[Sca-cooks] Period Pretzels, yet again...

[Terry Decker]

Streptikios Artos

Twisted bread is made with a little milk and there is added pepper, with a 
small amount of olive oil, or if not olive oil, then lard.

Athenaeus, Deipnosophists


That is the earliest recipe I know, which could be a pretzel.

As for the competition, I would say the sponsors don't know a great deal 
about baking or its' history.  Arbitrarily deciding to use a starter ignores 
the fact that most Northern European bread recipes use ale barm for 
leavening.  Were I entering something like this, I would make a starter and 
produce two batches of dough one from wheat flour (possibly spelt ot 
semolina) and one from a combination of dark rye and wheat (good old AP) 
flours.  I would shape these doughs into two foot lengths about 1/2 inch in 
diameter, then twist the two lengths together forming a single string of 
spiralled dough.  I would then form this into a ring, a double ring, a 
figure 8, or whatever I thought appealing.  Let rise 20 to 30 minutes. 
Place the shaped bread into boiling water until it floats.  Remove to a 
baking sheet and bake.  It's basically an obarzanek with panache.  Decorate 
it with large crystal salt if you want.

The missing link between the sweet bread and the soft pretzel is the law. 
In most places, by law, the sweet, enriched breads and biscuits could only 
be made for feasts and festivals.  Ring and twisted loaves were still bread 
and could be sold every day.

Bear


>A cooking competition in March is for soft pretzels. The head of the 
>sponsoring group says the only ingredients that can be used are starter, 
>flour, water, and salt if you wish, and that entrants must make and use 
>their own starter.
>
> We know that pretzel-shaped baked items of some sort are definitely 
> period, since they appear in the coats of arms of cities and guilds, in 
> Books of Hours, in paintings, and more, going back at least to the 12th c.
>
> For a long while we looked at recipes for jumbles / iombols / ciambole / 
> precedella / brazzatelle (and various other spellings). But these are 
> sweet, have many more ingredients than those permitted in the competition, 
> and are more like cookies than soft pretzels.
>
> I no longer remember: has anyone found a recipe or clear reference to 
> something like soft pretzels that includes only yeast, flour, water, and 
> maybe salt?
>
> I reviewed the Florilegium article, but did not study every post in depth, 
> and in my scanning, at least, i didn't.
> http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD-BREADS/pretzels-msg.html
> Perhaps i missed the missing link between sweet bread or cookie and our 
> beloved salty soft pretzel...
>
> Urtatim (that's oor-tah-TEEM)
> who is not planning to enter the competition