September 3, 2018 • 42 mins
We're delighted to have Anne Byrn back on the show to talk about her latest book, "American Cookie." Anne shares her vast knowledge of historical baking and how it fits into the cultural history of the U.S. in the form of small, portable treats.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Today we
have a returning guest and one that was really popular
on the show the first time she joined us. It
(00:22):
is journalist and cookbook author and Burne, who was on
the podcast in the fall of to talk about her
book American Cake, which traces the historical roots of recipes
that have been baked here in the US since the Colonies.
She has a follow up book, We're very excited it
is American Cookie, and that takes a similar look at
the cakes more petite and casual cousins and in this
(00:43):
book and shares stories about how war, rationing, slavery, and
booming crops have all impacted the things people bake. There
are also lots and lots of fantastic historical recipes. Yeah,
we talked about it in the interview a little bit,
and we talked about it during our American Cake talk.
That she has done all of the hard work of
(01:04):
parsing out these historical recipes that did not always tell
you like what temperature to put your oven at, how
long to blend something for etcetera. And she has figured
all of that out and made it way easier for
you to make a historical recipe without having any guesswork. Nice. Yeah,
it's amazing. So I recommend that you grab your favorite
cookie or other snack for this one, because all of
(01:24):
the molasses and ginger talk certainly made me crave treats
while we were recording. Uh, And we will jump right
into my conversation with Anne Burn. So, first of all,
it's been two years since we last had you on
the show. Almost What have you been up to since
we talked last Oh, I've been researching the book American Cookie. Um.
(01:49):
Couldn't stop with cakes, Holly. I had to head to
head on into cookies. I understand they're delicious. Um. Immediately
when you told me you were doing this book, my
first question in my own head was, what if you
had to boil it down? Is the real distinction that
makes cookies different from cakes? Both like the baking part
(02:10):
and the cultural part. Yeah. Well, they're smaller for sure,
and they're you know, they're simple to produce. I mean
you just throw them together, but you know, technically, you know,
they're a different ratio cakes have the have the appropriate
ratio for them to rise of butter, sugar, flour, eggs,
and whatever levenings you want to throw in. Cookies are
(02:32):
a little higher ratio of um a fat, so they
tend to be a little crispier um. They don't and
they don't they're not heavy on levening, so they're not
going to rise that much. So sort of chemically that's
how they work. But I think on a different level,
cookies are very approachable. They're humble, they're spontaneous, and they're
(02:52):
very forgiving, which means that you can they welcome substitutions,
which is why cookie recipes survive the war years in rationing,
because people substituted out the wazoo because they used what
they had and and then they morph into new cookie
recipes that kind of become a part of, you know,
(03:13):
the way we beg today. I have not thought about that, Like,
if you substitute on a cake, you can really mess
up a cake, but a cookie will just be a
different cookie. It will and you know, most people are
not as judgmental. I think about a cookie. You just
eat it and where the cake. You know, if it
doesn't rise, it's not going to look good. And then
how are you going to get those layers all you
(03:36):
know that are not leveled to sort of level up
with frosting, and will it survive the car trip you know,
to get to your destination, whereas cookies just can pile
into anything, a plastic bag at ten, a box, anything
you actually let into a question I'm going to ask.
I was going to ask it in a bit, but
I'll do it now. So one of the things that
(03:58):
I loved about the last book was how you deconstructed
recipes um as an examination of like their regional area
and what sorts of resources were available and even cultural
things that made certain cakes popular. Is that harder with
cookies since they are inherently more portable, like they can
travel a little bit better, So I imagine recipes can
(04:18):
as well. Yeah, that's a really good point. It possibly
could be. I think also, um probably more people baked
cookies than cakes, and so if a recipe was in
say a Ladies magazine a hundred years ago, it would
be very doable for anybody in across the country. Cakes
(04:39):
have always kind of stood as more regional, Um they
stood for something that maybe were named after something that
was regional a person or a place. You had a
state cake. I think of only one state, maybe, well,
I think get back to that, have a state cookie.
So I think that cookies are yes, more transport portable
(05:04):
on different levels. Sorry, I just gave myself a pause
thinking about cookies because they're delicious. One of the things
that we talked about when I spoke with you last
was the tricky part of backwards engineering historical recipes because
they're not laid out as complete in terms of directions
as as they are now. Is does that hold true
(05:27):
for cookies as much as cakes. Yes, it does and um,
And I learned from the cake books that you know,
you can read so much into those ingredients and to
sort of open yourself to that and be mindful of
it as you start baking that old recipe. So I
was able to sort of take those those tricks and
to use them on the cookie book. For example, you know,
(05:47):
if you see lard being used, you assume it's a
rural recipe. Um. And if you see vegetable shortening being used,
you know it's after the turn of the twentieth century.
So there's just key indicates that I've learned and was
able to pick up on. But I think you know
cookies are they're funny, and that they're their ingredients are
(06:10):
are adaptable. You can change and you can substitute, um.
But you look at an old recipe and you still
have to kind of scratch your head. There was there
was one recipe called aunt Ida's wine drops, and I
found it scribbled in handwriting in the back of an
old book, which was a digitized copy at the West
Virginia Library, and I kept looking for the wine. There's
(06:35):
a wine and Ida would make them to serve with
wine because and that it is with an old recipe,
it's what happens. You're given the ingredients and then you've
got a lot of um thinking. You've got to think
through and finish the story. And I know you often
do many, many, many passes at a recipe before you
(06:58):
feel like you have have the yard it out and
nailed it. When you're trying to recreate historical ones, was
there one that was the hardest to replicate for you? Yes,
probably those something similar to the wine drops, which are
called rocks. Literally they are called rocks, and they're very
appatizing right the people. You know, people didn't this is
(07:19):
a good examp. People didn't go to a lot of
trouble to name a cookie recipe like they did a
k craftip. They just call it a rock because it
looked like a rock. It was just had a lot
of chopped nuts and dried fruit in it, and it
probably had weighed too much flour, and it was blobbed
on and dropped onto the baking sheet and it looked
like a rock. And when it baked, it really didn't
move a whole lot, and it baked up like a rock.
(07:41):
So I think making those and I knew that they
were important part of the cookie story in America for
lots of different reasons, and so I wanted the rocks
to taste good. So I took a lot of attempts
at the rocks. That's one example. There were many others. Yeah, uh.
And you also include did some items in this book
(08:02):
that I might not normally consider a cookie, like peanut
brittle is in there, and saw taffe is in there?
How did you decide which ones you were comfortable putting
under the umbrella of your book being named for cookies,
versus which which were too much of a candy for
you to exclude? Well, the full story is that initially
(08:22):
this book started out to be UM named American Bites,
and it would be all these sweet paste and bites
of America, and that was the working title. And as
I got into it, the majority of these were cookies.
But then there was that little ten percent that were
not cookies. They were the Dutch only cookes, the doughnuts,
(08:46):
the first seannuts, and they wore peanut brittle and so
essentially they were fried things and they were candy, and
I thought, gosh, you know, these are too important to
like exclude, UM, so I sort of snuffed them in
at the back of the book. Um, it's sort of
it's a bonus chapter and so if And what I
(09:07):
love about those combining those types of recipes in one
chapter is that they both involve fearlessness, because I think
to fry and to candy, you have to be somewhat fearless,
and you you have to steal up and you have
to make it, and you need that you know, the
thermometer to tell you if the oil is hot enough
(09:31):
or as the sugar mixture has gotten to the right
point to take it off the stove. In making candy,
I just didn't want to exclude them. So no, you're right,
they're not cookies, but they're there in the book as
a bonus. Now, do you think or did your research
indicate that those kinds of confections that maybe aren't cookies
(09:51):
still had influence over you know, maybe cookie making or
even cake making or other parts of American cuisine. M question.
