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So as a kid I used to love to go to baseball games. I loved having a nice snack while watching the game too. I remember getting a nice big soft pretzel and cheese sauce to dip. It was pretty tasty. Since I have grown and the popularity of the soft pretzel seems to have continued on. You can get them at convience stores, the mall, and even corporate cafeterias.
Prolem is that every soft pretzel I have had since becoming an adult has been an absolute disapointment. They seem to have gotten smaller and more dough-y. The pretzels have just become terrible. The only way to eat them is to drown them in an equally terrible cheese cup.
So I have to ask if soft pretzels have ever been good? Or was it just being a kid at the ball game? Maybe the experience was an added ingredient that made the pretzel great. I am just not sure. What do you folks think? Have the soft pretzels always sucked or has the quality of them tanked?
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My brother worked for Auntie Anne's Pretzels for a short time - not too long ago either, 2005 or 6 - so we'd pretty regularly stop by the mall (in Tempe, AZ where we were living at the time) and pick some up, they were pretty good there.
A quick search even found their recipe online if you want to take a crack at making your own.
{thinking of soft pretzels, drooling}
They are pretty good but the happy experience of being at the ballpark as a kid has likely augmented your memory. Try taking some younger folk (young enough to still be enamored by that type of thing) to a ball game and relive the experience through them. Let their joy augment your enjoyment and the pretzel will taste as good as you remember (though it may still be smaller :D).
My brother worked for Auntie Anne's Pretzels for a short time - not too long ago either, 2005 or 6 - so we'd pretty regularly stop by the mall (in Tempe, AZ where we were living at the time) and pick some up, they were pretty good there.
A quick search even found their recipe online if you want to take a crack at making your own.
Unless you are experienced with handling lye, I would reccomend against this. That is unless you want to feed your inner Tyler Durden. I am Jack's chemical burn.
Edit: That recipie is using baking soda to oxidize the skin of the pretzel. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Part of me is sad, but part tells me that is probably a smart move for an Internet recipie.
I still get awesome soft pretzels at our local hockey rink. With a little mustard (never heard of cheese sauce on pretzels - mustard is the way to go) and they are a little slice of heaven.
I don't ever remember having soft pretzels as a kid.
Soft pretzels are just a vehicle to consume cinnamon and sugar.
It really is a case of where you get it.
Annie's pretzels are really good, but are a very specific PA dutch style, and absolutely soaked in butter.
Wawa has pretty decent ones most of the time, but like all baked goods they get stale towards the end of the day.
Pretzel Factory and it's ilk almost always have very good pretzels, warm and fresh from the oven. They don't keep more than a day or so though.
I tend to avoid most other places since I'm never in Philly anymore to hit up Federal or the Terminal Market.
I grew up in PA and it's hard to get a good "classic" soft pretzel outside of the Philadelphia area in my experience. Not that I don't sometimes enjoy a Super Pretzel or Auntie Anne's but they aren't really the same thing. And mustard is really the only topping needed (aside from salt of course). Genuine fresh pretzels definitely are starting to be stale by late the day they are baked.
This will require more research.. mmmmmm......and some more...
I'm going to need to find some place locally that sells soft pretzels so I can try one.
Having no teeth left in my skull, soft pretzels (and pretzel bread) are wonderful treats.
Go to Flagstaff, Arizona. Stop in at the Beaver St. Brewery. They have really good soft pretzels. The IPA is not bad either. Some of the other beers are kind of mediocre, but the food they serve is always really good.
Well your tastes do literally change as you mature. Your taste buds change. If I remember correctly the recepters for bitterness for instance dont develop until later in life, you also aquire different tastes through practice and exposure. So something you liked as a child simply could be something you dont like as an adult.
That said, being a new yorker, I still enjoy a good pretzel now and again and occassionally grab one from a street cart. They are still about how I remember them as a child, and dont seem to have gotten smaller.
I do think food at ballparks and stadiums has gotten smaller and of lower quality in recent years as stricter and stricter policies were put in place to prevent bringing in of outside food and drink. I remember as a kid being able to bring sandwiches into a stadium. Not sure if it was 'allowed' but it was possible then, it no longer is anywhere I have gone recently. So the whole captive audience thing has reduced incentive to make the food particularly good.
And ofcourse others have said, autie annes are quite good, but are really just a dessert in the shape of a pretzel and not actually a pretzel in the traditional sense.