The History of the Cookie
By Matthew Berkowitz
What was the purpose of these small delicious treats?
Cookies are the food we all know and love! Who would have known that its history is so much more interesting than we could have thought? This amazing food dates back to the 7th century in Persia. Cookies actually evolved from cake as people would use little drops of cake batter to test the heat of their oven to make sure it is not too hot or cold.
A bit deeper into the cookie's history...
Around the 14th century, it was very common to find cookies in Europe. In the 1800s, cookie recipes were published into cookbooks as “small cakes”. In fact, the word we know today as “cookie” came from the Dutch word is koekje (pronounced koekie) which translates to “small cake”. Cookies in the United States date back to about the 1600s when English and Dutch settlements were arriving. During the 19th century, cookies in America were considered a treat due to the high cost of sugar at the time.
Some more sweet facts!
Did you know that Massachusetts and Pennsylvania actually have an official state cookie? Both of those states share an official state cookie which is the chocolate chip cookie. The chocolate chip cookie dates back to 1930 when a restaurant called “The Toll House Inn” started making these cookies. A few years later in 1939, the person who invented the cookies sold their recipe to Nestle who started to manufacture them and sell the cookies to the public.
A filling conclusion.
To this day, many of us eat cookies and probably do not even know this amazing history. It's incredible that this food which is over 500 years old is still very popular today! The next time you eat a cookie, make sure to think about how your snack evolved over time and think of the people who thought of the idea hundreds of years ago without realizing that it would eventually become one of the most known desserts in the whole world!