live apart from other people
monastery (n): building in which monks live together
crispy (adj): pleasantly hard and dry