I don't know if they had influence, but they definitely
have an important part in American cuisine because they typically
were made for income, and they were made by people
who needed to make rent that month. To think about
(10:14):
New Orleans, think about the street vendors, a woman who
may be supporting a number of children, and how did
she make money. She made aignas our collums, you know,
made out of rice, and would fry them and put
them in a basket and bring them warm to get
to the cathedral when mass was letting out and people
(10:36):
were hungry after fasting, and they bought her wares. So
it was income. And the same was true in New
Orleans for making proddlings. And it's so I think they
were too important of a street food for me to
leave them out of the book. And so that's why
they're there. Maybe they'll evolve into something else, because I
(10:56):
think it's really important, not only because of the method
it's that you need to make candy and fry things,
but because look at the people who needed to make
them and who knew how to make them. That's pretty amazing.
It's interesting that you mentioned, you know, it's people that
needed to be able to get an income, because that,
to me would be what would bridge the gap of
(11:18):
being brave enough to deal with hot molten sugar, which
to me is one of the most terrifying substances alive. Ye. Yes,
you're exactly right, and that is a really good point.
And not only they had to do it, they had
to do it, and they could do it, and they
other people did not know how to do it, and
(11:38):
yet those confections were delicious, so there was a market
for them. I feel like we absolutely we talked about
it last time a little bit, but now in a
different light, we have to talk about gingerbread. Back to gingerbread,
yea well, because one it's delicious, but too we talked about,
you know, gingerbread in cake form when you included in
(12:00):
American cake, and of course gingerbread has to make an
appearance in an American cookies book. Um, I'm curious what
were the factors that contributed to it taking those two
separate forms, like what might lead someone down the cookie
path versus the cake path as they developed something. Well,
probably originally they were the same form. And if you
(12:21):
look back at the core ingredients of gingerbread, it's some
sort of flower, some sort of sweetener which originally would
have been British treacle, which then became American American made molasses,
and then you have your your if you use leavening.
It back in the old recipes it was very crude
(12:41):
and very bitter pearl ash potash, so you had to
mask that bitter flavor with spices. And that's why pearl
ash and potash worked so well in gingerbread recipes because
they could be masked spices, and then you would have
some kind of rea. You need some sort of acidic
ingredient in there to react with that. That base that
(13:05):
neutral um pear lash, potash leavening, and so that could
have been molasses which is acidic um and also butter
milk so or or clavered milk from the farm, so
you had an acidic ingredient you so you had leavening
you had rise, so I don't I think gingerbread and
and and really, in my research found that gingerbread was
(13:26):
just gingerbread. The Dutch were the ones who gave us
the mindset of a cookie, and the British brought over
the jumbles in the form of what we know is
sugar cookies. So the crispness of a cookie became sort
of to distinguish itself from gingerbread. Gingerbread was made in
(13:47):
very hardy, almost bread like by you know in New Orleans,
the stage planks they're called. They would sell those down
at the dot at the port, and people would put
people would put rum gingerbread and turn them into cookies
called Joe Froggers. And there were gingerbread recipes from all
different kinds of regions and backgrounds. Um And you look
(14:10):
at the basis for so many spice cookies and it's centrally,
really it's the gingerbread. The gingerbread cookie. It doesn't have
white sugar versus molasses or did it would have become
a depression cookie like a cray baby and use corn
syrup because sugar was rationed. So the most basic American
cake and probably the most basic American cookie us the
(14:32):
Genterman So Tracy, one of my friends gifted me with
a bottle of chocolate rum a while back, Um, and
I have not used much of it because I'm not
much of a rum drinker. But now I one want
to use it in a batch of Joe Froggers. That
sounds like a great plan and is actually going to
talk a little bit more about gingerbread in just a moment,
and she gives a little tip on making gingerbread suitable
(14:54):
for building houses. First, we're going to pause though for
a quick sponsor break one. I wanted to ask you
were there any evolutions of the gingerbread cookie, since you
mentioned that it took many different forms, and you know
spice cookies are also very much of that same origin point,
(15:16):
Were there any of the evolutionary developments in it that
surprised you? Did you ever stumble across the recipe and
go that is interesting? Um? Probably the Joe Frogger's recipe,
And that is a New England recipe. It's old, you know,
it has rumen and and it's got all these kind
of folk stories on did it start at this tavern?
And did they put rum in it? Because it was
(15:37):
the tavern and they had rum available, which is yes um.
I think that that was that was such a good story.
That recipe was really hard in the kitchen to get
it to work because it had so much rummen and
it kept spreading out on the pan. And they do
make really big cookies, but boy, the next day they're
(15:57):
so delicious. That rum really keeps of the cookie moist um.
And there are a lot of there are a lot
of fun I think in modern day baking we just
don't see as many gingerbread cookies as we used to.
The very first recipe in the book is one of
my favorites and it is a family recipe that was
(16:18):
shared with me, and it is a recipe that is
still baked today. And it's example how a gingerbread cookie
has um has evolved through the years and through different generations.
And it's Grandma Hartman's molasses cookies. It is a gingerbread
and Grandma Hartman might have used was was was amish,
(16:39):
and they may have used lard in it at one
point special occasions. Um they might have used butter, but
they began to use vegetable shortenings as the next generation
came about and then this, this young woman who shared
the recipe with me, doesn't want to make them with
vegetable shortening anymore, and she makes them with better So
(17:01):
it's a great example how a basic gingerbread cookie has
kind of has lasted in a family. Great story. It
is interesting. I think you mentioned that gingerbread cookies aren't
made as much anymore, and I think there's this weird
fear of them, like people have the perception that they're
very hard to make and that they don't turn out
well very often. But there I've been him a few times.
(17:22):
I'm not a pro, but I can usually get a
cookie to come out of it. Yeah, are you talking
about like a drop cookie? Are you talking like a
molded like a cut cookie? I mean, I've done both.
What usually ends up happening is that I try to
do a molded cookie, and then I know those may
break coming out of the mold, So I also just
make some flat ones nearby and let those bake, just
(17:43):
because I also want to munch on them while I
build the house. That's true, Well, okay building the house
there you go to to build a house out of gingerbread,
That gingerbread has to be pretty sturdy, and to be sturdy,
it has to have a good bit of flour in it,
which is how the the original ginger Brea cookies, that's
how they were made. They had a lot of flour
in them. And the reason for that is that people
(18:05):
there was no refrigeration, so you know, people were adding
flour to a cookie dough and to make it workable
and to roll it out. You couldn't chill a dough.
You couldn't let it rest in the fridge overnight. Um,
you couldn't, you know, put it cold on the counter
and start sort of gradually working it. No, it was
(18:25):
just sticky. And you think about making those in the
summertime or it was no air conditioning, no refrigeration, so
what did you do? You kept adding flour to it
to make it workable. I mean, my grandmother made cookies
this way and I remember and I remember her cookies
were delicious, but they were dry, and it was because
she used more flour than we would use today and
(18:47):
we can get away with less flour because of refrigeration.
I also want to go back a little bit. You
mentioned the British culture bringing this sugar cookie over um,
and to me, the like a sugar cookie is so
ubiquitous it seems like kind of your standard. If someone
said I want a cookie and they gave you no specifics,
(19:10):
you'd probably go a sugar cookie to be safe. Is
that one that has multiple different starting points or is
it pretty a pretty clear path? And I think it's
the original ones were pretty pretty basic. You had flour
and white sugar and butter, and if you had any
flavoring at all, and and maybe an egg. Probably the
(19:30):
sugar cookies, most all of them did early have an egg,
but some recipes, the Dutch recipes, do not have eggs
in them, and so the egg will make it snap,
egg keeps it snappier, for a lack of a better word,
and the egg without an egg it's snappier. With an egg,
it makes it sort of brown better and cakier. And
(19:53):
then you would have had them flavored with lemon or
lavender or crushed coriander sees caraway foods. Those would have
been the early flavoring for something like a sugar cookie.
So I think there was a basis, but then it
just exploded because depending on again where you lived, what
(20:17):
you used, um what was available at the time, and
then did you start using did you start adding uh,
levening to it? And Levening changed the texture of the
original jumble the English sugar cookie into what we know
today as a teacake. Um, so did you also mentioned
(20:40):
Dutch sugar cookies. Is there a clear origin point of
where sugar cookie started since they are so basic? I
think that I don't. I bet they were being made.
I don't have that particular answer, but my my educated
guest is that they were being made long ago in
both England and Germany as when also in the Netherlands.
