Pretzels as Much Philadelphia as Liberty Bell

PHILADELPHIA — There are baldies and there are salties. They come with or without mustard--except in Philadelphia, it’s mostly with.

It is the soft pretzel, consumed by the thousands each day in the City of Brotherly Love and coveted in other cities by those willing to pay to have them shipped.

Sometimes they’re a snack, sometimes more.

“They’re like a meal and often substitute for lunch,” says Sandy Brinkos, a legal secretary from Lansdale. “They fill you up and taste just great.”

There’s even a pretzel museum, and it claims Philadelphia to be the pretzel capital of the country. But there are no numbers to support that contention, even from the bakeries themselves.

The city’s 16 pretzel bakeries--all family-owned--won’t let anyone in on the secret of exactly how many pretzels they each make per day, but their guesstimates range upwards of 65 million a year.

Soft pretzels are eight to 10 inches long and made of flour, water, yeast and vegetable shortening with a soda-based glaze topped with thick grains of salt. The claim is that they are low in fat with hardly any cholesterol. For those watching salt intake, some bakeries make no-salt “baldies.”

“A perfect munch,” said Joe Sidorick, co-owner of Philadelphia Soft Pretzels, the source of 60,000-plus soft pretzels daily and considered the largest of the bakeries.

“While most spread mustard over the salty top there are some people who smear it with cream cheese, like a bagel,” Sidorick said.

The pretzels contain no preservatives and generally are not wrapped. Some are machine twisted, others are formed by hand. For freshness, they are baked at night and sold during the day on street corners, in schools, outside factories.

Norma Conley, a partner in the Pretzel Museum in south Philadelphia, said soft pretzels go back to the early days of Christianity.

They were brought to America by German immigrants who settled first in the Lancaster area, which today is the heart of the nation’s hard-pretzel industry.

“Soft pretzels came before the hard variety, which were created by a fluke when a batch of the soft stuff was accidentally left unattended in a cold oven and hardened, or so the story goes,” said Conley.

The soft pretzels came to Philadelphia around 1900 and, Conley said, “It’s an industry that’s been growing ever since.

“Children learned to eat them at a young age, and the kids grew up and passed the love of soft pretzels to their children and grandchildren, and so the industry keeps growing.”

That has been true even during the latest recession.

“Despite tough times, people still eat pretzels because they are cheap,” Sidorick said.

Edy Young, a professional baker from San Francisco, concocted this recipe for soft pretzels. It is published in “Real Beer and Good Eats” (Alfred A. Knopf, $23), by Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly:

1 package (1 ounce) active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups warm milk, about 110 degrees

1 tablespoon sugar

3 1/2 to 4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 quarts water

2 tablespoons baking soda

1 egg, lightly beaten with 2 tablespoons water

coarse salt

In a large measuring cup mix the yeast with the milk and sugar. Let yeast proof for 10 minutes. Place 3 1/2 cups flour and the salt in a food processor bowl. Insert metal blade. With motor running, pour yeast mixture through feeder tube. Pulse intermittently until dough forms a ball and cleans the sides of the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, add a bit more flour, pulsing intermittently.

Turn dough into oiled bowl, cover and put in a warm place. Let dough rise to double in size, about one hour.

Punch down the dough and divide into 20 pieces. Hand roll each piece into a 20-inch-long rope. To form a pretzel, make a large loop using about two-thirds of the length. Twist the ends around each other once, pick the joined ends up, and place firmly down on the top of the loop, forming a pretzel shape.

Place pretzel on a lightly floured surface and let rise about 30 minutes, until almost double in size.

Make remaining pretzels in the same manner.

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large deep skillet bring the water and baking soda to a simmer. Place two or three pretzels at a time in the water and simmer 30 seconds on each side. Flip pretzels gently. Remove and drain on a rack.

Place pretzels on a cookie sheet covered with baking parchment, being sure to keep the original top sides up. Brush each pretzel with some of the egg wash, and spring lightly with coarse salt.

Bake 18 to 20 minutes, until nicely browned.

Serve warm.