The Royal Medieval Origins Of Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread is the consummate holiday treat, even if we're more likely to build houses from it than actually eat it. The signature taste of Christmas took a long and winding road to western Europe, beginning in its native China, where PBS notes it was mainly used for medicinal purposes. 

Exactly when the spice first journeyed west seems unclear, as it was traded along the Silk Road but also appeared in ancient Greek recipes as early as 2,400 B.C. We have a better idea of how ginger got to the Christian portion of Europe, as Martha Stewart reveals that crusaders discovered the spice in the 11th century while invading Mediterranean countries. In Western Europe, the focus shifted from ginger's medicinal properties to the lovely flavor it could add to sweet treats.

Today, we know gingerbread as a type of cookie, but the term wasn't always used this way. According to PBS, "gingerbread" initially referred to preserved ginger rather than any particular dessert. In certain regions of the world, gingerbread even came to be used in reference to spiced baked goods that did not have any ginger in them. Time cites a 15th-century English recipe for "gyngerbrede" that included saffron, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves but called for no ginger. It also wasn't very bread-like, as the dish, based largely on honey, had the consistency of toffee. The gingerbread cookies we know today didn't come about until the 16th century, when versions of it began popping up all over medieval Europe.

Gingerbread cookies appeared in England, France, and Germany during the 1500s. Martha Stewart notes that ginger-based sweets known as "fairings" were sold at fairs in medieval France and England. Around the same time, Germans began making "lebkuchen," gingerbread cookies that were typically shaped like valentine's hearts and inscribed with romantic messages. The city of Nuremberg gained particular fame for its lebkuchen, and it is here that we find the first recorded recipe for gingerbread, a document now enshrined in the Germanic National Museum. PBS also credits 16th-century Germany with the invention of gingerbread houses, which have been linked to the Brothers Grimm's story of Hansel and Gretel. However, it is unclear if the story inspired the holiday tradition, or vice-versa.

The origin of gingerbread men can be traced to Queen Elizabeth I, whose 16th-century reign coincided with the English Renaissance, an artistically-rich period that included, among other things, the rise of William Shakespeare. Time notes that the first Elizabeth employed a royal gingerbread maker to supply desserts for her royal banquets. Elizabeth reportedly asked her cooks to create gingerbread cookies in the shape of her courtiers. She also had them fashion gingerbread caricatures of foreign dignitaries that the queen could hand out in a sweet gesture of diplomacy. 

Perhaps our little ginger friends deserve a more dignified fate than being torn limb from limb at the hands of children ... but then again, they're just so darn delicious.