> I know two sorts of pretzels. Snack pretzels, which are essentially those hard salt stick thingies in pretzel shape, and real pretzels. I should mention that I live in Germany (currently Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, but Bavaria before that) and should therefore, perhaps, be regarded as the authority on the subject. (hooray! I'm a pretzel authority! Now there's a title to be proud of.) > >
> Fuzz"Schwerin=Pretzel desert"pilz

As a pretzel authority, then, maybe you can clear something up for me. Are pretzels officialy German in origin?

The story I heard was that pretzels were first baked by Italian monks as treats for their young students (pretziolo (?)= "little rewards" in Italian, so they claimed..) The shape of the pretzel is supposed to resemble the monk's arms folded in prayer.

koala"read this on the wrapper of soft pretzel bought in the mall, so it *must* be correct, right ? ;-) "mom

>
> P.S.
> It's not as though they don't sell decent pretzels at all in this part of Germany. There's a bakery/kiosk chain from Stuttgart (I think) called Ditz that, among other things, sells passable pretzels, but for some reason they have never come to Schwerin, though there is one in Rostock, which is even further north.
>
> P.P.S.
> I suppose that was an atlas-heavy post.

...which we geography majors always appreciate :-)