LCBO Food and Drink Holiday 2015

ORIGINS  HOLIDAY BAKING

gerbread men, though they were eaten dunked in wine or cider, not milk.    The cookies were baked in large wooden moulds that imprinted a motif onto their sur- face. These began simply enough—a fleur de lis , heart (for love) or rabbit (for fertility)—but became ever more elaborate, sporting holiday themes (Christmas or Easter), images of saints (sold as souvenirs of pilgrimages), or com- memorations of important events (the crowning of a monarch, for example). THE FIRST GINGERBREADS, in the 13th century, were made from honey, bread crumbs and spices, boiled—not baked—until they formed a solid lump.    In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I of England presented important visitors with gingerbread portraits of themselves, leading some historians to declare her the inventor of the gingerbread man.    The art of gingerbread reached its zenith in the early 1800s, when bakers took the Broth- ers Grimm’s tale of Hansel and Gretel , with its gingerbread house, as an annual Christmastime challenge to turn fantasy into reality. Their lavish structures gave a new meaning to gin- gerbread—carvings, decorations and other superfluous ornamentation on buildings and furniture—which is still used today.

   It wasn’t until the mid-19th century, when chemical leavenings such as baking soda be- came widely available, that gingerbread also came to mean a soft cake. P Shortbreads —those pale, buttery, crisp-yet- crumbly treats that appear around this time of year in tartan-patterned tins—have long been associated with Scotland. Variations on “but- ter biscuits” (a simple combination of sugar, flour and plenty of butter, baked at low temperatures to prevent browning) are common to many different countries, but the Scots, it is widely acknowledged, do them best.    They’ve certainly had a lot of practice. Shortbread has its origins in the 12th century, when old bread was brought back to life by adding butter and sugar to bread crumbs and baking it a second time to make biscuit bread (“biscuit” literally means “twice cooked”).    The figure who refined that rustic tradition into shortbread is none other thanMary, Queen of Scots. Not personally, of course; queens don’t bake. Rather, it was the team of chefs she brought back to Scotland in 1561 after her exile in France. Mary’s recipe was expensive, with white flour instead of the original oatmeal, refined white sugar, pure butter and caraway seeds or citrus peel for seasoning. As a result, shortbread for the masses was reserved for

their proportion in- creased. It wasn’t until the 19th century that meat entirely

disappeared, although some recipes still insist on suet. At that point, “mincemeat” had two very different meanings in Britain, so (some- what counterintuitively) the term “mince” was introduced for actual minced meat, leaving “mincemeat” to represent the sweet, meatless pie filling.    According to popular superstition, eating a mince pie on each of the 12 days of Christmas (December 25 to January 5), will ensure 12 months of happiness and good fortune. P Gingerbread isn’t bread, but cake or (in the case of gingerbread men) cook- ies. The word is actually derived from gingembras , an Old French word for preserved ginger. This 13th-century preparation, essen- tially a “ginger brittle” made for medicinal use, was elaborated over the next couple of centuries into a dessert, but not one that came out of an oven. The first gingerbreads, made of honey and bread crumbs flavoured with spices, were boiled—not baked—until they formed a solid lump.    Gradually flour replaced bread crumbs, molasses replaced honey, and the oven replaced the stovetop. With the addition of butter and eggs, gingerbread resembled the crisp and spicy cookies we know as ginger snaps and gin-

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178  FOOD & DRI NK HOLIDAY 2015