50 Fun Facts About Pretzels

In the best-known legend, a monk crossed strips of dough so the pretzel would resemble what?

The story places the invention in a monastery around AD 610, with the twisted loops handed out as rewards to children who learned their prayers.

In that legend, the monk called his creation 'pretiola', a Latin word meaning what?

The pretiola were supposedly handed to students who had memorised their prayers, which is why the snack became linked with monasteries and Lent.

The German word 'Brezel' may derive from the Latin 'bracellus', a medieval term for which object?

A rival etymology traces it to 'bracchiola', meaning little arms, which fits the folded-arms shape just as neatly.

The pretzel has been the emblem of which trade's guilds in southern Germany since at least the 12th century?

A gilded pretzel still hangs outside many German bakeries as a shop sign, much as a striped pole marks a barber.

Simple flour-and-water pretzels were popular during which Christian season, when eggs, lard and dairy were forbidden?

The same fasting rules gave the pretzel its long association with Ash Wednesday and Good Friday in parts of Europe.

What was traditionally hidden on Easter morning for children to find, as eggs are today?

The pretzel-hunt tradition faded as the coloured egg took over, but pretzels still turn up in springtime customs across Germany, Austria and Luxembourg.

Traditional pretzel baking has taken firmest root in which German region?

Franconia is the northern part of Bavaria, home to Nuremberg and Bamberg, and its pretzels sit somewhere between the thick Bavarian and thin-armed Swabian styles.

A typical Swabian pretzel is described as having very thin 'arms' and what else?

The thin arms bake crisp while the thick belly stays soft; Bavarian bakers, by contrast, leave the arms thicker so nothing crisps up.

German New Year's pretzels, given as good-luck gifts on 1 January, can measure how wide?

They are lightly sweetened yeast pretzels rather than lye ones, and the largest are baked to be shared by an entire family.

The 'Palm pretzel' baked for Palm Sunday celebrations can weigh up to how much?

The giant loaf is a church-calendar cousin of the New Year's pretzel, one of several German pretzel customs tied to specific feast days.

Southern German and Swiss immigrants who brought the pretzel to North America became known by which name?

The 'Dutch' is a corruption of 'Deutsch'; the same communities gave America shoofly pie, scrapple and the Amish farmers' markets where soft pretzels are still sold.

The Sturgis bakery, the first US commercial hard-pretzel bakery, opened in which Pennsylvania town?

The Julius Sturgis Pretzel Bakery is still open for tours, and the family says it bakes with the same recipe Julius used in 1861.

According to bakery lore, how did Julius Sturgis first come by his pretzel recipe?

Sturgis had run a bread business since 1850; the pretzels proved so popular that by 1861 he dropped bread entirely.

The first automatic hard-pretzel twisting machine came in 1935 from a company in which Pennsylvania city?

The Reading Pretzel Machinery Company's device replaced hand-twisters who could manage perhaps 40 pretzels a minute at best.

At what rate could AMF's 1949 'pretzel bender' roll and tie pretzels?

AMF is better remembered for automatic bowling pinsetters, but its bender pushed hard pretzels from a regional Pennsylvania treat into a national snack aisle.

The annual United States pretzel industry is worth over how much?

Most of that money is spent on hard pretzels, whose long shelf life makes them a supermarket staple rather than a street-cart snack.

The average American eats roughly how many pounds of pretzels per year?

The average Philadelphian eats about twelve times that, which is why soft-pretzel carts are as much a part of the city as cheesesteaks.

Roughly what share of the nation's pretzels does Pennsylvania produce?

Hanover, Lancaster, Reading and Lititz between them host most of the big bakeries, which is why the state calls itself the pretzel capital of the world.

Lancaster's Anderson Pretzel Factory, self-styled world's largest, makes how many tons of hard pretzels a day?

The company was founded in 1889 and its glass-walled viewing gallery is a stop on the Lancaster County tourist trail.

In 1963 a 40-pound, five-foot soft pretzel, the largest of its time, was baked as a prop for which film?

The giant pretzel was made by the Federal Pretzel Baking Company, the firm that first mass-produced the soft pretzel in its home city.

Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell declared which date National Pretzel Day in 2003?

The date has since been adopted nationwide, with chains such as Auntie Anne's giving away free pretzels to mark it.

Which Illinois city has been known for more than a century as 'Pretzel City, USA'?

German immigrant John Billerbeck's bakery, founded in 1869, distributed so many pretzels that the local paper coined the nickname; the high school's mascot is still the Pretzel.

Which US president fainted in January 2002 after a pretzel went down the wrong way?

The scare left him with a bruised lip and a scraped cheek; doctors blamed a brief drop in heart rate triggered by swallowing.

The president was watching an NFL game during the 2002 pretzel incident. Which teams?

He was alone in the room and reckoned he was out for only seconds, because his two dogs had not moved when he came round.

Why is a certain Street Fighter joystick input nicknamed after the pretzel?

