The Gingerbread Man

Volumes exist on the origins of gingerbread. For these purposes, suffice it to say an early form of gingerbread can be traced to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians who used it for ceremonial purposes. Gingerbread made an appearance in Europe when 11th-century crusaders brought the spice back from the Middle East for the rich folks' cooks to experiment with.

As ginger and other spices became more affordable to the masses, gingerbread caught on. An early European recipe consisted of ground almonds, stale breadcrumbs, rosewater, sugar and, naturally, ginger.

The resultant paste was pressed into wooden molds. These carved works of art served as a sort of story board that told the news of the day, bearing the likeness of new kings, emperors and queens, or religious symbols. The finished cookie might be decorated with edible gold paint (for those who could afford it) or flat white icing to bring out the details in relief.

Gingerbread is a baked sweet containing ginger and sometimes cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom and anise, and sweetened with any combination of brown sugar, molasses, light or dark corn syrup, or honey.

Gingerbread can take the shape of thin, crisp cookies like snaps, Polish pierniczki, Czech pernik, Russian pryaniki, Croatian licitars, Scandinavian pepparkakor and Dutch speculaas cut into hearts or other fanciful shapes. The Germans like a softer, puffier version known as lebkuchen.

Gingerbread also can be a dark, spicy cake like Polish piernik, or an American version served, sometimes, with lemon glaze, or the lighter French pain d'epices.

The third form gingerbread takes today is in a house-shaped confection made with a variation of gingerbread cookie dough.

The gingerbread house became popular in Germany after the Brothers Grimm published their fariy tale collection which included "Hansel and Gretel" in the 19th century. Early German settlers brought this lebkuchenhaeusle - gingerbread house - tradition to the Americas.

Gingerbread houses never caught on in Britain as they did in North America, where some extraordinary examples can be found. But they do exist in other parts of Europe.

In December 2001, bakers in Torun, Poland, attempted to beat the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest-ever gingerbread house. It was made in Szczecin, Poland, with 4,000 loaves of brick-shaped gingerbread measuring 11 1/2 feet high. It took a week to create and used 6,000 eggs, a ton of flour, and 550 pounds of shortening. Alas, they lost to an American team!

Gingerbread is considered an art form in Nuremberg, Ulm and Pulsnitz in Germany, Torun in Poland, Tula in Russia, Pest in Hungary, Pardubice and Prague in the Czech Republic, and Lyon in France where gingerbread baking guilds were sanctioned by the government starting in the Middle Ages.

Vast antique mold collections are displayed in the Torun and Ulm museums, and some are used to make beeswax Christmas ornaments that are in great demand.

In England, gingerbread may refer to a cake, or a type of cookie / biscuit made with ginger. In the biscuit form, it commonly takes the form of a gingerbread man. Gingerbread men are first attributed to Queen Elizabeth I, who allegedly served the figurines to foreign dignitaries. Today, however, they are generally served around Christmas.

In the Netherlands and Belgium, a soft and crumbly gingerbread called Peperkoek, Kruidkoek or Ontbijtkoek is popularly served at breakfast time or during the day, thickly sliced and often with butter on top.

Gingerbreads are known in Russia. The most famous gingerbreads there are baked in the ancient cities Tula (Tula gingerbread, Тульский пряник), Vyazma, and Gorodets.

In Switzerland, a gingerbread confection known as "biber" is typically a three-quarter inch thick rectangular gingerbread cake with a marzipan filling. Biber are famously from the cantons of Appenzell or St. Gallen and respective biber are artfully adorned with images of the Appenzell bear or the St. Gallen cathedral by engraving or icing.

There is also a very popular local variety of gingerbread in Bulgaria. It's called меденка ("made of honey"). Traditionally the cookie is as big as the palm of the hand, round and flat, covered in a thin layer of chocolate. Other common ingredients include honey, cinnamon, ginger and dried clove.

It is also made in Karakol.[6]

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