Backstory: Pfeffernusse

Christmas Past

Brian Earl

Kids & Family, Society & Culture

4.9 • 791 Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

They're the spiced cookie with the funny sounding (to American ears) name. Pfeffernusse — or, "pepper nuts" in English — contain neither pepper nor nuts. And for centuries, the original recipe has been a closely guarded secret. Baker and podcaster Glen Warren joins me in this episode. Mentioned in This EpisodeSeasons Eatings PodcastMusic in This Episode"The Poplar Grove" — Blue Dot Sessions, via Free Music Archive"Midvinter" — Scott Buckley, via scottbuckley.com.au"Felix Mendelssohn: Son...

Transcript

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0:00.0	Christmas cookies can be fun to make, good to eat, and nice to share.
0:05.0	But sometimes they can also be hard to pronounce.
0:08.0	And sometimes they get their own day on the calendar.
0:11.0	National gingerbread cookie day falls on November 21st, but gingerbread isn't difficult to pronounce.
0:17.0	Further down the calendar on December 4th is the more generic and equally easy to pronounce
0:21.5	National Cookie Day.
0:23.5	To find that combination of difficult to pronounce and national celebration, we need to go
0:27.9	even further down the calendar and closer to the big day.
0:31.7	Because here in America, December 23rd is not just good old Christmas Eve Eve, it's also
0:37.1	a day dedicated to appreciating the little
0:39.4	cookie packed with Christmas spices, and at least nowadays, often dusted with sugar. The
0:44.7	Fefernoosa. This 18th century creation didn't start out as a Christmas cookie. The story of the
0:50.8	Christmas cookie with the funny name is filled with stimulants, aphrodisiacs, Russian high society, and a top secret recipe that literally only a few
0:59.9	people on earth have ever known.
1:02.5	I'm Brian Earle.
1:03.9	This is Christmas Past.
1:07.8	Fefernusa, as you might have guessed, is not an English word.
1:11.3	So what would we call them in English?
1:13.6	Most people call them pepper nuts.
1:15.4	That's Glenn Warren.
1:16.5	He's a professional baker and the host of Seasons Eatings, a podcast all about the histories
1:20.8	behind Christmas foods.
	...

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