00:00 Humankind has created some iconic shapes.
00:02 The pyramid, the wheel, the cube,
00:05 and the pretzel.
00:08 The pretzel? Yes, the pretzel.
00:11 In Germany, no other baked good stands for the baker's craft like the pretzel.
00:16 You can tie yourself in knots, but you can't escape it.
00:19 They're everywhere, in every variation.
00:22 And even more so in southern Germany,
00:24 where a day without pretzels is like a night without beer.
00:27 I love them. I always liked them. Can't do without them.
00:31 It's a piece of culture. I'm a pretzel fan.
00:34 Who exactly invented the pretzel and gave them their unique shape?
00:39 We'll get to that later.
00:41 But first, how do you bake pretzels?
00:45 Even on this, there's no agreement.
00:47 Bavarians and Swabians have their own variations.
00:50 Which one is better is a topic of debate.
00:53 The first to present its case is the Bavarian pretzel in Munich.
00:57 Sebastian Brückelmeier is the sixth generation of his family to bake pretzels.
01:02 For me personally, it's the shape that represents the Bavarian baker's craft.
01:10 The dough is made of wheat flour, water, yeast,
01:15 and a blend of salt, malt and margarine.
01:19 First, the dough is portioned out, then rolled,
01:25 and lubed into the proper knot with touch-ups by hand.
01:30 In many bakeries, machines do most of the work,
01:33 not least because workers are increasingly hard to come by.
01:36 In Bavaria, a baker definitely has to know how to lube a pretzel.
01:40 It's part of our certification exam.
01:42 So, how does it work? It's easy for a master baker.
01:46 I can teach it to you in five minutes. It's not that hard.
01:52 It goes like this, that, and this.
01:59 Totally easy.
02:01 What really fascinates people the most is the lubing.
02:06 Wow!
02:08 After the pretzels rise, they are getting coated with a diluted soda-lye solution,
02:14 which is why they're sometimes called "lye pretzels".
02:17 But isn't soda-lye a bit dangerous?
02:20 Lye is actually caustic, yes.
02:24 But in the oven, the high temperatures initiate a chemical process
02:28 that converts the original lye into a non-toxic salt.
02:31 That's why when you touch the surface of a lye product with the tip of your tongue,
02:35 it tastes a bit salty, even before you sprinkle salt on it.
02:40 The uniform shape, the chestnut brown, and of course,
02:44 the splits in the crust from the baking.
02:49 That all adds up to the typical Bavarian pretzel.
02:53 And what about the Swabian variation?
02:56 We're off to Stuttgart, where Harald Dressler is a fourth-generation master baker.
03:02 Personally, I prefer a lye roll to a pretzel.
03:08 No problem. But this is about pretzels.
03:11 In Swabia, as everywhere, they start with the dough,
03:15 but with more margarine than the Bavarian ones.
03:18 The most obvious difference is the shape,
03:20 especially noticeable in what's called the "belly" and the "arms".
03:25 The most important thing about the Swabian pretzel is the thin arms that later turn crispy,
03:30 while the belly is nice and fluffy, and then turns out soft.
03:36 The final and decisive step comes after the pretzel's been coated with lye.
03:42 Now you make a cut, and that leaves the belly white,
03:45 because no lye comes in contact with it.
03:50 And that's what defines a Swabian pretzel.
03:59 And when you eat one, it's crunchy.
04:03 The pretzel shape is thought to be over a thousand years old,
04:06 having evolved over time from a Roman ring to the present-day version.
04:12 Today's pretzels range from savory to sweet.
04:17 There's no time of day when you don't eat pretzels,
04:19 and so you can eat them any time and all the time.
04:22 Bavarians, for instance, might eat them with a traditional veal sausage for breakfast,
04:27 or during Oktoberfest.
04:30 Swabians enjoy them, butter pretzels for instance, at any time of day.
04:37 They're also popular beyond Europe, especially in the United States.
04:41 German immigrants introduced them to the country over 300 years ago.
04:45 But the debate continues about which is the pretzel's top and bottom.
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