What are Pretzels made of?

Psst, hey, smarty pants, I’m in a monastery in Europe during the Middle Ages, around the year 610. Here, religious people, called monks, spend most of their days in silent prayer and meditation. Monks would also help the poor, care for the sick, and educate children.

Many were skilled at farming and baking, and by some accounts, the monks in this monastery created the world’s first what? Is it the smoothie, the Dorito, or the pretzel?

Hello! Did somebody say pretzel?

Did it fell?

Yeah, the Germans love our pretzels. Some of us eat them for breakfast and lunch, and maybe later with some artworks and a tasty drink brewed by these fantastic monks. Dunkish -on! Shh! Yeah? Did you know the Germans walked the pretzel to America?

We created the pretzel capital of the world.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, spoiler alert. We’re not up to that part yet. Also, I think your music is upsetting the monks. Shh.

My apology’s held now, Eita. Please continue.

As I was about to say, Smarty Pants, these monks are thought to have created the first pretzels. But how exactly did the pretzel come about? What does its shape symbolize? And how did pretzels save a city?

Become a symbol of luck and love. And become a part of many celebrations.

Did somebody say celebration?

It’s time for another delicious whiff of science and history on…

Who’s smarted? Who’s smarted? Who’s smart? Is it you? Is it me? Is it science? Or history? Listen up! Everyone, we make smarted! Lots of fun on Who’s Smarted!

This message is sponsored by Greenlight. As a Who Smarted fan, you know how much I love helping kids build independence and learn crucial life skills. With the new school year approaching, that’s exactly why I recommend Greenlight and why millions of parents and kids use it every day.

Greenlight is a debit card and money app for families where kids learn to save, invest, and spend wisely while parents monitor their progress. The Infinity Plan offers even more, including family location sharing, SOS alerts, and crash detection for young drivers, and peace of mind for parents.

With features like chore management and rewards, Greenlight makes it easy to establish fall routines. It’s the convenient way for smarty parents like you to raise financially savvy smarty pants and navigate life together.

Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to greenlight .com backslash smarted. That’s greenlight .com backslash smarted to try Greenlight for free. Smarty pants, you probably don’t think of pretzels as a spiritual snack, but apparently they were created in a monastery about 1 ,400 years ago.

Back then, monks were some of the only people who knew how to read and write and were often teachers. As the story goes, it was a monk who introduced the first pretzels to his students.

There’s the bell ending today’s class. Tomorrow, I will teach you how to make balloons out of goat bladders. But before you go, I made you special treats for learning all your prayers.

Boo, what are they?

baked pieces of leftover bread, which I twisted around to look like arms crossed in prayer.

That is a very uncomfortable way to pray.

Yes, well, that’s not the point. The point is, I made you treats that have never, ever, ever been made before.

Except maybe by the Greeks

Never mind that, I call these Pretiola.

smartypants, Pretiola may be an early Latin root of the word pretzel. Do you know what it means?

Of course I know what it means. I’m a teacher and I invented them.

No, I was asking the smarty pants. Is it A, Twisted Arms, B, Salty Snacks, or C, Little Rewards?

Oh, I know, I know, it’s little rewards.

Yes, you are a smart one. Now, run along my children and spread the word about these little rewards. I’m sure there’ll be a big hit throughout our fine country.

And what country is that?

Ugh. Smarty Pants, where do you think the pretzel was invented? Is it A, Italy, B, France, or C, Germany? Hello?

Did somebody say Germany? He did, fellas!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. I said it might be from Germany, or Italy, or France. The truth is, all three answers could be correct. Many pretzel historians believe the monk story, but they don’t know where it happened.

There are no written records of pretzels from that era. The first known depiction of a pretzel appeared in the year 1111, on a symbol representing the German Baker’s Guilds. And instead of preteola, the word pretzel could come from Brezatella, an old German word meaning arm.

Yeah, and we Germans have our own claim to the very first pretzel. Our version is much more suspenseful. There was this bakery in Germany, you see, and the bakers there, they got into some trouble with the higher -ups in town, like community leaders, the police, or local celebrity schnitzel chefs.

Schnitzel chefs? You get the picture. Anyway, these higher -ups, they hold the bakers hostage. You see, it was all very tense. Please, please let us go, cried the bakers. Nein, said the captors, which is no in German, not the number dine.

Gotcha. So it’s not looking good for these bakers. They try begging more, but the captors won’t have it. But then, the bakers realize the only way to win over these guys is to bake them something scrumptious.

