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Setting out to unfold the answer to your question, we started with a search on "pretzels shape origin." Our first stop was an article from the Detroit News. Actually, it was a taste test reviewing different brands of sourdough pretzels, but it also provided a little history for those interested in the origins of the snack. According to the article, monks in seventh-century France were responsible for inventing the pretzel. They used the food to reward children for learning their prayers. The peculiar shape represented the arms of a child folded in prayer. The article goes on to say that pretiola, the Latin root of the
word pretzel, means "reward." At our next stop, we were presented with a popular legend that credits a baker with a bad drinking habit with inventing the pretzel. As the story goes, the baker was to be sentenced to jail. The judge told him he would remain free if he could make a small cake through which the sun could shine three times. Hence the pretzel. We weren't sure about that one, so we headed back to the search results, where we found more support for the folded-arms theory, including an alternative version that gives the credit for the invention to an Italian monk. Then we stumbled across yet another theory that states
that the pretzel is of German origin and was originally shaped like the letter "B" for the German word for the food, "bretzel." Most sites seem to support some version of the folded-arms story and propose that the pretzel originated in a monastery in France or Italy around 610 A.D., later spreading to Austria and Germany, where we got the word "bretzel" and eventually "pretzel." So there you have it, a twisted reply to a knotty question.
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