According to Rhonda Massingham Hart’s Making Gingerbread Houses, the first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC.
Chinese recipes were developed during the 10th century and by the late Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version of gingerbread. Bergen, the second largest city, is the gateway to the Norwegian fjords, has tradition of preparing of the Christmas sweets.
The hard cookies, sometimes gilded with gold leaf and shaped like animals, kings and queens, were a staple at Medieval fairs in England, France, Holland and Germany.
Though supplanted by more fashionable fare in the royal court, an early centerpiece of the Christmas banquet from at least the Medieval period, the presentation of the boar’s head is rooted in pre-Christian tradition but came to signify Christ’s triumph over sin – the Wild Boar being a subject of fear to rural folk and a more than worthy quarry for hunters.
Henry VIII is credited with adopting the turkey as a Christmas bird following its introduction to Britain from America in the 1520s.
It quickly became fashionable among the Tudor elite and often served in the coffin-shaped Christmas pie, where it was stuffed with numerous other game birds.
The demand was so great that flocks of turkeys were driven to London on foot from Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, with the trek starting as early as August.
Though romanticised by later generations longing for the heady merriment of pre-Cromwellian “Merrie England”, Christmas in the 16th Century period was an nonetheless an extravagant affair – a mixture of older folk practices, Christian ritual and emerging excesses that saw many modern Christmas rituals emerge.
The Tudors being the Tudors of course, these traditions would ebb and flow to match the waxing and waning power of the church and crown.
The Tudor ‘12 Days of Christmas’ was a period in which tools were downed and work was forbidden between Christmas Eve (24 December) and Epiphany (6 January).
To keep women from their chores (unlike the menfolk, the home was their workplace after all), it was customary to decorate the home’s spinning wheel with flowers.
A wreath or double-hoop with roots in earlier pagan folklore, the Kissing Bough was woven from mistletoe, ash, hazel or willow, covered in evergreens and supporting an effigy of the baby Jesus in the center.
The Medieval and Early Modern English were infamously “kissy” (as recorded by travellers from continental Europe, an ironic reversal of modern stereotypes) and visitors would be embraced under the bough as a sign of goodwill, leading to the custom of kissing under the mistletoe.
Another much older tradition inherited from the Anglo-Saxons (Wassail comes from the Old English “Wass Hal” meaning “You good health”), a large wooden bowl containing hot ale, spiced with apple, sugar and spices, was taken from door-to-door.
Strangers were offered a drink in exchange for a donation, while royal Wassails were more formal and the steaming bowl was brought into the court by stewards with staves, before being passed around with the king saved for last.
Commoner or courtier, singing and call-and-response were a big part of the Wassail Bowl ritual.
Made popular in Italy in the 13th Century and first recorded in English in 1426, Christmas carols involved dancing as well as singing.
Secular themes such as feasting, hunting and general merry-making became more popular under the Tudors, although carols remained predominantly religious.
Christmas and Prague traditions remained in force as hundreds of years ago. Decorative elements, carols and family reunion, but especially the cuisine.
What one can not miss in a Czech Christmas are the allusive chants, trees decorated with lights and shiny objects and fried carp, but especially the gingerbread cookies that are specially prepared for these dates with all artistic dedication.
Many carols – such as the Coventry Carole, recorded in 1534 – were composed for Mystery Plays, a form of open-air religious theatre that was banned under Henry VIII and restored under Mary I, before eventually declining in popularity sometime around 1600.
16th Century Christmas carols still sung – albeit with revision – today, include ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, ‘The First Noel’ and ‘Good King Wenceslaus’.
A pre-Christian tradition thought to have been introduced by the Norse and maintained by the Tudor gentry, a large log from the base of a tree would be decorated with ribbons and dragged home.
Laid upon the great hearth of the manor on Christmas Eve it would be kept smouldering over the full ‘12 Days of Christmas’. It was considered lucky to keep some of the charred remains for next year’s fire.
The ecclesiastical answer to the Lord of Misrule – a playful king who presided over the secular Christmas celebrations – choirboys would elect one of their number to the role of Bishop from 6 December, the Feast of Saint Nicholas, until Holy Innocents’ Day on the 28 December.
The boy would be dressed in full bishop’s regalia (the Boy Bishop of Westminster Abbey had particularly fine silk robes decorated with silver and gilt flowers) and would conduct all ceremonies except mass with his fellow choirboys.
Reflecting turbulent Tudor attitudes to the ‘idiosyncrasies’ of the church, the practice was abolished by Henry VIII in 1542, revived by Mary I in 1552 and finally ended for good by Elizabeth I.
Queen Elizabeth I is credited with the idea of decorating the cookies in this fashion, after she had some made to resemble the dignitaries visiting her court.
Over time some of these festivals came to be known as Gingerbread Fairs, and the gingerbread cookies served there were known as ‘fairings.’
The shapes of the gingerbread changed with the season, including flowers in the spring and birds in the fall.
Elaborately decorated gingerbread became synonymous with all things fancy and elegant in England.
The gold leaf that was often used to decorate gingerbread cookies led to the popular expression ‘to take the gilt off of gingerbread.’
The carved, white architectural details found on many colonial American seaside homes is sometimes referred to as ‘gingerbread work’.
Gingerbread houses originated in Germany during the 16th century.
Pepparkakor, in Swedish, also known as Peparkake and Pepperkake in Norwegian and Piparkakku in Finnish are spiced cookies, typical of Scandinavia but also famous in the other German-speaking populations.
The elaborate cookie-walled houses, decorated with foil in addition to gold leaf, became associated with Christmas tradition.
Their popularity rose when the Brothers Grimm wrote the story of Hansel and Gretel, in which the main characters stumble upon a house made entirely of treats deep in the forest. It is unclear whether or not gingerbread houses were a result of the popular fairy tale, or vice versa.
American cookbook, American Cookery by Amelia Simmons, has recipes for three types of gingerbread including the soft variety baked in loaves:
This softer version of gingerbread was more common in America.
George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, served her recipe for gingerbread to the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited her Fredericksburg, Virginia home.
Since then it was known as Gingerbread Lafayette.
The confection was passed down through generations of Washingtons.
While being raised by my grandmother, this is one of the first Christmas surprise and present i remember her giving me.