(21:05):
Any place where people were there was baking, where there
were those basic ingredients, which was just flour and sugar
and eggs and butter, you would have had what you
needed to make a sugar cookie. And ironically, sugar cookies
have remained the American favorite because the ingredients are so basic,
(21:28):
but at times through our history were rationed or were unavailable.
And if um, a lot of what I read said that,
you know, people may have they got through periods with
a sugar cookie, or they ate oatmeal cookies, you know,
because you were supposed to save the wheat for the
troops and baked with oaths. But when it comes down
to it if they had their pick. Their favorite cookie
(21:52):
is a sugar cookie because it's delicious, sasic and delicious
yet it And I've got several really good recipes in
the book because an Irene sugar cookie is terrific, as
is the first Girl Scout cookie is a great little recipe.
Oh good to know. Oh, there's so much speaking in
(22:12):
my future. Um. Since the United States is such a
melting pot, has it developed its own sort of cookie
identity as a whole apart from those of other countries
or does it remain kind of a globally influenced landscape
for lack of a better word. That's interesting. UM, I
(22:35):
would say that Americans are known throughout the world as
being good cookie baker, and cookies have definitely been a
part of our food ways and our story throughout history.
We do it well, and we do a like because
of the melting pot. We do an array of cookies,
(22:55):
from gingerbread too and is flavored, the Cheetahs from New
Mexico to chocolate Chip, the revered Chocolate Chip, to the
sugar cookies like you mentioned, to marangue cookies macarin. They
are so variable and because we are a melting pot,
and so many different cultures came here and brought their
(23:17):
traditions and the Navian pepper nuts. We have this vast
cookie jar and it's just it's very exciting. It was
fun to research. Coming up. We actually still have a
whole lot more from an including a recipe that traveled
to the US through the slave trade, and we'll talk
about how the combination of an overabundant crop and World
(23:37):
War One led to some innovations in baking with bananas. First,
we're going to hear from another sponsor that keeps the
show going. One of the things that I love that
you included was recipes and discussion of cookies that traveled
(23:57):
to the US from Africa via the slave trade. Will
you talk a little bit about those, Yes, well you
talk about the benny the Bennie seeds. Anyway, first, yes,
I think you know, looking at old recipes you have,
you the first step is to look at the ingredients
because you're not going to get a method. And so
it was very, um, very important for me to include
(24:21):
recipes in here that were ingredient driven, and if you
looked at them, you said, well that recipe came from
a specific area but those Benny you know, the Benny
seeds are critical to making that cookie. You can make
them with sesame seeds, but they're much better if you
order the Benny seeds. And now, and they originally did
come from Africa with the slave trade, but you can
(24:45):
find the Bennie seeds and local markets today in South Carolina.
You can mail order them if you want to and something.
And I have actually have friends in Charleston who grow
the benny plants in their backyard. But they had their
smaller than a sessome seed and they have but they
have that kind of nutty flavor and they're really just
(25:08):
I think they're just lovely. And the whole idea of
somebody putting seeds in their pockets, Polly and traveling and
bringing those seeds here and planting that of seeds and
the slaves did that, and they planted those seeds and
you know, to produce a plant um that was originally
(25:28):
um cultivated for oil for salad oil. How common is
the origin of something like that obscured like was It
hasn't always been known that those basically those Benny seeds
came over in the pockets of people who had been
taken for slavery or did it take a little while
to figure out that that was really what started this?
(25:51):
I think probably it took a while to figure out,
but I think it's known that they were always linked
to um, to the cooks and the slaves of the
low country. Those were the cooks who were industrious, and
just like in researching American cake, I found that, you know,
those recipes that take a little bit of care and
(26:12):
take a little bit of time, and if they come
from the Deep South, they were most often made by
the the help by the enslaved people, and cookies are
a little bit more um easier to prepare. Let's say that,
um much easier than say making the seven minute frosting
(26:33):
or for creating a pound cake, actually eating a poundcake
a hand without a kitchen aide, cracking a coconut and
and shredding it. Um that you know, baking cakes in
America was a was a task, was a physical task.
Cookies not as much so, but they still have a story.
(26:55):
So one of my very favorite cookies is the oatmeal cookie,
which you mentioned has an interesting history of its own.
Were you talking about that a little bit? Yes, I
love oatmeal cookies. Too. You know, oatmeal has been popular
in baking for oh gosh, a hundred and fifty years
or more, but it became more of a common ingredient
(27:17):
um when when flour was rationed for War War One.
So that's when cooks were we're encouraged to add more
oats to their bread recipes and their cookie recipes kind
of harder with a cake. Um, and it became oatmeal
cookies became very patriotic. They became a wheat saving recipe
(27:38):
in America. So Quaker just of course picked up on that.
The oatmeal cookies that we associate with Quaker is the
vanishing oatmeal cookie. I think it's been on the side
of the canister since about nineteen thirty nine. Um, they
took a while. The first recipe with oatmeal was an
oat cake, probably not as pop piller. The oatmeal cookie
(28:02):
has left it a lot longer. Yeah, we're not really
eat seeing much oatcake in bakeries today, not oat cakes. Yeah.
So I will confess to you that in my love
of oatmeal cookies, what I hate is an oatmeal raisin
cookie because I don't like fruit added to my stuff. Um.
But there's a good reason for it. Will you talk
(28:23):
about that a little bit. Yes, dried fruit pops up
in so many cookie recipes, and you wonder did they
did they just use more dried fruit in throughout history,
And the answer is yes they did. Um it was available,
people used and got accustomed to drive fruit because of
sugar rationing, so more when sugar was not available to
(28:44):
go in cookies, these industrious cooks would turn to raisins
or dates um and use them, oftentimes coconut um, just
anything that would have been sweet or was used in
place of sugar. Also, and they found that the more
dried fruits or dried nuts, so you lived in an
area where black walnuts trees or in your backyard, the
(29:05):
more black walnuts that you added to the to the dough,
the further the dough would go, and the more cookies
you can make. That gets back to the rock rock
cookies that earlier. And just like in fruit cakes that
are that same genre, the more dried fruit you put
in a cookie, they're more moist it is and it
keeps longer. So without UH, without refrigeration or or even
(29:31):
the having a freeze, or people could store UH cookies
that had oatmeal. Raisin cookies would keep longer and taste
more moist and retain moisture than just a plain ol
oatmeal cook. Now there is a fruit based recipe in
your book that to me is really fascinating because it
(29:51):
has a connection to Hawaii. And will you talk about
how that came about. Yes, it's a banana drop cookie.
And I was just uncovered this the story, um, when
I was researching We War one recipes that in uh
about nine in Hawaii there was just a huge banana crop,
(30:14):
just a boom. But as the US had entered World
War One, the transport ships were not available to take
these big harvest of bananas to the mainland. So the
bananas were sitting, and they were sitting. And so there's
a great story about how the Agricultural um Experiment station
there got on board. The wife of actually the director
(30:38):
got in the kitchen and started trying to create everything
she could with bananas. They even asked Hawaiians to eat
a banana a day instead of a slice of bread.
That back to the patriotic that it was more patriotic
to eat a banana than it would be saved the
bread for the troops. Um, that all change, you know,
(31:00):
refrigerated transport ships. Um, we're really had had turned the
whole banana industry around all over the world and actually
helped the meat industry as well because they came about
in the nine so refrigerated transport was available these steamships. Ah,
(31:21):
but when we went into World War One, these ships
were needed for the war. And you kind of lead
into another question, which is that you talk a lot
about the distinction of a war cookie versus other cookies. Um,
is there like a shorthand way that somebody who's maybe
looking at old dressipes would instantly know what a war
cookie was based on the ingredients. Definitely, you can look
(31:43):
at the ingredients and if it has dates back to
the dried fruit dates, prunes, prune you know, think of
the prune keg, but prune dates, coconut um, sweeteners like
corn syrup would have been used, vegetable shortening, margarine used
instead of butter. Yeah, those are like tip off oats
(32:07):
that that the cookie came out of the war and
a lot of the no bake cookies that are still
popular in some families. And actually I found that some
of the no bakes or have roots in Appalachia, Uh,
that they also came out of the war effort. But
there were war cookies that were handed down generations and
(32:27):
they might be they might have oats or later peanut
butter or dates in them, and it was just sort
of a thick batter um that was sort of rolled
together and they don't go in the oven. It's interesting
you kind of sparked my brain regarding another question that
I was not thinking about, but now I am at
what point did peanut butter get introduced into cookies. Peanut
(32:50):
butter was really introduced in the nineteen thirties into cookies
as part of the school inch programs. So I think
that's a really fascinating era of our history, American history.
