Pretzels

from scratch
http://foodomania.com/hard-pretzels/

a story

Pretzel madness
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/dining/26pretzel.html


Despite street pretzels’ low state, they come from a noble family. In much of Germany and parts of Switzerland and Austria, the pretzel is the symbol of the bread baker’s art, as the baguette is in France (though the pretzel is much older). Wooden and iron pretzels have hung over bakery doors for centuries, especially in the south of Germany.
Nuremberg is where “the pretzel madness begins,” said Tinka Bickel, a German marketing manager who lives in New York. South of that German city lies a distinct culinary, linguistic and cultural region where pretzels are much more than a desperation-level snack.

Bavaria is part of this region; there, a classic old-school breakfast is a fresh pretzel — about as wide as a dinner plate — served with two weisswurst (veal sausages) and a dollop of sweet mustard on a plate. Even bigger ones are made for Oktoberfest.

But now, Ms. Bickel said, young people in Munich, Bavaria’s capital, just grab a thickly buttered pretzel with coffee on the way to work.
“It’s like Starbucks,” she said. “There are pretzel chains in every neighborhood.” But older people stick to the tradition. “You see grandmas in the beer garden, having weisswurst and a pretzel at 11 a.m. with their first beer of the day,” she said.