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The Pretzel - Lenten Bread and Snack Food

Soft and thick or hard and thin: pretzels are available at almost every Tirolean inn throughout the year. The traditional twisted hard pretzel is still the favorite, but those craving something a little different should try the tasty and filling pretzel soup. What only few people now is that the pretzel has its origins as an official food of Lent.

Nobody knows exactly when and where the pretzel first appeared on the menu. Some assume that the pretzel dates back to the Classical World. Others again say it dates from the early Middle Ages. But most people have never heard about the history of the pretzel as a symbol of prayer. In the Middle Ages, European monasteries wanted to remind people that the season of Lent was a time for prayer and penance. So, they began baking Lenten bread shaped like a monk's arms folded across his chest in a traditional posture of prayer. Because these breads were shaped into the form of crossed arms, they were called bracellae, the Latin word for "little arms". From this word, the Germans derived the word brezel which has since mutated to the familiar word pretzel.
For hundreds of centuries, culinary customs have been an important part of the penitential season, which starts on Ash Wednesday for Catholics and ends April 15 with Easter.
Another possibility for the origins of the word pretzel is that the young monk gave these breads to children as a reward when they could recite their prayers. The Latin word pretiola means "little reward," from which pretzel could also be reasonably derived.
In Hall, for instance, a person disguised as farmer walked through town to punished the local youths with a rod. The message was clear: no more fooling around! As reward and consolation the tortured were given pretzels.
How and why the pretzel sneaked its way from Lent to Shrovetide is still unknown. A good example is the famous Shrovetide parade in Imst: traditional Carnival characters like the Roller, Scheller, Altfrankenspritzer etc. give away pretzels as a kind of "honorary gift". And with Carnival, pretzels quickly caught on as a popular snack food throughout the year.