The Alsatian pretzel: a glossy, dark-baked knot of lye-dipped dough, scattered with coarse salt, chewy inside and snapped apart warm as a street snack or with a beer.
The bretzel has been an Alsatian and southern German staple for centuries, its looped shape a baker's guild emblem long before it was a snack. Dipped in a lye bath before baking, it takes on its mahogany sheen and distinctive bite. In Strasbourg you find it warm from bakery counters and at market and Christmas stalls, sometimes split and filled, sometimes baked into the sweeter mauricette roll. It is the everyday face of Alsatian baking.