The 'pretzel motion' is a looping sequence of directions that even veteran players find awkward to pull off cleanly.

A privately run Pretzel Museum opened in 1993 in which US city?

The city's love affair with the soft pretzel goes back to street-corner vendors in the 1800s and the mustard-slathered figure-eight sold from carts today.

Auntie Anne's, the mall pretzel chain, began in 1988 as a stand at what kind of venue?

Anne Beiler and her husband Jonas ran the first stand at the Downingtown market; the chain now has more than 1,200 stores in malls, airports and train stations.

In 2010 Auntie Anne's was bought by which Atlanta franchisor, renamed GoTo Foods in 2024?

The same portfolio owns Cinnabon, Carvel and Jamba, which is why those brands so often share a food-court counter with the pretzel stand.

Snyder's of Hanover traces its roots to a 1909 bakery founded by whom?

The Snyder's name came later; the Warehime family ran the business for generations before its 2010 merger with Lance.

Which soup company announced in December 2017 that it would buy Snyder's-Lance?

The deal folded America's biggest pretzel brand into the same portfolio as Goldfish crackers and Pepperidge Farm.

The lye bath that gives a traditional pretzel its dark, glossy skin is a solution of which chemical?

The same caustic compound is sold as drain cleaner, which is why home bakers usually settle for a weaker baked-baking-soda dip.

Coating dough in a high-pH solution speeds up which browning process, the same one that colours a seared steak?

The chemistry involves amino acids and sugars, and alkaline conditions make it run much faster than in plain bread.

The French lye roll 'mauricette' was invented in 1973 in which region?

Alsace sits on the German border and shares Germany's taste for lye-dipped breads, sold there as 'bretzels'.

Wetzel's Pretzels was founded in 1994 by Rick Wetzel and Bill Phelps in which California city?

The name was inspired by playground taunts Rick Wetzel endured as a child; the first store opened at a mall in nearby Redondo Beach.

The Rold Gold pretzel brand has belonged since 1961 to which snack company?

Rold Gold began life in 1917 as the American Cone and Pretzel Company and was still the number-two US pretzel brand behind Snyder's as of 2014.

Utz, the Hanover, Pennsylvania snack maker known for its pretzels and chips, was founded in which year?

William and Salie Utz started the business, and the 'Little Utz Girl' mascot on the packaging was redesigned by a Baltimore ad agency in 1961.

The first Oktoberfest, held in 1810, celebrated what?

The festival grounds, the Theresienwiese, are named after the bride, Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen.

How many Munich breweries hold the right to produce official Oktoberfestbier?

Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, Spaten and Hofbräu make up the Club of Munich Brewers; the festival draws around seven million visitors a year.

Bavarian weisswurst is eaten by 'zuzeln', which means what?

Tradition also says the sausages should not hear the noon church bells, a hangover from the days before refrigeration.

The EU-protected 'Bayerische Breze' must use a lye bath thinned to below what strength?

The protected geographical indication also requires that at least one stage of production takes place in Bavaria.

By what mistake did Munich baker Anton Nepomuk Pfannenbrenner create the first lye pretzel in 1839?

The accident happened at the Royal Coffeehouse of Johann Eilles in Munich, and the first taster was Wilhelm Eugen von Ursingen, an envoy of the King of Württemberg.

Roughly how many pretzels does Speyer, Germany's 'pretzel town', throw into the crowd at its Brezelfest?

The festival is held every July on the Rhine, and its parade float crews toss the pretzels the way New Orleans krewes toss beads.

Steely Dan's 1974 album 'Pretzel Logic' produced the band's biggest hit single. What was it?

The single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100; the gruelling tour that followed persuaded Becker and Fagen to stop touring altogether.

On Bretzelsonndeg a Luxembourg man gives his sweetheart a pretzel. If she accepts, what does she give at Easter?

In leap years the roles flip: women give the pretzel and hope for an egg in return.

In which country was the largest pretzel ever baked, 783.81 kg, made in 2015?

The beer brand Pilsener baked it in San Salvador; at nearly nine metres long it outweighed a small car.

Combos, the filled tube-shaped pretzel or cracker snacks, are made by which company?

The same company also makes Pretzel M&M's, a small spherical pretzel wrapped in milk chocolate and a candy shell.

What is the most common topping on a pretzel?

The coarse crystals are usually pressed on after the lye dip and before baking so they stick to the tacky surface.

Which kind of pretzel should be eaten shortly after it is made, unlike its long-shelf-life cousin?

The moisture that keeps a soft pretzel chewy also makes it stale within hours, which is why they are sold warm from carts and mall counters.

Wetzel's Pretzels sells its bite-sized pretzel pieces under what name?

They come in Original, Cinn-a-bitz and Pizza Bitz; the chain also wraps an all-beef hot dog in pretzel dough and calls it the Wetzel Dog.

In The Office's 'Initiation', which employee counts down the days to the next free Pretzel Day?

Michael queues with him for the pretzel, then delivers a sugar-fuelled speech before falling asleep at his desk.