Cookies: An Origin Story

I shall always love the Girl Scouts for their delicious cookies. I shall always be sad they got rid of the chocolate dipped shortbreads, too. I wish I’d never tasted them since they became extinct shortly after I learned they were a thing!

Today’s cookie story is brought to you by Jane, who said this is what she’d like to learn about. If you guys didn’t know, I take requests. I don’t always fill them immediately, but I often write about foods or ingredients I was asked to teach about in here. In this particular case, I asked Jane what she wanted to know about. Thanks, Jane, for our tour of cookies and biscuits today!

Before we really get into the nuts and bolts of cookies, let’s talk about what cookies are. No one seems really clear about that, and ditto which word should be used for them. Cookies are small, thin cakes. They are generally also sweet, but I have baked cookies that outraged eaters told me were not cookies because they weren’t sweet. These were still cookies. Just not standard American ones.

So what’s up with the biscuit and cookie thing? This is all about linguistics. Technically, in Anglophone nations that aren’t the States or Canada, cookie is the word you use for soft, cake-like cookies. If they’re hard or crisp, they’re called biscuits (some will not be sweet at all). Some cookies also get their own special names, such as various bars, macarons, or macaroons. In Canada and the States, cookies are cookies unless they have special names, like bars, macarons, and macaroons.

There’s a reason I’m still talking about macarons and macaroons. Even though many of people seem to pronounce these the same way and think they’re the same thing, this is not the case. I assume these get confused because they’re made similarly and both are gluten-free, but they really are fairly different. Let me show you:

These are macaroons. A popular, dense Passover treat, these are basically coconut, egg white, and sugar. This is pronounced MAC-uh-ROON. The “oo” is pronounced per broom.

Mararons, in contrast, are also sometimes called French Macaroons, but are light, fluffy clouds of equally delicious gluten-free yum. This is pronounced MAC-ah-RON.

MAC-ah-RON like Ron Swanson. This is literally the face I make every time someone says macaroon and means macaron.

The word biscuit derives from the Latin bis coctus, which means “twice baked.” Think biscotti here, since their name derives from the exact same. Also, though, think hard tack, as this is also a very basic type of biscuit. Cookies, in contrast, come from the Dutch word for “little cake,” koekje, which ultimately stems from the middle Dutch koke, “cake.” Chocolate chip works as an example here. The Scots have their own Scots thing going, and cookie there means a plain bun or roll. South Africans also have their own thing, using cookie to refer to cupcakes. Anglophone Canadians use cookie for the most part

Interestingly, in America, the word biscuit was used initially, then later swapped entirely over to cookie by the end of the Revolutionary War in order to differentiate themselves from the British. This didn’t work all that differently from why we started switching our knives between different hands. Americans learned the word from Dutch colonists in the 17th-century. If you didn’t know, New Netherland was a thing before the English held the northeast.

American biscuits, for reference, are called that elsewhere in the Anglophone world. They’re really not scones due to some minor differences, but they’re also not what everyone else thinks of as biscuits. This is like how someone might call Australian football Australian football so as to differentiate it from soccer (football).

This is a map of New Netherland, done by Nicolaes Visscher II (1649–1702).

What we know about the actual origin of cookies is that at some point in the 7th-century, Persians developed cookies. This was easier for them to do than anyone else, because they were amongst the first peoples to cultivate sugar. Yay Persia! Persia is modern day Iran.

Historians seem to all pretty much agree that these small cakes weren’t really being made to eat as cookies, but rather were made to test oven temperature. If a tiny version of the extremely expensive and luxurious cake is baked in the correct time, then the oven is the right temperature. If not, more fuel to the fire! Baking is a lot different without gas or electricity.

Persian elites really were known for their pastry, so it makes sense that, once testing the oven temp, the cook would have eaten the cookie. Why waste what your employer doesn’t want?

The spice trade is how cookies get everywhere else, though. Crusaders were pretty into them, evidently, and this was a great way to pack a little cake with you. Most cookies have a pretty decent pocketability rating, which means they aren’t going to make such a mess in your pocket as say, an American biscuit.

Make sure you click on this link for naan berenji, because we all know you want to bake some of these beautiful little cookies. These are GF, too, for those of you who need to know that.

From here, the history of cookies in general is pretty straight-forward. They spread like wildfire, bc even back then everyone knew you just can’t trust someone who doesn’t like ANY kind of cookie. By the 14th-century, cookies are pretty much everywhere in the known world. Regional variances start happening, and new kinds of cookies start to exist.

Like bars. This includes brownies, by the way. And lemon bars. And all of those kinds of yums. Some cultures also made beautiful molds or presses, or even special rolling pins. Some people said, “nah, two spoons to drop it on a tray is fine.” Some very special others were like, “wait what? No, no, you make sandwiches out of them!” Sandwiches are glorious and really, sandwich cookies should’ve been thought of right out of the gate. Just sayin’.

Others roll/mold their dough into balls, sometimes flattening, sometimes not. Some even make cookies that don’t need to be baked! I’m still not on board with those unbaked cookies, but I sure am trying hard to get with the program! Either way, there are a lot of kinds of cookies. This is great because not only do we all get to explore an endless number of cookies, we also get to learn a bit more about other people’s cultures through them.

