Did the pretzel bakers of Vienna save that city from the invading barbarians?
There’s some story that the pretzel was a Christian protest to the Turkish overlords, that the shape was meant to look like “a child praying”. Unfortunately, besides the fact that pretzels don’t look anything like that, the shape is supposedly brought to the West by the Turks, who also brought us crescent rolls to match their flag.
Of course, to the rest of Europe, the inventions would appear Viennese, since they couldn’t travel to Turkey.
Or so I recall.
Legend has it (and no, I can’t substantiate this) that the Viennese pretzelmakers used to bake in basement ovens. Since they made their pretzels very early in the morning, they were down in their basement workshops and heard the Turks digging under the walls of the city before dawn. Because they spread the alarm and the quick response saved the city, they were given their own coat of arms with a pretzel on it. Or a pretzel was incorporated in the Vienna arms…I can’t recall exactly which now.