Gingerbread is a holiday staple, and it’s also a staple for the Fort Wayne History Center. A fifth of the History Center’s funding comes from its Festival of Gingerbread. In this week’s segment of NorthEATS Indiana, WBOI reports on the festival and the history of the holiday treat.
This year marks the Festival of Gingerbread’s 30th anniversary, and it’s become an important event for the museum. A quarter of the year’s attendance comes from the 17-day festival.
Todd Pelfrey is the History Center’s director, and he says the event has developed a history of its own since it started in 1985. He says some people have been coming to the Festival of Gingerbread for three decades.
“It’s always really neat to see parents come through that remember coming through as kids, and grandparents that remember coming through as parents, and it’s really great to see that intergenerational experience with the festival,” Pelfrey said.
As the director of the center, Pelfrey knows a lot about history, including the ancient roots of this holiday treat. He says evidence of gingerbread goes back thousands of years.
“We have some instances of the ancient Greeks creating a bread called melitates with honey, flour, ginger and other spices,” he said.
But gingerbread as we know it wasn’t invented until about the 14th and 15th centuries.
“During that time we saw the first development of gingerbread guilds amongst German bakers so that they could guard their secrets of gingerbread and creating them into fanciful and complex shapes,” the History Center director said.
By the 16th century, gingerbread’s popularity began to spread. According to Pelfrey, Queen Elizabeth I helped make the treat famous by serving gingerbread versions of her guests during parties.
Molasses was added to the recipe when Europeans began migrating to the Americas.
“It also became a popular ingredient in gingerbread, which gave rise to the gingerbread we all know and love today,” Pelfrey said.
We certainly don't encourage guests to eat the homes while they're on display.
Today, 133 gingerbread creations fill a second floor room of the History Center. There are houses, skyscrapers, even a replica of Cindy’s Diner in Fort Wayne. And some build less-conventional objects, like a scale model of a safari Jeep once used by the Fort Wayne Children’s Zoo.
That’s the design the Eaglesons created for their sixth year entering the Festival of Gingerbread. It’s made out of 14 pounds of gingerbread, and the frosting is made from eight pounds of powdered sugar. In all, it weighs 33 pounds. As the siblings approach their creation, they’re relieved to find it all in one piece.
“We were kind of worried,” J.P. Eagleson said. “This is super heavy. We thought it was going to collapse.”
J.P. works as a team with his sister, Casey Knuth, and his brother, Sam Eagleson. J.P. says it brings the family closer together.
“We all moved away from home and I think it was just a good way for all of us to get together,” said J.P., who organizes the family’s building schedule.
Sam owns a remodeling company and builds the creations. They wait for the gingerbread to become almost stale and then use power tools as though it’s wood.
Knuth has a degree in baking and pastry arts, so she is usually in charge of baking with J.P.’s help. Knuth says they have their own recipe they use every year.
“It’s like flour, obviously molasses, we’ll do like a few spices, but not really,” Knuth said. “In the first years we were really into very making it very by the books and everything was completely edible, but then we were like, nobody’s eating it. So, you know, that’s not a huge concern for us anymore.”
And after sitting out for the 17-day festival, it’s unlikely anyone would want to eat it. But Director Pelfrey says if a person wins the creation in the auction, they can do whatever they want to it.
“We certainly don’t encourage guests to eat the homes while they’re on display, but once they’re purchased through the silent auction and out of the building, what they do with them is up to them,” he said.
Pelfrey says some people keep them, and he’s heard stories of them lasting for five years.
“We do have some instances of gingerbread houses that have been purchased several years ago that are remarkably well preserved,” he said. “We actually have some of the folks that have purchased the homes that will bring them out each year.”
The competitors can win cash prizes, but Pelfrey says most of the gingerbread artists enter for fun, like the Eaglesons.