And behold, they come up with a winner, the pretzel. And to that, we celebrate.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re telling me the pretzel exists today because some bakers in Germany were held hostage.

Yeah, why not? Germany loves its pretzels, and it’s not like this was the only time pretzels save people.

They’ve got a point. After it was invented in Italy, France, Germany, or elsewhere, the pretzel became very popular throughout Europe, especially in Germany and its surrounding countries. Now, these were not the crunchy pretzels you might enjoy eating out of a bag today.

Those didn’t come until later. The early pretzels were more like the big soft pretzels you get at a sporting event or sold on the streets of New York. Pretzels here? Get your hot pretzels here? They’re easy to make, a simple combination of flour, water, yeast, sugar, and salt.

And they’re cheap, so they became an important source of food for people living in poverty who viewed the pretzel as a sign of good luck and good fortune. As we said before, monks spend much of their lives helping the poor, so they were often baking pretzels.

Ah. A group of monks were doing that late one night in 1510 in Vienna, the capital city of Austria, a country that borders Germany. As most of the city slept, the pretzel -making monks discovered the nearby Ottoman Empire was secretly preparing to attack.

Ah, look at that. Another beautiful batch of pretzels. Fresh from the oven. Ready for tomorrow? What’s that sound? Oh, it’s getting louder. And look, now there’s dirt all over the counter. And all over our pretzels.

And now there’s a hole in the wall. Sorry. You’ve messed up my pretzels. And say, you look like one of those Ottoman Turks. Uh, do I? Yes, you do. Are you trying to invade Vienna by digging tunnels under the city walls?

No, we’re, uh, from the cable company. Lies! Cable hasn’t been invented yet. I must warn the others.

So the monks ran out from their kitchen and warned the city. Get the police.

Get the city leaders! Get the military! Fing your pots and fangs! Ring the church bells!

The pretzel -making monks saved the city of Vienna. Because of their heroics, the Austrian emperor gave pretzel -bakers their own coat of arms, which is still used today. Ooh! The symbol shows two lions holding a pretzel and can be seen outside pretzel bakeries throughout Europe.

They, um, hold on. Those aren’t church bells. Are those cowbells playing Edelweiss? Yeah!

Have you not been to an Oktoberfest? It’s a very popular German festival celebrated all over the world. There’s lots of music, dancing, sausage and cowbells. Of course, there are pretzels too. But it’s not the only celebration with pretzels.

That’s true. Over the years, pretzels have been a big part of what celebration? Is it A. New Year’s Day? B. Weddings? Or C. Christmas?

Hoorah! It’s all three! In the 1600s, children wore pretzel necklaces on New Year’s because they were thought to bring good luck. And pretzels were also common decorations on Christmas trees. Instead of Easter egg hunts, kids would go looking for hidden pretzels.

Of course, nothing says love like a freshly baked twist. During weddings in Switzerland, which also borders Germany, a husband and wife would pull on a pretzel much like you and someone might pull on a turkey wishbone on Thanksgiving.

Historians believe the marriage phrase tying the knot comes from the twisted pretzel shape. And these tasty treats only got better once we Germans brought them to America.

Yes, that’s when Pretzels experienced a big change. We’ll have that story after this quick break. Hey, parents! Trusty here. I love making it easy for people to learn new things. Shocker, right? So when my friend told me he was about to spend almost $1 ,000 on language lessons to get ready for his trip to Spain, I said, hold on there.

Why don’t you try using the language learning app, Babbel? I told him he’ll save enough money to practically pay for his plane ticket. Less than a month later, he was ordering tapas and sangria like a Barcelona native and telling me, gracias, Trusty.

Babbel’s 10 -minute lessons, designed by over 200 language experts, fit perfectly into his busy schedule. Their speech recognition technology even helped him nail that tricky Spanish R. R. R. R. Oof.

I need to use Babbel. And so do you. It’s awesome. Choose from 14 award -winning language courses all backed by a 20 -day money -back guarantee. I love Babbel so much that they’ve agreed to make an exclusive offer for our listeners.

Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription at B -A -B -B -E -L dot com slash smarted. That’s Babbel dot com slash smarted. Rules and restrictions may apply. Start your language journey today. Hey, smarty parents, I know the struggle of wanting to create the best future for the children in your life.

That’s why I’m thrilled to share my experience with IXL Learning. Recently, the eight -year -old child of one of our main who -smarted writers started struggling with math. They tried everything and felt helpless.

