When it comes to snacking, Americans love pretzels.

In 2020, Americans consumed around 181 million of the baked, doughy treat, with the average American eating around 2 pounds of pretzels a year, according to some sources.

Where I'm from in the Philadelphia region, pretzels are a part of our identity.

It's not hard to believe when you consider the fact that Pennsylvania, or as I like to call it, Pretzelvania, is the heart of the pretzel belt, home to 45 pretzel companies earning it the nickname the pretzel capital of the United States.

The business of pretzels is booming.

But where did pretzels come from and how did they become such a popular snack?

It's time to explore the twisted history of pretzels!

It's unclear exactly where pretzels got their start, but there are two major theories that are pretty convincing.

The first origin story starts with a seventh century monk who lived in a monastery in either southern France or northern Italy.

He took excess bread dough and twisted it to resemble arms crossed in prayer with three holes representing the Holy Trinity.

The man called them Pretzel, which in Latin means little rewards because he'd give them to children as tiny treats for learning their prayers.

The second story credits the creation of the pretzel to the Germans, who, in old German used to call them brezitella, which is derived from the Latin word bracchiatus meaning arm.

It's unclear exactly when Germans started making pretzels, but the earliest use of the pretzel in a baker's coat of arms was in the year 1111.

This theory also has ties to religion, as German monks would give pretzels away to the poor as a symbol of good fortune.

In America, when we think of pretzels, we often think of Germany.

Though some rumors say that pretzels came over via the Mayflower, it was German immigrants who popularized pretzels in the United States.

The first pretzel factory in the United States was established in Lititz, Pennsylvania, by Julius Sturgis in 1861.

He called it the Pretzel House.

Up until this point, pretzels were soft, but Sturgis stumbled upon another innovation that would change pretzels foreve: the hard pretzel.

Like any good pretzel story, how Sturgis developed the hard pretzel also has its own twists.

One story says that Sturgis left a batch of pretzels in the oven for a little bit too long.

Instead of throwing the batch away, he gave one a try, only to find out that the crispy version of the salty snack was a delight in its own right.

He tweaked the recipe a bit to make the sourdough morsels even more scrumptious, and eventually began selling his hard pretzels.

However, that story is likely false, considering hard pretzels were documented as early as 1854 in a newspaper called the Tri Weekly Commercial out of Wilmington, North Carolina.

In the article, it describes German immigrants who would, "crowd into the Dutch boarding houses and beer saloons and during the day may be seen quaffing their mugs of lager beer and mumbling those hard, crisp, salted cakes, which the Germans call bretzels".

End quote.

The more likely origin story of Sturges's brand of hard pretzels was documented by the New York Times in 1988.

Sturgis' son Louis, who ran the pretzel house until 1976, used to tell people about how his father got the recipe for a hard pretzel from a migrant worker.

The traveler gave the elder Sturgis a recipe for hard pretzels, which were a shelf stable, easily portable survival food.

There's soft pretzels and hard pretzels.

But what about the Philly pretzel?

Here in Philadelphia, we're not just identifying ourselves with our favorite snack food.

Though I would argue we're a little bit hard and salty on the outside, but soft on the inside.

We're actually talking about a style of pretzel that is unique to this region.

Selling pretzels on the streets of Philadelphia has been part of our city's entrepreneurial spirit since the 1820s.

Historically, it was a way that many immigrants who called Philadelphia home were able to earn money to start their new lives.

In the 1920s an Italian American family revolutionized pretzel production.

At the Federal Pretzel Baking Company, The Nacchio family used a nifty conveyer belt machine that helped automate the process.

Hand twisted pretzels were placed on rods and then taken through the alkaline bath and baked.

The process gives the Philly style Pretzel its iconic figure eight shape, and it's also why they come in sheets.

Having the ability to make more pretzels faster, allowed the pretzel street vendor industry to boom.

I guess you could say the Philly style pretzel is a German tradition with an Italian-American twist.

Speaking of Pretzel Street vendors, here's a fun fact.

Even though Germans love mustard - there's even an entire museum dedicated to mustard in Cologne - they don't put mustard on their pretzels.

Pairing mustard with pretzels is an American concept, and comes from street vendors who sold both pretzels and hot dogs.

Vendors would often use mustard to hide blemishes on hot dogs, and the same trick could be applied to pretzels that developed salt blisters.

So what's your preferred way to have a pretzel?

Do you like them hard or soft?

With mustard?

Or perhaps do you like them chocolate covered?

Tell us in the comments.