By Austin Price, Staff Writer
One of my favorite holiday hobbies is decorating gingerbread houses and other baked structures of architecture. While they are fun to create and yummy to snack on, gingerbread houses started as a tradition not meant to be eaten, but instead meant to be used exclusively for decoration. Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. However, in order to build a gingerbread house, we need to start with gingerbread itself.
According to The Guardian Magazine, “Ginger root was first cultivated in China around 5,000 years ago and was thought to have medicinal and magical properties. Some food historians say that the first known recipe for gingerbread dates from around 2400 BC in Greece. Others trace its history to 992 AD, when Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis is thought to have taught Christian bakers in France how to make it.”
In an article by The Spruce Eats, gingerbread is defined as 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. Gingerbread also can be a dark, spicy cake-like Polish Pernik, or an American version served sometimes with lemon glaze. The third form gingerbread takes today is 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 fairy tale collection which included "Hansel and Gretel" in the 19th century. Early German settlers brought this lebkuchenhaeusle (gingerbread house) tradition to the Americas.
After the initial discovery of the gingerbread house, Queen Elizabeth I and her court are attributed with the idea of decorating these sweet structures. The first gingerbread man is credited to Queen Elizabeth I, who impressed visiting dignitaries by presenting them with one baked in their own likeness. This later evolved into the decoration of gingerbread architecture as these carved works of art served as a sort of storyboard that told the news of the day, bearing the likeness of new kings, emperors, and queens, or religious symbols. Gingerbread tied with a ribbon was popular at fairs and, when exchanged, became a token of love.