Then I told them about our partner, IXL, and it changed everything. IXL is an online learning program that covers math, language arts, science, and social studies from pre -K to 12th grade. What sets it apart is how it adapts to each child’s needs.

His daughter loves the positive feedback and fun challenges. And the best part? IXL’s research -backed approach has made a world of difference in her confidence and her grades. It’s like having a personal tutor but at a fraction of the cost.

A month of IXL costs less than one hour with a tutor even before our smarty family 20% discount. Don’t let your child fall behind. Join the millions of families benefiting from IXL. Visit ixl .com slash smarted and get 20% off your membership.

That’s ixl .com slash smarted for 20% off. Give your child the gift of learning with IXL. Hey there, trusty here. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace, the all -in -one website platform that’s revolutionizing how we create our online presence.

Recently, a friend of mine who does nutrition coaching was stressing out over needing to set up a website. She couldn’t afford a web designer and had no idea how to code. I said, stop stressing, start Squarespacing.

You should have seen her face light up when I showed her Squarespace’s new blueprint AI. It’s like having a personal web designer in your pocket. Sarah chose a layout and style that she liked and boom, a stunning unique website that perfectly captured her vibe.

But the best part is that Squarespace isn’t just a pretty face. Their integrated search tools are helping Sarah get discovered by clients all over the world. And the Squarespace site even makes it easy to sell courses and coaching plans right from the site.

Want to bring your passion to life online? Head to squarespace .com for a free trial. And when you’re ready to launch, go to squarespace .com backslash smarted to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Trust me, it’s a game changer. Now back to Who Smarted. Hey smarty pants, remember when I said that pretzels have been used to decorate Christmas trees? Well, standing on its edge, the largest pretzel ever made was taller than four regular Christmas trees placed on top of each other.

Its length was 29 feet, 3 inches, almost 9 meters. It was also more than 13 feet or 4 meters wide. Whoa. You would need a barrel of mustard to eat it with. It was baked less than 10 years ago in El Salvador, a country in Central America.

Hello, did somebody say America hit it, fellas? After ruling Europe, pretzels came to the Americas back in the 1700s. German immigrants settled in a state that now makes 80% of all pretzels in the US.

People in this one city eat 12 pounds of pretzels, or about five and a half kilograms, every year. That’s six times as many pretzels eaten by the average American.

Smarty Pants, can you guess what city my friend Jurgen here is talking about? Is it A. Philadelphia, B. New York City, or C. Boston?

I hear a lot of right answers. It’s a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania That’s why the German immigrants were called Pennsylvania Dutch

But aren’t the Dutch from the Netherlands? Nah.

Yeah, but Pennsylvania Dutch are from Germany. Huh? That’s another story I can’t get into right now. In the mid -1800s, a Pennsylvania Dutchman named Julius Sturgis changed pretzels forever. Do you know…

of what he did? Smarty Pants, can you guess? Did he A, create the first commercial pretzel bakery? B, make the first hard pretzels for snacking? Or C, write the Pennsylvania poker?

Ha! He didn’t create a Pennsylvania poker, though it’s a good one. Julius Sturgis did A and B, making hard pretzels in his commercial pretzel bakery in Lititz, Pennsylvania. You see, before then, hard pretzels were usually made by accident, and often thrown away.

Sturgis realized how great they taste, and how long they last when packaged, so these pretzels could be shipped far and wide. Today, hard pretzels are one of the best -selling salty snacks in America, and a lot of people like them dipped in chocolate or yogurt.

Yum! Today, Americans are some of the biggest pretzels in the world. Quite a lot.

Mr. Germans the United States even celebrates National Pretzel Day on April 26

you can enjoy a prison any day of the year. Let’s toast to the

to the pretzel! To the pretzel! Shush! Sorry. A big shout out to Seamus in Amarillo, Texas, who loves who’s smarted, because it takes his boredom away when he’s on the road. I’m with you, Seamus. I’d much rather be listening, laughing, and learning than being bored.

Keep on smarting, smarty pants. This episode, Pretzels, was written by Dave Baudry and voiced by Chris Okawa, Taya Garland, Max Kamaski, the one and only Drew Kolber, with special thanks to Emily and Evan Kolber and Jerry Kolber.

Technical direction and sound design by Josh Hahn. Who’s Smarted is recorded and mixed at the Relic Room Studios. Our associate producer is Max Kamaski. The theme song is by Brian Suarez, with lyrics written and performed by Adam Tex Davis.

Who’s Smarted was created and produced by Adam Tex Davis and Jerry Kolber. This has been an atomic entertainment production.

Recent Episodes