Don’t forget the Snacks

A real Bavarian pretzel in Bavaria.
with real cola.
My favorite Snack on its home turf
Photo by Dan Scolnick

My niece Izzy and I got an early start Saturday morning of Labor Day weekend to drive to eastern Long Island and go sailing with friends. We realized, that we hadn’t really had breakfast and were looking at a long, Active day in the sun. We stopped at a local favorite deli to get food, drink and snacks.

Another real Bavarian Pretzel in Munich, Bavaria
Photo by Dan Scolnick

I was looking for a bag of pretzels. A long time brand, Utz, had two different types of packaging. I hadn’t bought this brand for a while, remembered last time i did it was good and grabbed a bag of pretzels.

Then my process kicked in, I read the label, almost as an afterthought. The first bag of Utz pretzels in different packaging i picked up had “natural flavors”, no need to read further, so i put it back on the shelf. The second bag didn’t have natural flavors, but did have corn syrup, oil (which is not objectionable but odd for pretzels), vegetable fiber which I pretended not to see. I chose that one.

So while these pretzels do have some questionable ingredients, it was a pinch and i made the better choice shunning the ‘natural flavors’. I was also heartened that when i stopped to read the label, so did my 27 year old niece. She also made a better choice after reading the label on a bag of potato chips.

The best Pretzels I know of are Martin’s Pretzels. They are made by Menonite bakers by hand in upstate New York and use flour made by small local farmers.

These pretzels have only flour, water, yeast, salt. The are boiled in baking soda and water before baking. This observes my 3 ingredient rule, since water is in everything i’m not going to count it (even though they list it). They taste wonderful and have a hard crunch.