Holiday-ish: Day 18

Building gingerbread houses for Holiday-ish: Day 14 left us curious about the origins of this Christmas treat. Here’s what we discovered:

While the tradition of making gingerbread houses during Christmas is fairly recent, the earliest known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC. Ginger root had traveled around that time from ancient China, where it was used medicinally, to Europe via the famous Silk Road trading routes.

Europeans used ginger in a myriad of ways, from disguising the taste of preserved meat to the experimental concoctions used by Henry VIII to ward off the plague. Ginger was also critical in preserving flour, a use that became handy in extending the shelf life of the baked cookies that were wildly popular at medieval fairs.

Elizabeth I directed her bakers to decorate gingerbread cookies with gold leaf to honor dignitaries visiting her court, an idea that became all the rage in Europe. The decorated cookies quickly became associated with luxury and elegance, with fair vendors competing to develop new and interesting decorations to attract buyers for their treats.

In the 16^th century, Germans began creating the gingerbread houses that we now associate with the Christmas season. Supplementing the traditional gold foil with other foils and decorations, gingerbread houses evolved into a holiday event. Their popularity soared when the Brothers Grimm wrote their 1812 story of Hansel and Gretel’s visit to a gingerbread house in the woods.

Immigrants from Europe brought the gingerbread traditions with them when they settled in America. It’s worth noting that the candy canes used to decorate gingerbread houses also came to us from Europe. According to legend, a German choirmaster handed out pulled sugar sticks to the choir boys in an attempt to quell any mischievous behavior as they performed. When the church board objected to the presence of sweet treats at such solemn religious services, the choirmaster reshaped the sticks into canes resembling a Shepard’s crook to align with the program’s gathering of the flock theme.

Now a standard American holiday tradition, we also hold the Guinness World Record for the biggest gingerbread house ever built. Because everything is bigger in Texas, a house the size of a tennis court was built there as a fundraiser for a hospital trauma center. Topping the previous record holder, one built at the Mall of America, the edible gingerbread was baked into panels and erected onto wooden frames, then decorated with icing and candy. Their biggest challenge? The Texas sun warmed the embellishments, sending out sugary signals that attracted hordes of bees.

Image Credit: Guinness World Records