Video: 12-year-old chef bakes pretzels in Yiddish
Courtesy of the Forward
By Forverts Staff January 11, 2024
Sender Glasser, a seventh grader in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, who speaks Yiddish, Polish and English fluently, has put together a tutorial in Yiddish on how to make delicious, fluffy pretzels. The video is produced by the Forverts.
Glasser is the son of Yiddish linguist and Forverts contributor Hershl Glasser and Polish-born Yiddishist Gosha Zaremba. He likes playing and watching soccer, playing trombone, biking, and, of course, cooking.
Pretzels, which were most likely invented in northern Italy in the medieval period, became popular in Germany, Austria and the German-speaking part of Switzerland as symbols of good luck. The recipe for the baked pastry came to the United States in the 18th century, thanks to Pennsylvania Dutch immigrants.
At the turn of the 20th century, peddlers began selling pretzels on street corners. But mass production of the snack greatly increased its availability. Today they’re sold at grocery stores, movie theaters, concert halls and sports stadiums.
Yet, as Glasser will attest, there’s nothing like making pretzels from scratch, with natural ingredients, in your own kitchen!
Ingredients:
2 3/4 cups bread flour, plus extra for dusting
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tbsp. oil, plus extra for greasing
For the glaze:
1/4 tsp. baking soda
Coarse sea salt or 2 tbsp. sesame seeds
1 egg, beaten
A message from Forverts editor Rukhl Schaechter
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forverts' 127-year legacy — and its bright future.
In the past, the goal of the Forverts was to Americanize its readers, to encourage them to learn English well and to acculturate to American society. Today, our goal is the reverse: to acquaint readers — especially those with Eastern European roots — with their Jewish cultural heritage, through the Yiddish language, literature, recipes and songs.
Our daily Yiddish content brings you new and creative ways to engage with this vibrant, living language, including Yiddish Wordle, Word of the Day videos, Yiddish cooking demos, new music, poetry and so much more.
— Rukhl Schaechter, Yiddish Editor
