Celebrating National Homemade Cookie Day
- Ayushmaan Mishra
- Oct 1
- 2 min read
We've all eaten a cookie at least once in or lifetime. Chocolate chip, sugar, snickerdoodle...the flavors are endless! But how was the cookie first made?
Cookies first emerged in 7th century Persia (now Iran), when sugar became more accessible to the people. After the Muslim invasion in Spain and the Crusades, the cooking and baking traditions trickled into Europe. There were various English cookbooks made around this time, such as Goode Huswife's Jewel by Thomas Dawson and The English Hus-wife by Gervase Markham that describe how to bake cookies (similar to how we have modern day cookbooks and recipe blogs). During the 17th century, baking was a profession that was carefully practiced and not done by many people. After the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, the range of sweet treats became more widespread as the use of technology increased.
However, within these places and timelines, the cookie itself had undergone many changes. After it became more and more popular in Europe, these biscuits (from the Latin word bis coctus meaning twice baked) were used by voyagers who had to travel long distances, as they were hard and dry cookies. Later, during the Renaissance, as more trade routes emerged and more and more spices, nuts and dried fruits were obtained, more and more traditional European cookies developed, such as the Italian biscotti, Dutch stroopwafel and French macarons. The known and loved classic chocolate chip cookie was created by Ruth Wakefield accidentally, when she ran out of Baker's Chocolate and tried substituting normal, broken chunks of chocolate, and when she expected it to melt, it retained its shape!
So now that you know the history of the cookie, from emerging when sugar was first discovered, to one cookie being accidentally developed, maybe you'll try baking some of your own! Who knows, you could accidentally come up with a new flavor or type yourself?
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