Because the thirties, a lot of people were out of work,
women particular needed to work and UM and families were
on hard times. So the federal government got involved and
(33:12):
created the subsidized school lunch program. Uh. Doing that, they
also started employing women in school cafeterias. Hoo became the
lunch ladies. UM. And what happens when you bring women
into the kitchen, they get creative and they started using
ingredients that were available. Maybe they were a subsidized ingredient.
(33:35):
They had a whole lot of it. What are you
gonna do with it? You're gonna make something and when
in the case of peanut butter, they turned those into
some of the first peanut butter cookie recipes. Um. Plus,
those cookies were made with special shortening. It was sort
of the fat of the times, and it was perfect
for school lunch because it was shelf stable, so they
(33:57):
could bake those. They were shelf stable, the children of
them And in that photo is on the cover of
the book because to me, that really says it all
about American cookie. I mean, we cookies are made by everybody.
Therefore everybody. They came out of creativity and hard time,
(34:18):
and they're just so unapologetic. I mean, we just love them,
oh the best. It's funny because I associate peanut butter
cookies with school lunches. But I just thought that was
because that was what my school's always served, not realizing
that was in fact where they originated. It is where
they originated. And it's so interesting now that you know
(34:41):
peanut butter cannot be served in many school lunch rims
because of allergic reactions, Like kids are allergic. Um, so
we've come kind of you know, we're not seeing it
as much. UM. I asked a similar question when we
talked about cake. Uh, so I will ask it again
in relation to cookies. What would you suggest as a
(35:01):
good cookie to start with for people who maybe want
to try a little historical baking but they're not super
experienced or not feeling terribly confident about it yet. But
you could go down different avenues. We talked about the
ginger based cookies, so you know, I would say, start
with the first recipe in the book, which is Grandma
Hartmann's molasses cookies, and see how a multigenerational family recipe
(35:23):
can be adapted in so many ways. And then with
that recipe in your head, continue reading in the book,
and you're going to see all kinds of different ginger cookies.
The same could be done for the sugar cookies. You're
gonna see some differences. I've got an old Dutch tcake
recipe in here that has a lot of flour in it,
(35:43):
and it makes a lot of cookies. Um, but it's
delicious and who would have you know such basic ingredients.
It's just delicious and so simple and pristine. Um. Then
make something like the Jackson jumbles which would have been
an eighteen thirties recipe, which was the jumble recipe from
(36:06):
the British with leavening at it and see how and
that was we were on the road to the tea
cake here, and that would have been around the time
early eighteen hundreds. It was named for Andrew Jackson because
he was a man, a president who kind of did
his own thing. And these cookies are are were revolutionary
(36:28):
at the time, so to think they were different. Who
would have thought about adding baking soda too to a
jumble recipe? And yet they're really lovely. Um So I
think I think picking a sugar cookie type cookie, an
old Dutch or an English recipe, the old jumbles, the
Jackson jumbles, and then making something like the tea cakes.
(36:51):
And I've got several tea cakes. I've got a old
fashioned teacake, Victorian ginger teacake, and and an old Edenton
the Eatenton tea party kegs, which is an old recipe
that's been made new. Yeah. I have to ask you
this Sophie's choice question. Yeah, do you have a favorite? Yeah? Oh,
(37:18):
you're gonna ask that. Um it kind of it depends,
it really depends. I'm a chocolate girl. I think I
think you know that I love chocolate. You mentioned chocolate
cake was your answer when we talked about cakes. So yeah, yeah,
I'm a chocolate girl. So so I really I love
a good chocolate chip cookie. And I'll tell you, Um,
(37:38):
the original chocolate chip cookie recipe in this book is terrific.
So that would have been the one that was made
at the Toll House and in Whipman, Massachusetts and in
the nineteen thirties, and so it was. I love that
it's Ruth Wakefield's chocolate crunch cookies because that was a
(38:00):
story where she ran out of baking cocoa and had
to subs for her chocolate cookies and had to substitute
just chopped bar chocolate and the rest is history. I
like that recipe because it's delicious. And also you can
turn the whole thing into like a cast iron skillet
and make this big, old warm chocolate chip cookies out
(38:23):
of that same recipe, So that's really good. Um. Also,
the lemon my lemon bar recipe in here, and I
call it best ever, it really is. It's the best.
It's the best one. Um. I love Katherine Hepburn's brownie
recipe that's in here. I like Emily Dickinson's rice cakes.
They're like short bread, really really nice. Mm hmm. And
(38:48):
and I think the in the macaroon recipes and the
mareau and the Forgotten cookies. Have you ever baked forgotten cookie?
I have not, but they're on my list now, Okay,
Dara m Chocolate you actually leave in the oven, and
when you leave them in the oven, they get real
chrui and good. I am so grateful for this conversation. Uh.
(39:13):
And probably you're curious about Ann's book. So American Cookie
is available now wherever books are sold. And it is
a dangerous delight. I have already bookmarked like thirty recipes.
They're gonna have to wait for me until it's a
little cooler. It is too hot to turn the oven
on right now. But you can keep up with Ant's
work at her website at and burn dot com. That's
(39:33):
a n N e b y r n dot com.
And she's on social media as at and burn again
a n N E b y r N. Many many
thanks too, and for chatting with me and sharing her
insights and knowledge. I absolutely love every time I get
to talk to her. She is just a delightful person
and even if she had nothing historical to talk about,
I would still just want to hang out and talk
(39:53):
with her. And again, I have a long list of
recipes I want to make from that book. So for
a listener, my and I thought we would also include
something that was about food. It's a short one since uh,
this interview is a little bit longer. It is from
our listener, Taylor, and Taylor writes, I love listening to
the podcast. Uh, this email is a little late. It
only hit me recently that you might like to hear
(40:15):
the story. I recently visited Scotland with some friends and
on our visit we went to the town of Poetry
on the Isle of Sky. I may be mispronouncing that.
My apologies, VAM. That's me. I ordered a fish dish
for dinner that night, and when it came, we were
all perplexed by the sauce for lack of a better word,
that was on top. It was like nothing I'd ever tasted,
and it was absolutely delicious. I asked the waitress what
(40:36):
it was and she said rare bit. She listed off
what was in it and said it was a cheese
sauce quote like in macaroni and cheese. This of course
confused US Americans because, as one of my friends put it, quote,
my cheese sauce comes dry and a packet from a box. Yes,
for international listeners, that is the said truth for many Americans. Um,
but lots of people make their own cheese sauce with
real cheese, just Taylor writes, Apart from committing the name
(40:59):
to me, Marie, we thought nothing more about it. Could
you imagine my surprise when the very first podcast I
listened to when I was back in the States was
Windsor mackay Part one. I immediately told my friends the
info you had in the podcast on rare Bit. They
were very disappointed that I did not get to listen
to it before the trip. And in case you were wondering,
I did not have any strange dreams that night. So
that is of course referring to the windsor McKay comic
(41:21):
strip Dreams of a rare Bit Fiend, which were these
fantastical stories all told on the presumption that the main
character was having crazy dreams because he couldn't stop eating
rare bit at late at night before bed. Um. So
thank you, Taylor. That sounds amazing. Uh, did you get
a recipe for that rare bit? Because I'll try it.
I'll just add it to my list after the cookies.
(41:41):
I love it. If anybody else has tried rare bit,
true rare bit, I would love to hear a story
about it when it tasted like I have had it,
but it's been a while and I always love a
good cheese story. So if you would like to send
us your cookies, or you are a rare bit or whatever, pictures, discussions, etcetera,
you can do so at History podcast at house Toks
dot com. We are also on social media as Missed
(42:02):
in the History pretty much everywhere, and we're it missed
in History dot com. If you want to check out
the archives for all of the episodes of the show
that have ever existed, including those from previous hosts. Uh,
you should absolutely come and visit us at missed in
History dot com and you can subscribe to our show
Stuff You Missed in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. For more on this
(42:30):
and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Today we
have a returning guest and one that was really popular
on the show the first time she joined us. It
(00:22):
is journalist and cookbook author and Burne, who was on
the podcast in the fall of to talk about her
book American Cake, which traces the historical roots of recipes
that have been baked here in the US since the Colonies.
