Did you know that gingerbread actually has no relation to bread, when we talk about the history of the word itself? It’s true! The original word from Medieval French was actually gingebrat (also spelled gingembrat), and referred to a ginger paste that people used to cook with, which obviously came from ginger.
So where did that –bread ending come from? Well, when gingebrat came into English, its suffix was changed to –bar, still referring to that ginger paste. But over time, what etymologists call “folk etymology” took over–that’s when people change words to make them more familiar. By the 1400s, it had evolved into gingerbrede (earlier spelling of bread) and then to gingerbread and was used in reference to things one might make with that ginger paste–cookies, cakes, and breads especially.
In my family, gingerbread cookies are the fave, but I do enjoy a nice gingerbread cake, like what would have been popular in the day of Christmas at Sugar Plum Manor. Have you tried out the recipe I have for it here on the website?
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Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.