On the 8th Day of Christmas Past,
Question: What is the history behind the tradition of Christmas gingerbread houses?
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“Gingerbread and the shapes it takes have a long history. An early form of gingerbread can be traced to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians who used it for ceremonial purposes. Ginger root was first cultivated in ancient China, where it was commonly used as a medical treatment. From there it spread to Europe via the Silk Road. During the Middle Ages it was favored as a spice for its ability to disguise the taste of preserved meats. Henry VIII is said to have used a ginger concoction in hopes of building a resistance to the plague. Even today we use ginger as an effective remedy for nausea and other stomach ailments.
According to Rhonda Massingham Harts Making Gingerbread Houses, the first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC. Chinese recipes were developed during the 10th century and by the late Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version of gingerbread. Gingerbread made an appearance in Europe when 11th-century Crusaders brought back ginger from the Middle East for the aristocrats’ cooks to experiment with. The hard cookies, sometimes gilded with gold leaf and shaped like animals, kings and queens, were a staple at Medieval fairs in England, France, Holland and Germany. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with the idea of decorating the cookies in this fashion, after she had some made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court. Over time some of these festivals came to be known as Gingerbread Fairs, and the gingerbread cookies served there were known as ‘fairings’ or tokens of love. The shapes of the gingerbread changed with the season, including flowers in the spring and birds in the fall. Elaborately decorated gingerbread became synonymous with all things fancy and elegant in England. The gold leaf that was often used to decorate gingerbread cookies led to the popular expression to take the gilt off of gingerbread. The carved, white architectural details found on many colonial American seaside homes is sometimes referred to as gingerbread work.
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.
Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century. The elaborate cookie-walled houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition. Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the main characters stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa.
English colonists and Early German settlers brought this lebkuchenhaeusle (gingerbread house) tradition to the Americas. The cookies were sometimes used to sway Virginia voters to favor one candidate over another.
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.
Recently the record for worlds largest gingerbread house was broken. The previous record was set by the Mall of America in 2006. The new winning gingerbread house, spanning nearly 40,000 cubic feet, was erected at Traditions Golf Club in Bryan, Texas. The house required a building permit and was built much like a traditional house. 4,000 gingerbread bricks were used during its construction. To put that in perspective, a recipe for a house this size would include 1,800 pounds of butter and 1,080 ounces of ground ginger. Sounds more like a gingerbread resort!”
Info pulled from Web on 12/18/19 from:
https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/history-gingerbread/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/un-christmassy-origin-gingerbread-houses-180967461/
https://www.thespruceeats.com/the-history-of-gingerbread-1135954
Gingerbread houses were originally made in Germany in the 16th century and became a Christmas tradition. The fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” featured a gingerbread house of the wicked witch. It is not known whether the story promoted the popularity of gingerbread houses or gingerbread houses inspired the story.
Gingerbread houses and associated ‘gingerbread decorating’ began in Germany 16th century. Since it has become a wonderful tradition in many lands/cultures, used in politics, and so forth.
Ginger has been around since ancient China used at first for medicinal purposes. Greece first made gingerbread. Elizabeth 1 started the tradition of elaborate, decorated cookies and Germany started making gingerbread houses.
Greece and Egypt. Cookies seemed to have really started the progression toward gingerbread houses.
I am so glad that gingerbread houses at Christmas were started in Germany in the 16th century. They are still a great part of the Christmas celebrations today. I did not realize that very large houses have been built and that there was a contest to build the largest one. The new record gingerbread house was 40,000 cubic feet and required many, many costly ingredients. I am happy with the small, decorated gingerbread houses that are mostly seen today. They bring joy at this time and season.
Ginger has been used for many reasons over the centuries by Egyptians, Greeks and Chinese. There have been various uses for ginger, including medicinal purposes and flavor disguise of meat, gingerbread was first used to make gingerbread houses by Germans, and later that tradition was carried through Europe.
Gingerbread and Ginger have long been used, by the Greeks, Egyptiapns and Chinese. The tradition of the Modern day gingerbread house as we know it, started in Germany during the 16th century. The knowledge and use of them rose after the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel. The use of gingerbread
people was started after Queen Elizabeth I made and decorated gingerbread people resembling dignitaries visiting her court at the time. Gingerbread is even 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. And there are gingerbread baking guilds that date back to middle ages in some of those areas. Today poeple try to break Guinness world records for the largest gingerbread houses.
Ginger was first cultivated in China. Gingerbread appeared in the 11th century inEurope. Gingerbread houses originated in Germany in the 16th century. The elaborate ones decorated with foil became associated with the Christmas Tradition. They became more popular with the story of Hansel & Gretel.English colonists & German settlers brought the idea to the America’s.
The first gingerbread houses were made in Germany, perhaps influenced by the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. English colonists and German settlers brought the tradition to the Americas.