She has a follow up book, We're very excited it
is American Cookie, and that takes a similar look at
the cakes more petite and casual cousins and in this
(00:43):
book and shares stories about how war, rationing, slavery, and
booming crops have all impacted the things people bake. There
are also lots and lots of fantastic historical recipes. Yeah,
we talked about it in the interview a little bit,
and we talked about it during our American Cake talk.
That she has done all of the hard work of
(01:04):
parsing out these historical recipes that did not always tell
you like what temperature to put your oven at, how
long to blend something for etcetera. And she has figured
all of that out and made it way easier for
you to make a historical recipe without having any guesswork. Nice. Yeah,
it's amazing. So I recommend that you grab your favorite
cookie or other snack for this one, because all of
(01:24):
the molasses and ginger talk certainly made me crave treats
while we were recording. Uh, And we will jump right
into my conversation with Anne Burn. So, first of all,
it's been two years since we last had you on
the show. Almost What have you been up to since
we talked last Oh, I've been researching the book American Cookie. Um.
(01:49):
Couldn't stop with cakes, Holly. I had to head to
head on into cookies. I understand they're delicious. Um. Immediately
when you told me you were doing this book, my
first question in my own head was, what if you
had to boil it down? Is the real distinction that
makes cookies different from cakes? Both like the baking part
(02:10):
and the cultural part. Yeah. Well, they're smaller for sure,
and they're you know, they're simple to produce. I mean
you just throw them together, but you know, technically, you know,
they're a different ratio cakes have the have the appropriate
ratio for them to rise of butter, sugar, flour, eggs,
and whatever levenings you want to throw in. Cookies are
(02:32):
a little higher ratio of um a fat, so they
tend to be a little crispier um. They don't and
they don't they're not heavy on levening, so they're not
going to rise that much. So sort of chemically that's
how they work. But I think on a different level,
cookies are very approachable. They're humble, they're spontaneous, and they're
(02:52):
very forgiving, which means that you can they welcome substitutions,
which is why cookie recipes survive the war years in rationing,
because people substituted out the wazoo because they used what
they had and and then they morph into new cookie
recipes that kind of become a part of, you know,
(03:13):
the way we beg today. I have not thought about that, Like,
if you substitute on a cake, you can really mess
up a cake, but a cookie will just be a
different cookie. It will and you know, most people are
not as judgmental. I think about a cookie. You just
eat it and where the cake. You know, if it
doesn't rise, it's not going to look good. And then
how are you going to get those layers all you
(03:36):
know that are not leveled to sort of level up
with frosting, and will it survive the car trip you know,
to get to your destination, whereas cookies just can pile
into anything, a plastic bag at ten, a box, anything
you actually let into a question I'm going to ask.
I was going to ask it in a bit, but
I'll do it now. So one of the things that
(03:58):
I loved about the last book was how you deconstructed
recipes um as an examination of like their regional area
and what sorts of resources were available and even cultural
things that made certain cakes popular. Is that harder with
cookies since they are inherently more portable, like they can
travel a little bit better, So I imagine recipes can
(04:18):
as well. Yeah, that's a really good point. It possibly
could be. I think also, um probably more people baked
cookies than cakes, and so if a recipe was in
say a Ladies magazine a hundred years ago, it would
be very doable for anybody in across the country. Cakes
(04:39):
have always kind of stood as more regional, Um they
stood for something that maybe were named after something that
was regional a person or a place. You had a
state cake. I think of only one state, maybe, well,
I think get back to that, have a state cookie.
So I think that cookies are yes, more transport portable
(05:04):
on different levels. Sorry, I just gave myself a pause
thinking about cookies because they're delicious. One of the things
that we talked about when I spoke with you last
was the tricky part of backwards engineering historical recipes because
they're not laid out as complete in terms of directions
as as they are now. Is does that hold true
(05:27):
for cookies as much as cakes. Yes, it does and um,
And I learned from the cake books that you know,
you can read so much into those ingredients and to
sort of open yourself to that and be mindful of
it as you start baking that old recipe. So I
was able to sort of take those those tricks and
to use them on the cookie book. For example, you know,
(05:47):
if you see lard being used, you assume it's a
rural recipe. Um. And if you see vegetable shortening being used,
you know it's after the turn of the twentieth century.
So there's just key indicates that I've learned and was
able to pick up on. But I think you know
cookies are they're funny, and that they're their ingredients are
(06:10):
are adaptable. You can change and you can substitute, um.
But you look at an old recipe and you still
have to kind of scratch your head. There was there
was one recipe called aunt Ida's wine drops, and I
found it scribbled in handwriting in the back of an
old book, which was a digitized copy at the West
Virginia Library, and I kept looking for the wine. There's
(06:35):
a wine and Ida would make them to serve with
wine because and that it is with an old recipe,
it's what happens. You're given the ingredients and then you've
got a lot of um thinking. You've got to think
through and finish the story. And I know you often
do many, many, many passes at a recipe before you
(06:58):
feel like you have have the yard it out and
nailed it. When you're trying to recreate historical ones, was
there one that was the hardest to replicate for you? Yes,
probably those something similar to the wine drops, which are
called rocks. Literally they are called rocks, and they're very
appatizing right the people. You know, people didn't this is
(07:19):
a good examp. People didn't go to a lot of
trouble to name a cookie recipe like they did a
k craftip. They just call it a rock because it
looked like a rock. It was just had a lot
of chopped nuts and dried fruit in it, and it
probably had weighed too much flour, and it was blobbed
on and dropped onto the baking sheet and it looked
like a rock. And when it baked, it really didn't
move a whole lot, and it baked up like a rock.
(07:41):
So I think making those and I knew that they
were important part of the cookie story in America for
lots of different reasons, and so I wanted the rocks
to taste good. So I took a lot of attempts
at the rocks. That's one example. There were many others. Yeah, uh.
And you also include did some items in this book
(08:02):
that I might not normally consider a cookie, like peanut
brittle is in there, and saw taffe is in there?
How did you decide which ones you were comfortable putting
under the umbrella of your book being named for cookies,
versus which which were too much of a candy for
you to exclude? Well, the full story is that initially
(08:22):
this book started out to be UM named American Bites,
and it would be all these sweet paste and bites
of America, and that was the working title. And as
I got into it, the majority of these were cookies.
But then there was that little ten percent that were
not cookies. They were the Dutch only cookes, the doughnuts,
(08:46):
the first seannuts, and they wore peanut brittle and so
essentially they were fried things and they were candy, and
I thought, gosh, you know, these are too important to
like exclude, UM, so I sort of snuffed them in
at the back of the book. Um, it's sort of
it's a bonus chapter and so if And what I
(09:07):
love about those combining those types of recipes in one
chapter is that they both involve fearlessness, because I think
to fry and to candy, you have to be somewhat fearless,
and you you have to steal up and you have
to make it, and you need that you know, the
thermometer to tell you if the oil is hot enough
(09:31):
or as the sugar mixture has gotten to the right
point to take it off the stove. In making candy,
I just didn't want to exclude them. So no, you're right,
they're not cookies, but they're there in the book as
a bonus. Now, do you think or did your research
indicate that those kinds of confections that maybe aren't cookies
(09:51):
still had influence over you know, maybe cookie making or
even cake making or other parts of American cuisine. M question.
I don't know if they had influence, but they definitely
have an important part in American cuisine because they typically
were made for income, and they were made by people
who needed to make rent that month. To think about
(10:14):
New Orleans, think about the street vendors, a woman who
may be supporting a number of children, and how did
she make money. She made aignas our collums, you know,
made out of rice, and would fry them and put
them in a basket and bring them warm to get
to the cathedral when mass was letting out and people
(10:36):
were hungry after fasting, and they bought her wares. So
it was income. And the same was true in New
Orleans for making proddlings. And it's so I think they
were too important of a street food for me to
leave them out of the book. And so that's why
they're there. Maybe they'll evolve into something else, because I
(10:56):
think it's really important, not only because of the method
it's that you need to make candy and fry things,
but because look at the people who needed to make
them and who knew how to make them. That's pretty amazing.
