Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey rain Stuff
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel Bomb Here. The holidays are these season for
Speaker 1: sugary treats, though we'll pretty much take any excuse, but
Speaker 1: treats are nice. Today we're talking about one with particular
Speaker 1: ties to some New Year's celebrations. Marsapan. Mars Pan is
Speaker 1: a confection made from ground almond meal mixed with some
Speaker 1: kind of sweetener and sometimes a binding agent like egg,
Speaker 1: until it forms a slightly sticky, mouldable paste that melts
Speaker 1: in your mouth, though with a little bit of chew
Speaker 1: to it. It can be flavored with things like rose
Speaker 1: water or pistachio, but it's often just almondy, sweet and
Speaker 1: nutty and almost cherry like. It's like a playto but
Speaker 1: instead of being merely not poisonous, it's very tasty. A
Speaker 1: mars pan is commonly used for making everything from candy
Speaker 1: pieces to cake decorations. Because it's putty like, consistency means
Speaker 1: it can be formed in figurines that will hold their shape.
Speaker 1: It also shows up as a filling in pastries and cakes,
Speaker 1: but like Croissant's stolen and some versions of kincake, a
Speaker 1: plus in chocolates and chocolate bars, but today we're mostly
Speaker 1: talking about the molded figurine applications of Marzapan. Though it's
Speaker 1: naturally a neutral ivory color, it's easily dyed or painted
Speaker 1: any color of the spectrum, giving creators a fantastic edible canvas.
Speaker 1: Experts say that its instagrammability is what made sales of
Speaker 1: Marzapan's skyrocket during the twenty nineteen holiday season. People have
Speaker 1: probably been making something like mars pan for as long
Speaker 1: as we've had almonds and sweeteners. There are records of
Speaker 1: honeyed almond pastes going back to ancient Egypt, Greece, and Persia.
Speaker 1: Arab trade routes probably brought the recipe up through Europe,
Speaker 1: where treats closer to what we know as marspan today,
Speaker 1: and the word mars Pan itself developed around the fourteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: though at least three different places claim to have been
Speaker 1: home to the original what's now Toledo, Spain, Sicily, Italy,
Speaker 1: and Lubeck, Germany. All three have strong traditions around mars Pan. Today,
Speaker 1: Sicilian candy makers produce a veritable corducopia of mars pan,
Speaker 1: shaped and colored to look like fruits and vegetables, from pears, peaches,
Speaker 1: tangerines and strawberries to corn on the cob, mushrooms, tomatoes,
Speaker 1: and artichokes. Especially around All Saints Day and All Souls Day.
Speaker 1: In Polato, one might make or receive a marspan eel
Speaker 1: around Christmas, a cute little eel buddy coiled into a
Speaker 1: round ten hugging candied fruits. And throughout Germany, folks give
Speaker 1: gifts of mars pan pigs around New Year's as a
Speaker 1: wish for good luck in the coming year. This is
Speaker 1: a whole thing. There's a German saying a schweinin gahat,
Speaker 1: which literally means had a pig and culturally means that
Speaker 1: you've been lucky. A way of wishing someone luck in
Speaker 1: German is to say fields fine, which literally means much pig. Supposedly,
Speaker 1: this all comes from medieval times when marspan was being
Speaker 1: developed in what's now Germany and Austria, when if you
Speaker 1: managed to breed a whole bunch of pigs in one year,
Speaker 1: or sometimes if you had any number of pigs at all,
Speaker 1: that was a really fortunate and awesome thing. A further,
Speaker 1: in many societies that eat pork pigs are generally associated
Speaker 1: with winter celebrations because historically, before refrigeration, pigs would often
Speaker 1: be slaughtered at the beginning of winter and the meat
Speaker 1: preserved to help people make it through the colder, leaner months.
Speaker 1: Having the wealth and abundance to be able to do
Speaker 1: this was considered fortunate, so eating pork around the New
Speaker 1: Year is often considered lucky. Think of dishes like pork
Speaker 1: and sauerkraut or hopin John, which is rice and peas
Speaker 1: cooked with a pork product, or even pork dumplings for
Speaker 1: the late winter lunar New Year, all of which are delicious,
Speaker 1: though none are cuter than those marzipan pigs, which are
Speaker 1: called Glukschwein, which literally means lucky pig. Today, one famous
Speaker 1: confectionery out of Lubec called Nita Egga Cafe, ships out
Speaker 1: about thirty kilos of marsapan every day, that's about sixty
Speaker 1: five pounds. In the year two thousand, a local by
Speaker 1: the name of Berkhard Loi made the Guinness Book of
Speaker 1: World Records for the largest ever Marsapan pig. It weighed
Speaker 1: a ton and five kilos over two two hundred pounds.
Speaker 1: He reportedly kept it on display for six years before
Speaker 1: someone accidentally bumped into it and broke it. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to make your own lucky Pigs or other Marzapan treats,
Speaker 1: there are lots of recipes online that involve either blanching
Speaker 1: and grinding almonds or using store bought almond meal, although
Speaker 1: many grocery stores also carry logs of pre made Marzapan
Speaker 1: and the baking aisle near the bags of chocolate chips
Speaker 1: and other baking ingredients and decorations. Whatever form your Marspan
Speaker 1: or other treats come in, we hear at Brainstuff wish
Speaker 1: you good luck in the coming year. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article Marspan is the sweet Almond Treat
Speaker 1: You Need this Holiday on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Stephanie Vermilion, and on a couple episodes of my other
Speaker 1: podcast saver Co written by me and Annie Reese. The
Speaker 1: episodes are called the Marspan Episode is Shaping Up and
Speaker 1: New Year's Food Traditions If you want to go a
Speaker 1: little deeper. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
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