History Of Cookies

Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented, in part because they deal with travel very well, but they were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies by modern standards.

Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD Persia, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14th century, they were common in all levels of society throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors.

With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which traveled especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was the jumble, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and water.

Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s. The Dutch word koekje was Anglicized to cookie or cooky. The earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703, when The Dutch in New York provided...'in 1703...at a funeral 800 cookies...'

The most common modern cookie, given its style by the creaming of butter and sugar, was not common until the 18th century.

Fun Facts

There are a number of slang usages of the term cookie:

The slang use of cookie to mean a person, especially an attractive woman is attested to in print since 1920.

The catchphrase that's the way the cookie crumbles, which means that's just the way things happen is attested to in print in 1955.

Other slang terms include smart cookie and tough cookie. According to The Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms, a smart cookie is someone who is clever and good at dealing with difficult situations.

The word cookies is used to refer to the contents of the stomach, often in reference to vomiting (e.g., pop your cookies a 1960s expression, or toss your cookies, a 1970s expression).

The expression cookie cutter, in addition to referring literally to a culinary device to rolled cookie dough into shapes, is also used metaphorically to refer to items or things having the same configuration or look as many others (e.g., a cookie cutter tract house) or to label something as stereotyped or formulaic (e.g., an action movie filled with generic cookie cutter characters).

Cookie duster is a whimsical expression for a mustache.

Cookie Monster is a Muppet on the long-running children's television show Sesame Street who is best known for his voracious appetite for cookies and his famous eating phrases, such as Me want cookie!, Me eat cookie! (or simply COOKIE!), and Om nom nom nom (said through a mouth full of food).

Did you know?

The world's most expensive cookie is the creation of cookie shop owner Sofia Demetriou, who launched "Duchess Cookies" and claimes to give The Tastiest cookie experience on Earth.... Her red velvet cookie has ruby chocolate and is coated with 23,000 gold leafs. What makes it so pricey is not just the cookie but the surrounding touches, a sculpted chocolate shoe, a baccarat catchall and a string of freshwater pearls. Demetriou says she's sold four of them, two to Dubai and two to New York. What do you think about most expensive cookie in the world?

Video by b/60