Pumpernickel, the name for the dark-brown, rye bread, comes to
us from the German. The German name has been around since at
least 1663. The origin is not certain, but it most likely comes
from the dialectal German verb pumpern, meaning to fart, and
nickel, meaning demon or imp. (Which is from the name Nicholas,
a common appellation for evil spirits, as in the English Old
Nick; the name of the metal is from the German Kupfernickel, or
demon copper, so-called because its color or the ore is
deceptive and resembles that of copper.) Evidently the bread is
so named because it gives one gas. Pumpernickel first appears in
English in Thomas Nugent’s 1756 travelogue The Grand Tour.
Nugent, however, gets the etymology wrong, repeating a story
that is retold to this day: Their bread is of the very coarsest
kind, ill baked, and as black as a coal, for they never sift
their flour. The people of the country call it Pompernickel,
which is only a corruption of a French name given it by a
gentleman of that nation, who passed