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10 things you may not know about gingerbread
- Ginger has always been prized for the warmth of its flavour and its medicinal and preservative properties, and was once the second most highly traded spice after pepper.
- The name comes from the ancient Sankskrit word 'sringavera' meaning 'root shaped like a horn'.
- In the Middle Ages gingerbread was more a confection than the cake or biscuit we know today, decorated with a box leaf attached to each piece with a clove.
- Gingerbread may have been introduced to Northern Europe by returning Crusaders.
- It became a fairground treat cut into shapes according to the season or festival such as little men and women, stars or animals and then embossed, gilded or dusted with icing sugar.
- Many villages held the tradition that an unmarried woman should eat a gingerbread 'husband' in order to obtain a real, live one!
- Until the 19th century, there used to be a Gingerbread Fair in Paris, where monks sold their own gingerbread in the shape of little pigs.
- Gingerbread making was once recognised as a profession in its own right, with bakers having the exclusive right to make it (except at Christmas and Easter!).
- 'Hansel and Gretel', the traditional German fairytale immortalised by the Grimm brothers in the 19th century, started a fashion for 'Knusperhaeuschen' - 'houses for nibbling at'.
- Gingerbread has been baked in Market Drayton for over 200 years, and as well as having rum in the local recipe, the local folk like their gingerbread dipped in port!