Many enjoyable moments showed up this week while I was discovering the curious history of the pretzel, which was originally a rather sanctified snack food. This train of thought was inspired by a reader who generously attempted to share his pretzel recipe, and other anecdotes I've read about the business of selling pretzels bought at the Starr St. factory in Bushwick in the earlier part of the century. Here is what I've strung together...mind the gaps! This line's got as many holes as the Coney Island boardwalk, but hopefully it won't injure anyone.
610 - An Italian (or French) monk invented a little knot of dough representing human arms in what was then prayer position. He called them pretiola, meaning little rewards, and fed them to good little children who said their prayers.
1111 - Pretzels became an eblem of German bakers, who call them brezel, brezl or brezn.
1510 - Pretzel bakers up late at night hear Turks tunneling under the city and call out an alarm that saved Vienna.
1559 - Pieter Bruegel's painting "The Fight between Carnival and Lent" depicts ritual preztel usage. (Pretzel's were associated with Lent and were given as alms to the poor.)
1652 - Carl Carmer and his wife accused of selling superior pretzels to Native Americans, using second grade flour for the colonists of Beverwyck, New York. As recorded in the town history, "The heathen were eating flour while the Christians were eating bran." Too bad they didn't know what was good for them.
1861 - first commercial pretzel bakery established in Lancaster County by Julius Sturgis
1922 - Brooklyn pretzel seller called Mother Sax found dead in her apartment, her 4 day old corpse guarded by her cat.
Jan 13, 2002 - President George Bush choked on a pretzel, fainted and fell of the couch, receiving minor bruising. Of course a pretzel timeline can have no end, but this seems like a good place to stop.
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6 comments:
Do you know if the pretzel factory on Starr St. is still in business? Do you know what it is/was called? I worked on an ambulance in Brooklyn in the mid-1980's and I remember my partner taking me to a pretzel factory at about 5A.M. one morning for fresh baked pretzels which we bought out of the back door of the building for a ridiculously small amount of money; especially when considering the amount hot dog vendors were charging for them. (I presume it was on Starr St. because I know of no other prezel factories - and I remember that it was out of our area which was primarily in Red Hook at the time.) Just curious if you knew. Thanks.
--Jonathan
Jonathan,
Don't know if its still there, but that's where I bought my pretzels for $.02 when I was nine so I could sell them on Knickerbocker Ave for $.05.
I remember in the 1970's and 1980's going to a pretzel factory in Brooklyn for my boss. Hr called it the Starr Pretzel Factory. I would drive a little Volkswagen beetle from lefferts blvd in Queens way down Metropolitan Ave into Brooklyn to get there. I would buy the pretzels in the 70's for a penny apiece and 3 cents in the 80's. They came in box's of 50 for the jumbo pretzels and we would sell them at Yankee stadium, shea stadium,flushing meadows park, all the race tracks, city traffic, concerts sporting events ,everywhere and anywhere for 25 and then 50 cents in the 1970's and worked up to a dollar and then as much as 3 dollars in the late 1980's. They were very tasty and i could make more money then hustling the streets selling pretzels than I do today. The story's I could tell about my pretzel days in NYC....
I lived on Irving Ave in the 50-80s. As kids we would go to that pretzel factory after church and buy pretzels for 5cents each. They would drop off a conveyor belt into baskets piping hot. I miss those memories!
I sold them at Knickerbocker Park in the estly 60’s
I brought the same pretzel from the factory back in the late 50's early 60's. Would borrow a buck from my father and buy 50 pretzels. By the time I reached myrtle and wyckoff I have most of them gone. Gave my pop his dollar back, went to the movie and still had some left.$.05 a piece 6 for a quarter.
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