Children still hunger for this tale

• The tradition of gingerbread
• Recipes for the best in gingerbread

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

There are literally hundreds of versions of this story, from its roots in the European folk tradition to a contemporary version in which the Gingerbread Man gets chased all over New York City by construction workers and the like.

All are variations on the original plotline: A childless old couple decides to get themselves a son by baking a gingerbread man. But when the old woman opens the oven just a little too late, the little man, not too happy about having been left almost to burn, runs away, chanting the refrain we all know so well: "Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man."

One after the other, different characters chase the animated cookie: farm workers, animals and so on, until he meets the wily fox (or, in some versions, a wolf) and, running from him, comes to a river. The fox pretends friendship and offers the gingerbread man a ride across the river on his tail, but as they cross he eases the pastry character onto his back, then his head, and finally his nose, from which position he gobbles him up and ... "Snip, snap, snap, at last and at last, he went the way of every single gingerbread boy that ever came out of the oven

... HE WAS EATEN ALL UP."

Like many folktales, this one would seem a rather gory story to be so loved — the man begins in the oven and ends up eaten alive, after all. But children universally enjoy it and teachers use the classic tale to instruct young people in a wide variety of skills, from counting to writing and drawing.

Here's a little poem we found on one of the many Web sites devoted to lesson plans for teaching the gingerbread man story:

Gingerbread children
Stand in a row.
Very good children
Always you know.
They never will jump
Or kick or leap,
Or start to cry when
It's time to sleep.
They never run off
Or look around.
And no one has heard
Them make a sound.
Gingerbread children
Are fine to meet,
But, much better still,
They're good to eat!

— Wanda A. Adams