The Origin of Yuletide Gingerbread Gingerbread is a popular baked good especially around Christmas time, but it is actually an incredibly old tradition tying all the way back to Ancient Pagan European traditions. The oldest recipe for "Gingerbread" is from Greece from before 2400BC. Germanic Pagans would make baked goods on holy days to honor their gods still seen in the shape of Sinterklaas (Wodan/Fro) Speculaas and in Hot Cross Buns for Easter. Spiced baked goods made with honey especially have had relevance since these ancient pagan times and were attributed mystical properties. Over time the recipe shifted from using mostly native to imported ingredients which made them prohibitively expensive to all but the nobility at times. In Bern, Switzerland traditional Swiss Gingerbread is made and then fed to their totem animal the bear which to this day serves as the foundation of a bear cult going back to prehistory. In other words when we make Gingerbread we do so as an unbroken millennia old tradition.-TLK