Someone in my class asked me this question. It sounds stupid, but I can’t say for a fact what the answer is.
When you buy a bag/box of pretzels, how does the salt stay attached? I assume it’s primarily baked on, but I can’t really be sure. What say you? Is there, in fact, a pretzel polymer of some kind?
Speaking from baking pretzels myself, the salt melts if you try to use heat to truly “bake” it on. You usually apply egg white prior to baking and then sprinkle the salt on just as they come out of the oven to make it stick. So a little bit of latent heat to melt just the part coming on contact and a somewhat sticking coating for good measure would be my opinion.
I thought from the title that Chastain was wondering if pretzels exist only as a delivery system for salt like french fries exist as a delivery system for ketchup. And I’d agree. Oops!
When I buy a bag/box of pretzels, the salt stays attached by the patented method employed by the pretzel-baking company… pretzel-salt glue.
I can’t possibly begin to explain how the salt stays attached to the pretzels when you buy a bag/box of pretzels.
[nitpick]
I doubt the salt is melting when you bake pretzels. NaCl melts at 1474 °F (801 °C). That’s a damn hot oven, and if you’re baking with that kind of heat, I suspect the prezels would be…well…less than edible.
“Dissolve” is probably a more accurate description.
[/nitpick]