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In a few shopping malls and other places in Warsaw you can find stands like the one pictured here, selling what the sign claims to be ''krakowskie precle'', or Cracow pretzels. Intriguingly, [http://krakowskieprecle.pl/o-firmie the company that distributes them in Warsaw] proudly boats that these "pretzels" are shipped each morning straight from Mr. Czaja's bakery in Cracow. But if we take a look at Mr. Grzegorz Czaja's bakery website, we'll see that what he bakes there is not pretzels, but something called ''obwarzanki'' (pronounced ''awb-vah-{{small|ZHAHN}}-kee''). It seems as though the ''obwarzanki'' magically turn into pretzels the moment they arrive in Warsaw! Can we chalk it up to merely yet another linguistic difference between Cracovian and Warsovian Polish? Or is there a more profound distinction between pretzels and ''obwarzanki''?
"Pretzel"Pretzels, "bagelbagels", and "''obwarzanekobwarzanki''" are all used by both tourists and native Cracovians to refer to the specifically Cracovian bread which "takes the form of an oval with a hole in the middle" and whose "surface is formed by strands of dough twisted into a spiral".<ref>Description of the product according to: [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52010XC0216(01) Publication of an application pursuant to Article 6(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs (2010/C 38/08), EC No: PL-PGI-005-0674,] Official Journal of the European Union</ref> Although unique to Cracow, it nonetheless belongs to the great diverse family of holey breads. So let's take a look at the bigger picture now.
== Common Ancestors ==
[[File:Bread shop in the street.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A boy peddling ''ka'ak'' in the streets of Jerusalem in 2012]]
Bagels, pretzels and ''obwrzankiobwarzanki'' are similar enough to each other as to suggest a common origin. According to Ms. Maria Balinska, who wrote a book on the history of bagels, holey breads date back all the way to ancient Rome. She believes the ancestor of all (or almost all) such bread products to be the ''buccellata'',<ref>{{Cyt
| nazwisko = Balinska
| imię = Maria
| rok = 2008
| strony = 7
}}</ref> or small, round, jaw-breaking double-baked pieces biscuits used a army hardtack by Roman legionaries at least as early as the 4th century CE. Whether they were actually ring or rather dics-shaped is uncertain. The author of [http://pass-the-garum.blogspot.com/2014/10/bucellatum-roman-army-hardtack.html ''Pass the Garum'',] a great blog about ancient Roman foodways, reconstructed them as the latter, with only little holes punched with a needle to let air and steam escape during baking. Another hypothesis, also mentioned by Ms. Balinska, says that the ''buccellatum'' was the ancestor of the round communion wafer used by Christians in the sacrament of the Eucharyst.
| tytuł = Food Composition Tables for the Near East
| url = https://books.google.de/books?id=YHvfetM9gcUC&pg=PA229
| rok = 1982
| strony = 229
}}</ref> Do dziś ''kaKa'ak'', przed upieczeniem obficie obtoczone w ziarnach sezamugenerously sprinkled with sesame seeds before baking, można kupić na ulicach arabskich i izraelskich miastmay be still purchased in the streets of Arab and Israeli cities.
[[File:Ponti, Carlo (ca. 1823-1893) - Venditore.jpg|thumb|left|upright=.5|Chłopiec sprzedający A boy peddling ''ciambelle'' w XIXin 19th-wiecznych Włoszechcentury Italy]]Tylko dlaczego właśnie takiBut what's so great about the ring shape after all? Why not a ball or a disc, but a nie inny kształt? Dlaczego nie kulka albo dysktorus, tylko znacznie trudniejszy do uformowania toruswhich takes a great deal more skill to form? Taki kształt ma dwie zalety: po pierwszeWell, wypiek z dziurą ma niewiele mniejszą objętośćthis shape has two advantages. First, ale znacznie większą powierzchnię, niż podobnej wielkości wypiek bez dziurki a holey bread has only a slightly smaller volume with a much larger surface than a whole bread of comparable size (dowód poprzez stosowne obliczenia powierzchni i objętości torusa oraz elipsoidy obrotowej pozostawiam jako zadanie dla CzytelnikaI'm leaving the proof by calculating the surface areas and volumes of a torus and an ellipsoid as an exercise for the Reader). Zaś większa powierzchnia oznacza, że podczas obróbki termicznej ciepło rozprowadza się wewnątrz wypieku szybciej i bardziej równomiernieAnd a larger surface area allows the heat to spread more evenly inside the dough during the thermal treatment (boiling or baking). Po drugieSecondly, takie dziurawe pieczywo jest łatwiejsze w transporcie – zwłaszcza dla ulicznego sprzedawcya holey bread is easier to transport, który owe especially for a street vendor who can just put his ''taralli'' mógł sobie po prostu nanizać na sznurek czy kij i tak chodzić z nimi po ulicyon a string or a stick and walk with them in the street. A i klienciAnd the customers could even wear it like a bracelet, jeśli nie zjedli go od razu, to czasem zakładali sobie taki produkt na rękę jak bransoletkę, by zostawić go sobie na późniejif they didn't eat it right away.
| tytuł = The Oxford Companion to Italian Food
| nazwisko r = Riley
| rok = 2007
| strony = 70–73
}}</ref> (trzy ostatnie słowa przypominają the latter three are reminiscent of ''braccialetto'', czyli „bransoletkę”; ostatecznie i the Italian word for "bracelet";ultimately, both ''braciatella'', i and ''braccialetto'' pochodzą z łacińskiego derive from Latin ''bracchium'', czyli „przedramię”meaning "arm").
{{clear}}
== Precle ==