Talk:Pryanik

Pepper in "Pfefferkuchen" doesn't necessarily mean pepper. Just as in Swedish, "Pepparkaka" just means gingerbread.
It feels wrong to say that "However, traditional pryaniki do not usually include pepper as an ingredient" when the german translation doesn't mean that. Again, that's just the name of gingerbread. It doesn't hint at it including pepper in any way. It's just an old word for ginger. 86.22.230.172 (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I totally agree. Even the English language gingerbread does not imply ginger.
 * Also, the current article claims that pryanik relies on honey instead of ginger unlike gingerbread"/"Lebkuchen. This is confusing - when Lebkuchen and other kinds of spiced breads were developed, in the Middle Ages, they were obviously made with honey as there was virtually no sugar in Europe, and the most respected companies, be it Germany or be it France ("pain d'épices"), still mostly make it with honey. I highly doubt there is no Russian mass-produced pryanik made with sugar or molasses.
 * The article suggest that Eastern European spiced cookies differ from Western European spiced cookies ("gingerbreads"), taking the etymology as a reasoning to group them together (pryanik/perník/piernik). However let's remember that in the Middle Ages Czechia (perník), Poland (piernik) and Croatia (paprenjak) where closer to Germany (Pfefferkuchen) - both geographically and culturally (Catholicism, Latin alphabet, Ostsiedlung, laws). Czech lands were a part of the Holy Roman Empire (so, "Germany"). The most famous Polish gingerbread is the gingerbread from Torun, which in the Middle Ages was a German-speaking town (even during the periods when it belonged to the Polish crown). Even today Germans, even if their market is already full with numerous kinds of Lebkuchen/Pfefferkuchen, produce "Thorner Katrinchen", named after Torun (long in Poland and Polish-speaking) and considered Lebkuchen.
 * All "piernik" producers in Poland seem to use the English word "gingerbread" on their packaging and merchandising. "Piernik krakowski" (if you've never tried it, then google pictures) is shaped like French "pains d'épices", not like the Russian "pryanik" (an example that doesn't have to prove East-West similarities but proves that the word "piernik" doesn't mean "pryanik").
 * All in all, there is not much reason to separate pryanik (or broader Eastern European spiced cookies) and "gingerbread".
 * Compare English (Grasmere gingerbread, gingerbread from Market Drayton and Ormskirk) or Scottish gingerbreads with all the aforementioned ones and you will clearly see that the English word "gingerbread" is very broad - shapes, recipes, flavors differ.
 * I acknowledge that the linguistic similarity between the Russian, Czech and Croat, etc, term for spiced baked goods share similarities. But there is no reason of having a separate Wikipedia article with such claims as we currently have there. Dnaoro (talk) 08:27, 1 May 2024 (UTC)