It's interesting that you mentioned, you know, it's people that
needed to be able to get an income, because that,
to me would be what would bridge the gap of
(11:18):
being brave enough to deal with hot molten sugar, which
to me is one of the most terrifying substances alive. Ye. Yes,
you're exactly right, and that is a really good point.
And not only they had to do it, they had
to do it, and they could do it, and they
other people did not know how to do it, and
(11:38):
yet those confections were delicious, so there was a market
for them. I feel like we absolutely we talked about
it last time a little bit, but now in a
different light, we have to talk about gingerbread. Back to gingerbread,
yea well, because one it's delicious, but too we talked about,
you know, gingerbread in cake form when you included in
(12:00):
American cake, and of course gingerbread has to make an
appearance in an American cookies book. Um, I'm curious what
were the factors that contributed to it taking those two
separate forms, like what might lead someone down the cookie
path versus the cake path as they developed something. Well,
probably originally they were the same form. And if you
(12:21):
look back at the core ingredients of gingerbread, it's some
sort of flower, some sort of sweetener which originally would
have been British treacle, which then became American American made molasses,
and then you have your your if you use leavening.
It back in the old recipes it was very crude
(12:41):
and very bitter pearl ash potash, so you had to
mask that bitter flavor with spices. And that's why pearl
ash and potash worked so well in gingerbread recipes because
they could be masked spices, and then you would have
some kind of rea. You need some sort of acidic
ingredient in there to react with that. That base that
(13:05):
neutral um pear lash, potash leavening, and so that could
have been molasses which is acidic um and also butter
milk so or or clavered milk from the farm, so
you had an acidic ingredient you so you had leavening
you had rise, so I don't I think gingerbread and
and and really, in my research found that gingerbread was
(13:26):
just gingerbread. The Dutch were the ones who gave us
the mindset of a cookie, and the British brought over
the jumbles in the form of what we know is
sugar cookies. So the crispness of a cookie became sort
of to distinguish itself from gingerbread. Gingerbread was made in
(13:47):
very hardy, almost bread like by you know in New Orleans,
the stage planks they're called. They would sell those down
at the dot at the port, and people would put
people would put rum gingerbread and turn them into cookies
called Joe Froggers. And there were gingerbread recipes from all
different kinds of regions and backgrounds. Um And you look
(14:10):
at the basis for so many spice cookies and it's centrally,
really it's the gingerbread. The gingerbread cookie. It doesn't have
white sugar versus molasses or did it would have become
a depression cookie like a cray baby and use corn
syrup because sugar was rationed. So the most basic American
cake and probably the most basic American cookie us the
(14:32):
Genterman So Tracy, one of my friends gifted me with
a bottle of chocolate rum a while back, Um, and
I have not used much of it because I'm not
much of a rum drinker. But now I one want
to use it in a batch of Joe Froggers. That
sounds like a great plan and is actually going to
talk a little bit more about gingerbread in just a moment,
and she gives a little tip on making gingerbread suitable
(14:54):
for building houses. First, we're going to pause though for
a quick sponsor break one. I wanted to ask you
were there any evolutions of the gingerbread cookie, since you
mentioned that it took many different forms, and you know
spice cookies are also very much of that same origin point,
(15:16):
Were there any of the evolutionary developments in it that
surprised you? Did you ever stumble across the recipe and
go that is interesting? Um? Probably the Joe Frogger's recipe,
And that is a New England recipe. It's old, you know,
it has rumen and and it's got all these kind
of folk stories on did it start at this tavern?
And did they put rum in it? Because it was
(15:37):
the tavern and they had rum available, which is yes um.
I think that that was that was such a good story.
That recipe was really hard in the kitchen to get
it to work because it had so much rummen and
it kept spreading out on the pan. And they do
make really big cookies, but boy, the next day they're
(15:57):
so delicious. That rum really keeps of the cookie moist um.
And there are a lot of there are a lot
of fun I think in modern day baking we just
don't see as many gingerbread cookies as we used to.
The very first recipe in the book is one of
my favorites and it is a family recipe that was
(16:18):
shared with me, and it is a recipe that is
still baked today. And it's example how a gingerbread cookie
has um has evolved through the years and through different generations.
And it's Grandma Hartman's molasses cookies. It is a gingerbread
and Grandma Hartman might have used was was was amish,
(16:39):
and they may have used lard in it at one
point special occasions. Um they might have used butter, but
they began to use vegetable shortenings as the next generation
came about and then this, this young woman who shared
the recipe with me, doesn't want to make them with
vegetable shortening anymore, and she makes them with better So
(17:01):
it's a great example how a basic gingerbread cookie has
kind of has lasted in a family. Great story. It
is interesting. I think you mentioned that gingerbread cookies aren't
made as much anymore, and I think there's this weird
fear of them, like people have the perception that they're
very hard to make and that they don't turn out
well very often. But there I've been him a few times.
(17:22):
I'm not a pro, but I can usually get a
cookie to come out of it. Yeah, are you talking
about like a drop cookie? Are you talking like a
molded like a cut cookie? I mean, I've done both.
What usually ends up happening is that I try to
do a molded cookie, and then I know those may
break coming out of the mold, So I also just
make some flat ones nearby and let those bake, just
(17:43):
because I also want to munch on them while I
build the house. That's true, Well, okay building the house
there you go to to build a house out of gingerbread,
That gingerbread has to be pretty sturdy, and to be sturdy,
it has to have a good bit of flour in it,
which is how the the original ginger Brea cookies, that's
how they were made. They had a lot of flour
in them. And the reason for that is that people
(18:05):
there was no refrigeration, so you know, people were adding
flour to a cookie dough and to make it workable
and to roll it out. You couldn't chill a dough.
You couldn't let it rest in the fridge overnight. Um,
you couldn't, you know, put it cold on the counter
and start sort of gradually working it. No, it was
(18:25):
just sticky. And you think about making those in the
summertime or it was no air conditioning, no refrigeration, so
what did you do? You kept adding flour to it
to make it workable. I mean, my grandmother made cookies
this way and I remember and I remember her cookies
were delicious, but they were dry, and it was because
she used more flour than we would use today and
(18:47):
we can get away with less flour because of refrigeration.
I also want to go back a little bit. You
mentioned the British culture bringing this sugar cookie over um,
and to me, the like a sugar cookie is so
ubiquitous it seems like kind of your standard. If someone
said I want a cookie and they gave you no specifics,
(19:10):
you'd probably go a sugar cookie to be safe. Is
that one that has multiple different starting points or is
it pretty a pretty clear path? And I think it's
the original ones were pretty pretty basic. You had flour
and white sugar and butter, and if you had any
flavoring at all, and and maybe an egg. Probably the
(19:30):
sugar cookies, most all of them did early have an egg,
but some recipes, the Dutch recipes, do not have eggs
in them, and so the egg will make it snap,
egg keeps it snappier, for a lack of a better word,
and the egg without an egg it's snappier. With an egg,
it makes it sort of brown better and cakier. And
(19:53):
then you would have had them flavored with lemon or
lavender or crushed coriander sees caraway foods. Those would have
been the early flavoring for something like a sugar cookie.
So I think there was a basis, but then it
just exploded because depending on again where you lived, what
(20:17):
you used, um what was available at the time, and
then did you start using did you start adding uh,
levening to it? And Levening changed the texture of the
original jumble the English sugar cookie into what we know
today as a teacake. Um, so did you also mentioned
(20:40):
Dutch sugar cookies. Is there a clear origin point of
where sugar cookie started since they are so basic? I
think that I don't. I bet they were being made.
I don't have that particular answer, but my my educated
guest is that they were being made long ago in
both England and Germany as when also in the Netherlands.
(21:05):
Any place where people were there was baking, where there
were those basic ingredients, which was just flour and sugar
and eggs and butter, you would have had what you
needed to make a sugar cookie. And ironically, sugar cookies
have remained the American favorite because the ingredients are so basic,
(21:28):
but at times through our history were rationed or were unavailable.
