Christmas is almost here! This is why we cannot miss this opportunity to present a couple of I-ATE‘s sweet proposals today. We want to introduce Pierniki à partir de Pologne, Lebkuchen à partir de Allemagne, et Gingerbread à partir de Grande-Bretagne to you. Do you know them all? Which one is your favourite?
If we start our culinary Christmas adventure in Pologne, we will find a tasty treat called Pierniki Toruńskie that is a traditional gingerbread that has been produced since the 12th century in Toruń – the city of Mikołaj Kopernik (Nicolaus Copernicus). In the old Polish cuisine, we can find traditional spices such as ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg, frequently mixed with other ingredients like honey, eggs, sugar and so on. The preparation of the old Polish piernik (pierniki in plural) requires a lot of dedication, time and attention. It is a mixture of gingerbread spices, honey, lard, sugar, eggs, and some flour. It needs to be prepared a couple of days before Christmas Eve so it could obtain a particular gingerbread taste. It is a dessert that remains fresh for many days, and it is often eaten with traditional plum preserves called powidła. Small pierniki in different shapes are also used as decorations for the Christmas tree. The pictures below show traditional Pierniki Toruńskie with plum preserves and little decorative ones.
The first mention of Pierniki Toruńskie comes from 1380 and is attributed to a local baker called Niclos Czana. The sweet quickly gained fame across Poland and abroad. Toruń and the German city of Nuremberg, both famous for their special sweets, were determined to hide the secrets of their recipes from each other. Finally, in 1556, they reached an agreement by which each city could bake the specialties of the other.
Le Allemand version of pierniki est appelé Lebkuchen. They can be spicy or sweet and have many different shapes with the round one being the most common. Lebkuchen are made with some of the ingredients from the Polish recipe, to which aniseed, coriander, cloves, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts or even candied fruit are added. The sweets vary in types, shapes, kinds and proportion of nuts. Lebkuchen is usually soft, but there is also a harder version used to produce Lebkuchenherzen (“Lebkuchen hearts”), which usually has inscriptions made of sugar icing. Lebkuchenherzen are available at many German regional fairs and Christmas markets. The original Lebkuchen from Nuremberg is also known as Elisenlebkuchen. It must contain no less than 25 percent of nuts and less than 10 percent of wheat flour. The pictures below present traditional round Lebkuchen et Lebkuchenherzen.
En Grande-Bretagne, there is an interesting variety of gingerbread types, ranging from a soft, moist loaf cake to something close to a ginger biscuit. Gingerbread biscuit commonly takes the form of a gingerbread man. The history of the gingerbread men starts at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, who served the figurines to foreign dignitaries. Today, however, they are generally served during the Christmas period. The picture below shows English gingerbread men and women.
En Belgium et le Pays-Bas, we can find peperkoek, kruidkoek ou ontbijtkoek eaten with butter and served for breakfast during the Christmas period. In France, they prepare pain d’épices which is somewhat similar, though generally slightly drier, and contains honey rather than treacle. The original French pain d’épices did not contain any ginger.
In the Nordic countries, we can find pepperkaker en Norvège et pepparkakor en Suède. Le Danes eat brunkager, en Islande we can find some piparkökur, et dans Finland ils l’appellent piparkakut. The Baltic countries also have their own variants such as piparkūkas en Lettonie et piparkoogid en Estonie.
Le Russians prepare pryaniki, en Roumanie nous allons manger turtă dulce with some sugar glazing, and in Bulgarie we can find some меденка (“made of honey”). In République tchèque they eat perníčky.
How about your country? Do you also prepare gingerbread for Christmas? Is it similar to the one eaten in Pologne, Allemagne or maybe Grande-Bretagne? We are waiting for your comments on Facebook. Happy Holidays!
Écrit par Olga Jeczmyk: Traducteur-interprète, responsable des médias sociaux et du contenu ainsi que stagiaire en communication et terminologie. Unité de coordination terminologique du Parlement européen à Luxembourg.
Ressources:
Foods®, 2013 P. (2013) Polish honey spice cookies (Pierniczki). No longer available online.
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Olga’s Flavor Factory. 2014. Pryaniki – Russian Honey Spice Cookies. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.olgasflavorfactory.com/recipes/russianrecipes/pryaniki-russian-honey-spice-cookies/.
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Wikipedia. 2020. Nicolaus Copernicus. [ONLINE] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus.
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