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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey rain Stuff

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Bomb Here. The holidays are these season for

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Speaker 1: sugary treats, though we'll pretty much take any excuse, but

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Speaker 1: treats are nice. Today we're talking about one with particular

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Speaker 1: ties to some New Year's celebrations. Marsapan. Mars Pan is

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Speaker 1: a confection made from ground almond meal mixed with some

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Speaker 1: kind of sweetener and sometimes a binding agent like egg,

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Speaker 1: until it forms a slightly sticky, mouldable paste that melts

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Speaker 1: in your mouth, though with a little bit of chew

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Speaker 1: to it. It can be flavored with things like rose

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Speaker 1: water or pistachio, but it's often just almondy, sweet and

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Speaker 1: nutty and almost cherry like. It's like a playto but

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Speaker 1: instead of being merely not poisonous, it's very tasty. A

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Speaker 1: mars pan is commonly used for making everything from candy

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Speaker 1: pieces to cake decorations. Because it's putty like, consistency means

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Speaker 1: it can be formed in figurines that will hold their shape.

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Speaker 1: It also shows up as a filling in pastries and cakes,

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Speaker 1: but like Croissant's stolen and some versions of kincake, a

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Speaker 1: plus in chocolates and chocolate bars, but today we're mostly

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Speaker 1: talking about the molded figurine applications of Marzapan. Though it's

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Speaker 1: naturally a neutral ivory color, it's easily dyed or painted

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Speaker 1: any color of the spectrum, giving creators a fantastic edible canvas.

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Speaker 1: Experts say that its instagrammability is what made sales of

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Speaker 1: Marzapan's skyrocket during the twenty nineteen holiday season. People have

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Speaker 1: probably been making something like mars pan for as long

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Speaker 1: as we've had almonds and sweeteners. There are records of

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Speaker 1: honeyed almond pastes going back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Persia.

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Speaker 1: Arab trade routes probably brought the recipe up through Europe,

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Speaker 1: where treats closer to what we know as marspan today,

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Speaker 1: and the word mars Pan itself developed around the fourteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: though at least three different places claim to have been

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Speaker 1: home to the original what's now Toledo, Spain, Sicily, Italy,

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Speaker 1: and Lubeck, Germany. All three have strong traditions around mars Pan. Today,

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Speaker 1: Sicilian candy makers produce a veritable corducopia of mars pan,

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Speaker 1: shaped and colored to look like fruits and vegetables, from pears, peaches,

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Speaker 1: tangerines and strawberries to corn on the cob, mushrooms, tomatoes,

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Speaker 1: and artichokes. Especially around All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

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Speaker 1: In Polato, one might make or receive a marspan eel

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Speaker 1: around Christmas, a cute little eel buddy coiled into a

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Speaker 1: round ten hugging candied fruits. And throughout Germany, folks give

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Speaker 1: gifts of mars pan pigs around New Year's as a

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Speaker 1: wish for good luck in the coming year. This is

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Speaker 1: a whole thing. There's a German saying a schweinin gahat,

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Speaker 1: which literally means had a pig and culturally means that

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Speaker 1: you've been lucky. A way of wishing someone luck in

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Speaker 1: German is to say fields fine, which literally means much pig. Supposedly,

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Speaker 1: this all comes from medieval times when marspan was being

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Speaker 1: developed in what's now Germany and Austria, when if you

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Speaker 1: managed to breed a whole bunch of pigs in one year,

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Speaker 1: or sometimes if you had any number of pigs at all,

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Speaker 1: that was a really fortunate and awesome thing. A further,

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Speaker 1: in many societies that eat pork pigs are generally associated

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Speaker 1: with winter celebrations because historically, before refrigeration, pigs would often

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Speaker 1: be slaughtered at the beginning of winter and the meat

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Speaker 1: preserved to help people make it through the colder, leaner months.

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Speaker 1: Having the wealth and abundance to be able to do

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Speaker 1: this was considered fortunate, so eating pork around the New

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Speaker 1: Year is often considered lucky. Think of dishes like pork

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Speaker 1: and sauerkraut or hopin John, which is rice and peas

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Speaker 1: cooked with a pork product, or even pork dumplings for

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Speaker 1: the late winter lunar New Year, all of which are delicious,

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Speaker 1: though none are cuter than those marzipan pigs, which are

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Speaker 1: called Glukschwein, which literally means lucky pig. Today, one famous

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Speaker 1: confectionery out of Lubec called Nita Egga Cafe, ships out

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Speaker 1: about thirty kilos of marsapan every day, that's about sixty

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Speaker 1: five pounds. In the year two thousand, a local by

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Speaker 1: the name of Berkhard Loi made the Guinness Book of

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Speaker 1: World Records for the largest ever Marsapan pig. It weighed

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Speaker 1: a ton and five kilos over two two hundred pounds.

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Speaker 1: He reportedly kept it on display for six years before

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Speaker 1: someone accidentally bumped into it and broke it. If you'd

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Speaker 1: like to make your own lucky Pigs or other Marzapan treats,

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Speaker 1: there are lots of recipes online that involve either blanching

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Speaker 1: and grinding almonds or using store bought almond meal, although

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Speaker 1: many grocery stores also carry logs of pre made Marzapan

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Speaker 1: and the baking aisle near the bags of chocolate chips

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Speaker 1: and other baking ingredients and decorations. Whatever form your Marspan

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Speaker 1: or other treats come in, we hear at Brainstuff wish

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Speaker 1: you good luck in the coming year. Today's episode is

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Speaker 1: based on the article Marspan is the sweet Almond Treat

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Speaker 1: You Need this Holiday on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by

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Speaker 1: Stephanie Vermilion, and on a couple episodes of my other

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Speaker 1: podcast saver Co written by me and Annie Reese. The

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Speaker 1: episodes are called the Marspan Episode is Shaping Up and

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Speaker 1: New Year's Food Traditions If you want to go a

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Speaker 1: little deeper. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.

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Speaker 1: Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.