And if um, a lot of what I read said that,
you know, people may have they got through periods with
a sugar cookie, or they ate oatmeal cookies, you know,
because you were supposed to save the wheat for the
troops and baked with oaths. But when it comes down
to it if they had their pick. Their favorite cookie
(21:52):
is a sugar cookie because it's delicious, sasic and delicious
yet it And I've got several really good recipes in
the book because an Irene sugar cookie is terrific, as
is the first Girl Scout cookie is a great little recipe.
Oh good to know. Oh, there's so much speaking in
(22:12):
my future. Um. Since the United States is such a
melting pot, has it developed its own sort of cookie
identity as a whole apart from those of other countries
or does it remain kind of a globally influenced landscape
for lack of a better word. That's interesting. UM, I
(22:35):
would say that Americans are known throughout the world as
being good cookie baker, and cookies have definitely been a
part of our food ways and our story throughout history.
We do it well, and we do a like because
of the melting pot. We do an array of cookies,
(22:55):
from gingerbread too and is flavored, the Cheetahs from New
Mexico to chocolate Chip, the revered Chocolate Chip, to the
sugar cookies like you mentioned, to marangue cookies macarin. They
are so variable and because we are a melting pot,
and so many different cultures came here and brought their
(23:17):
traditions and the Navian pepper nuts. We have this vast
cookie jar and it's just it's very exciting. It was
fun to research. Coming up. We actually still have a
whole lot more from an including a recipe that traveled
to the US through the slave trade, and we'll talk
about how the combination of an overabundant crop and World
(23:37):
War One led to some innovations in baking with bananas. First,
we're going to hear from another sponsor that keeps the
show going. One of the things that I love that
you included was recipes and discussion of cookies that traveled
(23:57):
to the US from Africa via the slave trade. Will
you talk a little bit about those, Yes, well you
talk about the benny the Bennie seeds. Anyway, first, yes,
I think you know, looking at old recipes you have,
you the first step is to look at the ingredients
because you're not going to get a method. And so
it was very, um, very important for me to include
(24:21):
recipes in here that were ingredient driven, and if you
looked at them, you said, well that recipe came from
a specific area but those Benny you know, the Benny
seeds are critical to making that cookie. You can make
them with sesame seeds, but they're much better if you
order the Benny seeds. And now, and they originally did
come from Africa with the slave trade, but you can
(24:45):
find the Bennie seeds and local markets today in South Carolina.
You can mail order them if you want to and something.
And I have actually have friends in Charleston who grow
the benny plants in their backyard. But they had their
smaller than a sessome seed and they have but they
have that kind of nutty flavor and they're really just
(25:08):
I think they're just lovely. And the whole idea of
somebody putting seeds in their pockets, Polly and traveling and
bringing those seeds here and planting that of seeds and
the slaves did that, and they planted those seeds and
you know, to produce a plant um that was originally
(25:28):
um cultivated for oil for salad oil. How common is
the origin of something like that obscured like was It
hasn't always been known that those basically those Benny seeds
came over in the pockets of people who had been
taken for slavery or did it take a little while
to figure out that that was really what started this?
(25:51):
I think probably it took a while to figure out,
but I think it's known that they were always linked
to um, to the cooks and the slaves of the
low country. Those were the cooks who were industrious, and
just like in researching American cake, I found that, you know,
those recipes that take a little bit of care and
(26:12):
take a little bit of time, and if they come
from the Deep South, they were most often made by
the the help by the enslaved people, and cookies are
a little bit more um easier to prepare. Let's say that,
um much easier than say making the seven minute frosting
(26:33):
or for creating a pound cake, actually eating a poundcake
a hand without a kitchen aide, cracking a coconut and
and shredding it. Um that you know, baking cakes in
America was a was a task, was a physical task.
Cookies not as much so, but they still have a story.
(26:55):
So one of my very favorite cookies is the oatmeal cookie,
which you mentioned has an interesting history of its own.
Were you talking about that a little bit? Yes, I
love oatmeal cookies. Too. You know, oatmeal has been popular
in baking for oh gosh, a hundred and fifty years
or more, but it became more of a common ingredient
(27:17):
um when when flour was rationed for War War One.
So that's when cooks were we're encouraged to add more
oats to their bread recipes and their cookie recipes kind
of harder with a cake. Um, and it became oatmeal
cookies became very patriotic. They became a wheat saving recipe
(27:38):
in America. So Quaker just of course picked up on that.
The oatmeal cookies that we associate with Quaker is the
vanishing oatmeal cookie. I think it's been on the side
of the canister since about nineteen thirty nine. Um, they
took a while. The first recipe with oatmeal was an
oat cake, probably not as pop piller. The oatmeal cookie
(28:02):
has left it a lot longer. Yeah, we're not really
eat seeing much oatcake in bakeries today, not oat cakes. Yeah.
So I will confess to you that in my love
of oatmeal cookies, what I hate is an oatmeal raisin
cookie because I don't like fruit added to my stuff. Um.
But there's a good reason for it. Will you talk
(28:23):
about that a little bit. Yes, dried fruit pops up
in so many cookie recipes, and you wonder did they
did they just use more dried fruit in throughout history,
And the answer is yes they did. Um it was available,
people used and got accustomed to drive fruit because of
sugar rationing, so more when sugar was not available to
(28:44):
go in cookies, these industrious cooks would turn to raisins
or dates um and use them, oftentimes coconut um, just
anything that would have been sweet or was used in
place of sugar. Also, and they found that the more
dried fruits or dried nuts, so you lived in an
area where black walnuts trees or in your backyard, the
(29:05):
more black walnuts that you added to the to the dough,
the further the dough would go, and the more cookies
you can make. That gets back to the rock rock
cookies that earlier. And just like in fruit cakes that
are that same genre, the more dried fruit you put
in a cookie, they're more moist it is and it
keeps longer. So without UH, without refrigeration or or even
(29:31):
the having a freeze, or people could store UH cookies
that had oatmeal. Raisin cookies would keep longer and taste
more moist and retain moisture than just a plain ol
oatmeal cook. Now there is a fruit based recipe in
your book that to me is really fascinating because it
(29:51):
has a connection to Hawaii. And will you talk about
how that came about. Yes, it's a banana drop cookie.
And I was just uncovered this the story, um, when
I was researching We War one recipes that in uh
about nine in Hawaii there was just a huge banana crop,
(30:14):
just a boom. But as the US had entered World
War One, the transport ships were not available to take
these big harvest of bananas to the mainland. So the
bananas were sitting, and they were sitting. And so there's
a great story about how the Agricultural um Experiment station
there got on board. The wife of actually the director
(30:38):
got in the kitchen and started trying to create everything
she could with bananas. They even asked Hawaiians to eat
a banana a day instead of a slice of bread.
That back to the patriotic that it was more patriotic
to eat a banana than it would be saved the
bread for the troops. Um, that all change, you know,
(31:00):
refrigerated transport ships. Um, we're really had had turned the
whole banana industry around all over the world and actually
helped the meat industry as well because they came about
in the nine so refrigerated transport was available these steamships. Ah,
(31:21):
but when we went into World War One, these ships
were needed for the war. And you kind of lead
into another question, which is that you talk a lot
about the distinction of a war cookie versus other cookies. Um,
is there like a shorthand way that somebody who's maybe
looking at old dressipes would instantly know what a war
cookie was based on the ingredients. Definitely, you can look
(31:43):
at the ingredients and if it has dates back to
the dried fruit dates, prunes, prune you know, think of
the prune keg, but prune dates, coconut um, sweeteners like
corn syrup would have been used, vegetable shortening, margarine used
instead of butter. Yeah, those are like tip off oats
(32:07):
that that the cookie came out of the war and
a lot of the no bake cookies that are still
popular in some families. And actually I found that some
of the no bakes or have roots in Appalachia, Uh,
that they also came out of the war effort. But
there were war cookies that were handed down generations and
(32:27):
they might be they might have oats or later peanut
butter or dates in them, and it was just sort
of a thick batter um that was sort of rolled
together and they don't go in the oven. It's interesting
you kind of sparked my brain regarding another question that
I was not thinking about, but now I am at
what point did peanut butter get introduced into cookies. Peanut
(32:50):
butter was really introduced in the nineteen thirties into cookies
as part of the school inch programs. So I think
that's a really fascinating era of our history, American history.