Child Tester agrees that I need an iron for this kind of cookie. We all need irons for this kind of cookie:

Most cookies at this point were made in bakers’ ovens, not home ovens. This is largely because most homes didn’t have ovens, and also because street vendors were big back then too. It’s important to remember that during the late medieval period, fire is how you cooked. Ovens also were fuelled by fire, and so cookies in some respects are still a luxury item despite their ubiquity.

An early era model, this Windsor is from 1851.

Until 1826, wood and coal were the only ways to cook. 1826 is when the first gas range came out, and it wasn’t until the 1920s that they were more ubiquitous in households. I personally love cooking over a fire, but it’s not the most fun to out there if cookies are what you really want. People also didn’t have tons of cars to bake their cookies in during the summer, either. That’s a thing, if you didn’t know. Also a really clear reminder to check your back seat when getting out of the car in the summer to make sure you didn’t leave any kids or pets back there.

By the 17th-century, most cookies are made at some. Most people have the ability to bake at home by then. If they don’t, they’re likely super urban and have bakers and street vendors to buy them from. These were still not ubiquitous like they are now, but rather really were a very special treat. Cookies would have been made on the days you baked bread and other essentials, so as to use the residual heat remaining once the breads were already done. May as well use that fuel rather than let it go to waste, yeah?

I can’t give up an opportunity to offer up another Townsend video, despite how media-laden this post already is. This is an 18th-century cookie, generally baked twice so they last a super long time. These were called drop biscuits during this time (totally different from our drop biscuits now!) but are really sugar cookies. This recipe is from around 50 years prior to the Revolution, so that’s why it wasn’t a cookie yet. I’ve been wanting to make these for a while but always forget. Child Tester, however, has been nagging me to make cookies in between our fibre arts sessions, so this may be my chance!

Oh, this cookie allows for rice flour to be swapped in for those of you GF cookie eaters!

There’s also a thing called ammonia cookies. This is baker’s ammonia, not regular, but you can’t eat the dough. It really does have to be baked first. This was more commonly used prior to the advent of baking soda and commercial yeast; originally baker’s ammonia was called hartshorn and was made from deer antlers. You still see hartshorn in some Nordic recipes, and you can purchase it in specialty markets. Hartshorn is a lot more expensive than baking soda or powder, and it smells bad while baking, but it’s totally worth investing in. Especially if you enjoy historical baking, as some of us around here may.

Eventually, people start realizing there’s a market for commercial cookies, and England starts selling theirs to America (1878). This goes on for a while, and then Americans begin to acquire the equipment for mass production (1890). This is, of course, all going on during the Industrial Revolution. None of this could’ve happened on a larger scale without that. This is how NBC/

Nabisco got its start. Nabisco, if you didn’t know, is an acronym for National Biscuit Company. They’re called this because they really did get their start in making biscuits/cookies. Most of them during this earlier period were wafers, such as our beloved ‘Nilla Wafers. I used to always keep a box of those in the house for pie-baking, but I can’t keep Ross and CT out of them so now I only buy them when I need them.

From here, lots of kinds of cookies are developed all over the world, with fun and interesting differences. I spent a ridiculous number of hours trying to decide which of the hundreds of cookie types I wanted to tell y’all about, but in the end, only two really mattered to me. The first one is called mbatata, and it comes from Malawi, in southeastern Africa. Traditionally, this cookie is cut into the shape of a heart to symbolize the warm and generous nature Malawians are known for! That said, some people do shape them differently, which is fine - it all looks the same once it’s in the belly, amirite? Originally, these cookies probably used millet, but once colonial stuff happened in the 16th- and 17th-centuries (see pepper series), sweet potatoes were introduced to eastern Africa and became a staple crop. Since sweet potatoes are a major part of Malawian subsistence farming (this is how a large percentage of Malawian people live) and everyone loves cookies, these are a lovely way to use some of the staple crop. These healthful cookies are generally eaten as a snack, and have a really different, spongy sort of texture.

This video brought me a lot of joy, and also gives a small mention in the beginning on some fascinating African women’s history.

The second cookie will bring us back to the beginnings of this article: macarons de Nancy. Yep, they’re macarons, but not the Parisian ones I was complaining about! These are the OG macarons, brought to us by two lovely Carmelite nuns, Sisters Marguerite and Marie-Elisabeth that were trying to make a living while hiding during the French Revolution. It takes a while (1830s) before Parisian bakers fancify these little pillows of yes and start adding fillings and colors and whatnot. These are just 3 ingredients and very simple to make at home.

Nah, not really. But that’s when they first were sold. They probably really were brought over to France by Catherine de Medici in the 16th, since Italians had been making them since around the 8th in Venetian monasteries. As you know, Venetians had lots of loot back then with their cartel-ing and whatnot, so cookies were more accessible to them. By the time our lovely sisters get to Nancy and start selling them, it’s 1792 and people really are losing their heads. This is how these sisters survived. Eventually, they moved into their own little bakery in Nancy (it’s still there) and were henceforth known as Les Soeurs Macarons (the macaron sisters). They also make some incredible bergamot orange candies, which I highly recommend you buy as fast as you can.

As macarons de Nancy are a culturally significant treat and the bakery really does keep their exact formula a secret, so people generally create formulas for making these based on reasonable extrapolations. Some people will add vanilla or other flavorings, but this is just not a thing I personally do. Here is a great recipe for these, and does honor the 3-ingredient history. I was unable to find a video in English for the 3-ingredient method, so the link above will have to suffice. These are, however, very easy to make!

May your homes be filled with the wonderful smell of whatever cookies you enjoy baking this week!