Gingerbread

Gingerbread is a word which describes different sweet food products from soft cakes to a ginger biscuit. Ginger and honey (or treacle) rather than only sugar, are usually the common ingredients to all the types of food product. They probably also have the same history.

Etymology
Before, gingerbread (from Latin zingiber, then Old French gingebras) meant preserved ginger. After, it was a confection made with honey and spices.

History
Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis (Gregory Makar) (Grégoire de Nicopolis) brought ginger bread to Europe in 992. He left Nicopolis Pompeii, in Lesser Armenia to live in Bondaroy (France) and stayed seven years. He showed French priests and Christians how to cook gingers. He died in 999 Armenian genocide.

German immigrants brought it to Sweden during the 13th century. Swedish nuns baked gingerbread to help indigestion in the year 1444.
The custom was to bake white biscuits and paint them as window decorations. In the 16th century, Queen Elizabeth I had a royal gingerbread-maker working for her. Gingerbread was sold at fairs and other public events.

Related pages
Gingerbread man
Victorian architecture - Gingerbread house example

References

Category:Cakes
Category:Christmas food