Because the thirties, a lot of people were out of work,
women particular needed to work and UM and families were
on hard times. So the federal government got involved and
(33:12):
created the subsidized school lunch program. Uh. Doing that, they
also started employing women in school cafeterias. Hoo became the
lunch ladies. UM. And what happens when you bring women
into the kitchen, they get creative and they started using
ingredients that were available. Maybe they were a subsidized ingredient.
(33:35):
They had a whole lot of it. What are you
gonna do with it? You're gonna make something and when
in the case of peanut butter, they turned those into
some of the first peanut butter cookie recipes. Um. Plus,
those cookies were made with special shortening. It was sort
of the fat of the times, and it was perfect
for school lunch because it was shelf stable, so they
(33:57):
could bake those. They were shelf stable, the children of
them And in that photo is on the cover of
the book because to me, that really says it all
about American cookie. I mean, we cookies are made by everybody.
Therefore everybody. They came out of creativity and hard time,
(34:18):
and they're just so unapologetic. I mean, we just love them,
oh the best. It's funny because I associate peanut butter
cookies with school lunches. But I just thought that was
because that was what my school's always served, not realizing
that was in fact where they originated. It is where
they originated. And it's so interesting now that you know
(34:41):
peanut butter cannot be served in many school lunch rims
because of allergic reactions, Like kids are allergic. Um, so
we've come kind of you know, we're not seeing it
as much. UM. I asked a similar question when we
talked about cake. Uh, so I will ask it again
in relation to cookies. What would you suggest as a
(35:01):
good cookie to start with for people who maybe want
to try a little historical baking but they're not super
experienced or not feeling terribly confident about it yet. But
you could go down different avenues. We talked about the
ginger based cookies, so you know, I would say, start
with the first recipe in the book, which is Grandma
Hartmann's molasses cookies, and see how a multigenerational family recipe
(35:23):
can be adapted in so many ways. And then with
that recipe in your head, continue reading in the book,
and you're going to see all kinds of different ginger cookies.
The same could be done for the sugar cookies. You're
gonna see some differences. I've got an old Dutch tcake
recipe in here that has a lot of flour in it,
(35:43):
and it makes a lot of cookies. Um, but it's
delicious and who would have you know such basic ingredients.
It's just delicious and so simple and pristine. Um. Then
make something like the Jackson jumbles which would have been
an eighteen thirties recipe, which was the jumble recipe from
(36:06):
the British with leavening at it and see how and
that was we were on the road to the tea
cake here, and that would have been around the time
early eighteen hundreds. It was named for Andrew Jackson because
he was a man, a president who kind of did
his own thing. And these cookies are are were revolutionary
(36:28):
at the time, so to think they were different. Who
would have thought about adding baking soda too to a
jumble recipe? And yet they're really lovely. Um So I
think I think picking a sugar cookie type cookie, an
old Dutch or an English recipe, the old jumbles, the
Jackson jumbles, and then making something like the tea cakes.
(36:51):
And I've got several tea cakes. I've got a old
fashioned teacake, Victorian ginger teacake, and and an old Edenton
the Eatenton tea party kegs, which is an old recipe
that's been made new. Yeah. I have to ask you
this Sophie's choice question. Yeah, do you have a favorite? Yeah? Oh,
(37:18):
you're gonna ask that. Um it kind of it depends,
it really depends. I'm a chocolate girl. I think I
think you know that I love chocolate. You mentioned chocolate
cake was your answer when we talked about cakes. So yeah, yeah,
I'm a chocolate girl. So so I really I love
a good chocolate chip cookie. And I'll tell you, Um,
(37:38):
the original chocolate chip cookie recipe in this book is terrific.
So that would have been the one that was made
at the Toll House and in Whipman, Massachusetts and in
the nineteen thirties, and so it was. I love that
it's Ruth Wakefield's chocolate crunch cookies because that was a
(38:00):
story where she ran out of baking cocoa and had
to subs for her chocolate cookies and had to substitute
just chopped bar chocolate and the rest is history. I
like that recipe because it's delicious. And also you can
turn the whole thing into like a cast iron skillet
and make this big, old warm chocolate chip cookies out
(38:23):
of that same recipe, So that's really good. Um. Also,
the lemon my lemon bar recipe in here, and I
call it best ever, it really is. It's the best.
It's the best one. Um. I love Katherine Hepburn's brownie
recipe that's in here. I like Emily Dickinson's rice cakes.
They're like short bread, really really nice. Mm hmm. And
(38:48):
and I think the in the macaroon recipes and the
mareau and the Forgotten cookies. Have you ever baked forgotten cookie?
I have not, but they're on my list now, Okay,
Dara m Chocolate you actually leave in the oven, and
when you leave them in the oven, they get real
chrui and good. I am so grateful for this conversation. Uh.
(39:13):
And probably you're curious about Ann's book. So American Cookie
is available now wherever books are sold. And it is
a dangerous delight. I have already bookmarked like thirty recipes.
They're gonna have to wait for me until it's a
little cooler. It is too hot to turn the oven
on right now. But you can keep up with Ant's
work at her website at and burn dot com. That's
(39:33):
a n N e b y r n dot com.
And she's on social media as at and burn again
a n N E b y r N. Many many
thanks too, and for chatting with me and sharing her
insights and knowledge. I absolutely love every time I get
to talk to her. She is just a delightful person
and even if she had nothing historical to talk about,
I would still just want to hang out and talk
(39:53):
with her. And again, I have a long list of
recipes I want to make from that book. So for
a listener, my and I thought we would also include
something that was about food. It's a short one since uh,
this interview is a little bit longer. It is from
our listener, Taylor, and Taylor writes, I love listening to
the podcast. Uh, this email is a little late. It
only hit me recently that you might like to hear
(40:15):
the story. I recently visited Scotland with some friends and
on our visit we went to the town of Poetry
on the Isle of Sky. I may be mispronouncing that.
My apologies, VAM. That's me. I ordered a fish dish
for dinner that night, and when it came, we were
all perplexed by the sauce for lack of a better word,
that was on top. It was like nothing I'd ever tasted,
and it was absolutely delicious. I asked the waitress what
(40:36):
it was and she said rare bit. She listed off
what was in it and said it was a cheese
sauce quote like in macaroni and cheese. This of course
confused US Americans because, as one of my friends put it, quote,
my cheese sauce comes dry and a packet from a box. Yes,
for international listeners, that is the said truth for many Americans. Um,
but lots of people make their own cheese sauce with
real cheese, just Taylor writes, Apart from committing the name
(40:59):
to me, Marie, we thought nothing more about it. Could
you imagine my surprise when the very first podcast I
listened to when I was back in the States was
Windsor mackay Part one. I immediately told my friends the
info you had in the podcast on rare Bit. They
were very disappointed that I did not get to listen
to it before the trip. And in case you were wondering,
I did not have any strange dreams that night. So
that is of course referring to the windsor McKay comic
(41:21):
strip Dreams of a rare Bit Fiend, which were these
fantastical stories all told on the presumption that the main
character was having crazy dreams because he couldn't stop eating
rare bit at late at night before bed. Um. So
thank you, Taylor. That sounds amazing. Uh, did you get
a recipe for that rare bit? Because I'll try it.
I'll just add it to my list after the cookies.
(41:41):
I love it. If anybody else has tried rare bit,
true rare bit, I would love to hear a story
about it when it tasted like I have had it,
but it's been a while and I always love a
good cheese story. So if you would like to send
us your cookies, or you are a rare bit or whatever, pictures, discussions, etcetera,
you can do so at History podcast at house Toks
dot com. We are also on social media as Missed
(42:02):
in the History pretty much everywhere, and we're it missed
in History dot com. If you want to check out
the archives for all of the episodes of the show
that have ever existed, including those from previous hosts. Uh,
you should absolutely come and visit us at missed in
History dot com and you can subscribe to our show
Stuff You Missed in History Class on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. For more on this
(42:30):
and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
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