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Happy Bretzelsonndeg!
Every year, the forth Sunday of Lent, Luxembourgers celebrate the Bretzelsonndeg (pretzels’ Sunday). The pretzel is a delicious Luxembourg pastry, made from raised puff pastry cover with sweet sugar and almonds, whose shape may embody the interlaced arms of a couple. Indeed, if in olden times pretzels were salty; nowadays the most popular version is the sweet one. The custom is that on this day, the boy gives the pastry to his heart’s desire. If the girl likes him as well, he can visits her on Easter Sunday, to receive eggs in return. If not, he will only get a basket. It is, by the way, the source of the Luxembourg expression Kuerf kréien (to get a basket), which means to be dumped. In the occasion of the intercalary years, the tradition is reversed: then it is the women that give pretzel.
During the 18th century, the event started the day of the Buergbrennen (the brands celebration), when the young girls were throwing wood in the fire while pronouncing the name of the one they loved. With some luck, the boy in question then gave her a pretzel the forth Sunday before Eastern day, and then he received eggs for Eastern. At this age, many weddings followed the Buergrennen time!
In the capital, the Bretzelsonndeg is now celebrated as a neighborhood party, while the touristic train Jhangeli is decorated with the succulent pastry and travel on the city streets. It comes along with an enthusiastic cortege: the “Pretzel Queen”, accompanied by a little orchestra, and most of all, a troop of bakers that give out free pretzel to the joyful passerby.