2021 gingerbread house by Kai and Oscar |
Queen Elizabeth I craved gingerbread during her reign (1558-1603), employing a baker whose sole purpose was to make that sweet. She commanded the baker to decorate gingerbread men in the likenesses of visiting dignitaries and her suitors as party favors. History doesn’t record if a suitor who’d fallen out of favor got no sweets or if the queen consumed his gingerbread likeness as a public brush-off. Watching the queen decapitate your gingerbread effigy wasn’t such a bad fate, considering that others who displeased her were beheaded for real.
Vendor at a gingerbread fair (Wikimedia) |
When Queen Victoria ruled (1837-1901), she imported and popularized German holiday traditions from her husband’s homeland. Those included baking and decorating elaborate gingerbread houses and hanging sweets on evergreen trees. The queen probably didn't foresee gingerbread house kits in supermarkets, but she'd recognize the gingerbread men we put on our Christmas trees and cookie platters.
The association of gingerbread men and death persists in a Halloween treat known as a gingerdead man, which has skeleton bones traced in white icing. This version of the sweet appears on the cover of my 7th Five-Ingredient Mystery featuring café manager Val Deniston and her live-wire grandfather. During Bayport's Dickens of a Holiday festival, Val hosts a private tea party for the volunteers dressed as Dickens characters, Santa, and Mrs. Claus. Then an unexpected guest arrives, shrouded in black like the eeriest Dickens ghost, and hands out skeletal gingerbread men. The insatiable Santa can't resist even a creepy cookie and chomps it down. When he keels over, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch."If you are looking to settle in with a well plotted cozy this Christmas, Gingerdead Man is for you. Grab a gingerbread man and some hot chocolate and enjoy." -- Mark Baker, Carstairs Considers
Just in time for the holidays e-book of Gingerdead Man is 99 cents, available at Amazon, Kobo, Barnes and Noble, Google play, Apple Books or wherever e-books are sold.
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You’ll find recipes for many varieties of gingerbread on
Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Though the giveaways associated with the recipes listed below are over, you can still . . .
Enter a giveaway for Gingerdead Man and books Tina Kashian, Lucy Burdette, and Peg Cochran by leaving a comment on yesterday’s post.
For the earlier history of gingerbread, from ancient times and through the Middle Ages, read my CrimeReads article, The Surprisingly Dark History of Gingerbread.
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Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords. Visit her website for book news, easy recipes, mystery trivia, and a free culinary mystery story.
Will you be eating gingerbread this holiday season?
I really like the kick ginger adds to baked goods and often add it to recipes that call for a spice combination of nutmeg, cinnamon, etc even if it is not included. My favorite "gingerbread" recipe is Classic Gingerbread Cake from Cooks' Illustrated. It includes ground ginger, grated fresh ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper as well as 3/4 cup of stout (Guinness). Thanks for the interesting history. I enjoyed reading it. LRJ
ReplyDeleteI'm going to look that one up!
DeleteWow - I'm looking it up, too. Ginger ANYTHING is so good.
DeleteWe love gingerbread so I'm sure there will be plenty this holiday season for everyone. :)
ReplyDelete2clowns at arkansas dot net
Yes, I just found a gluten free version that I want to try. Will be making Christmas tree shapes with it. I will make the gingerbread people out of the sugar cookie recipe as it is more popular in our house than the actual gingerbread. I may ice some as skeletons to mix it up. Thanks for the information,found it quite interesting.
ReplyDeletesandra shenton 13 at gmail dot com
I love your gingerbread history, thanks Maya!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lucy! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
DeleteMy morning routine includes reading Mystery Lovers Kitchen with my coffee and today's "edition" is fantastic! I love gingerbread but have never made anything "gingerbread-y" so the recipe for cookies in Gingerdead Man will be the first one I'm going to try. Gingerdead Man is an awesome Christmas cozy with everything I needed to spark the Christmas spirit. I love the 5-ingredient cozies because I'm not a very skilled cook but I enjoy escaping into the mysteries & the recipes are doable.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words about Gingerdead Man, Linda, and happy holidays.
ReplyDeleteGingerdead people is a perfect cozy pun.
ReplyDeleteGingerbread was a popular item on camping trips, cooked in a Dutch oven with a layer of applesauce in the bottom of the pot before the batter went in. Warm gingerbread with warm applesauce is great!
Thanks for your suggestion about combining applesauce with gingerbread, Libby!
DeleteThanks for this history lesson, Maya!
ReplyDeleteWhat an interesting history of gingerbread! This comment of yours made me laugh out loud: "Watching the queen decapitate your gingerbread effigy wasn’t such a bad fate, considering that others who displeased her were beheaded for real." Thank you for starting my day with a smile!
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to comment, Fran. I'm happy if what I write makes someone smile. :-)
DeleteWhat an adorable post, Maya! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Mary Jane.
DeleteI love gingerbread. I'm going to bake some gingerbread cookies with my kids soon!
ReplyDeletejarjm1980(at)hotmail(dot)com
I love learning about your gingerbread history, I think I will try making a gingerbread house this year. Thanks for your great generosity. Linda May
ReplyDelete