WEBVTT - Cookies! Cookies! Cookies! 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.840 Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.640 and there's Charles W Chuck Bryant over there, and this 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.400 is Stuff you should Know. The Delicia Dish, the Delicia Dish. 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:23.759 If you hear my dog's barking, I'm sorry, they will 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:27.639 not shut up. I really don't hear them. Well, I 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:31.040 can't see them either. I no, I canna hear them always. 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:36.320 You're very barky. That's the shell tea and them. Yeah, 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.720 we we house at our friend's dog, you know, Scotty. 0:00:39.800 --> 0:00:44.960 Scotty's dog, Benny, came over for two weeks. Friend. Uh, 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.599 you know Benny. They kind of just coexist. We kind 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:51.960 of joked that he didn't know how to be a dog, 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:53.320 but he learned how to be a dog while he 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:56.200 was here a little bit being around our guys for 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.440 two weeks. But Scotty got married, by the way, So 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.639 congratulations Scotty and little it's congratulations Goddie. I gotta send 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:05.360 him like an ice cream maker or something. And I 0:01:05.400 --> 0:01:08.440 got to aficiate my first wedding, which was fun. What 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.319 is going on? Yeah, it was really really enjoyed it 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.160 quite an honor. So that explains why you went through Catechism, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.680 that's right. Yeah, so they got married, went on their 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.000 honeymoon for two weeks. We had Benny, but I don't 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:24.800 know why I started with that. Oh, Benny doesn't bark, 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:26.840 because Benny does know how to be a dog. But 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:28.800 he learned how to bark while he was here. Man, 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.280 that's not something you want your dog to learn, because 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.080 I have the barking his dogs of all time. He said, Oh, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.120 that's that's that. Okay, I've heard of that before. That's fascinating. 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:43.399 Let me try. But there's nothing to do with cookies. No, 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.080 but everything henceforth in this episode we'll have to do 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.360 with cookies. Yeah, and I'm baking cookies tonight, by the way, 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:52.840 thank you. I yes. Restarting researching this, I was like, 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.880 I'm baking cookies too. And I want to give a 0:01:55.000 --> 0:02:00.160 huge shout out to uh Sally's baking addiction. Who is 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:04.440 brown butter chocolate chip cookie recipe is hands down the 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:07.880 finest example of a chocolate chip cookie I've ever encountered 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:14.240 in my life. Yes, I mean, like days later, still chewy, 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.520 amazing stuff and it's worth the little extra effort and 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.960 making brown butter just totally worth it. I can't overstate 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.280 how good that recipe is, so you're not one of 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:27.320 those weirdos. It likes a good crisp chocolate chip cookie. 0:02:28.160 --> 0:02:30.280 It's a little bit crisp beyond the edges, a little 0:02:30.280 --> 0:02:32.880 bit chewy in the middle. It's it's a balance of everything. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.399 But I can go either way. It's pretty. It's got 0:02:36.400 --> 0:02:39.880 to be like a pretty lousy chocolate chip cookie for 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:42.200 me to not want it. You know, Yeah, I'll take 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:44.600 a crispy one. But boy, that the fresh out of 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:47.720 the oven kind that like folds down like a hot 0:02:47.720 --> 0:02:50.079 slice of New York pizza. Yes, dude, I actually went 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:54.320 and purchased actual cow's milk to drink with while I 0:02:54.520 --> 0:03:00.320 ate these cookies. They were it was that special whole milk. Yeah, okay, Yeah, 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:02.760 there were like chunks of fat just knocking around at 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.200 the top of the milk bottle. Uh. There's We're gonna 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:08.760 talk a lot about the cookies we like and don't 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:11.639 like in here, and what makes certain cookies great, of course, 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.880 but I guess we should just go a little bit 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.119 with the history and that the fact that a cookie 0:03:19.000 --> 0:03:22.640 is you know, it's sort of like a cake, but 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:25.520 the ratio of ingredients is different, and that with a 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:29.400 cake you end up with what's called batter, and with 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:31.920 cookie you end up with what's called dough because of 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.920 the ratio of your ingredients. Yeah, and also sometimes the 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:39.680 ingredients themselves can differ. But if there's any other baked 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:43.160 good that a cookie resembles most closely, it's probably a cake. 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.640 In fact, I think the Cambridge and Collins dictionaries both 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.480 defined cookies as sweet usually round, flat cakes, which it 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:54.520 seems sensible, but when you really dig into it, you're like, 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:58.920 this actually doesn't fully hold up. Yeah, the cookies a cookie, Yeah, 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:01.080 because the cake, if you want to get you know, 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:04.480 jiggy with it. A cookie um is its own thing. 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:06.720 You hold a cookie with you eat it with your hand. 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:09.440 It's a self contained thing. A cookie is just one cookie, 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.080 and you can eat multiple cookies. But a cake is 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.920 like one big unit that you cut into subunits called 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.200 slices and usually eat it with a fork. So a 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.479 cookie is not a cake, and don't call it that 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.720 ever again, right unless it's a cupcake also not even 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:27.080 close to a cookie, that's right. But you do eat 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.000 that with your hand, which kind of under undermines that 0:04:30.040 --> 0:04:32.120 whole idea that a cookie is just a dessert you 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.400 eat with your hand. It's a handcake, I guess. So, 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.040 but isn't that really a cupcake not a cookie? Well, no, 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.520 that's what I'm saying. A cupcake is a handcake. Oh okay, gotcha. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.480 Well then we're on the same page. Finally, it's also 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.560 not a bread, even though you might hear gingerbread or 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.039 short bread bread as we know, and you know, cookies 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.160 kind of come from all of this tradition of of 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:54.640 bread baking and biscuit making and stuff like that in 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.880 a way, but gingerbreads and shortbreads they don't have leavening 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.680 agents like bread does. They're not gonna rise like a 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.920 bread is supposed to rise. And uh flour bread flour 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:10.360 has got usually more gluten going on in it. Yeah. 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:12.719 I mean like if you look at um cookie dough 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:14.440 and then you look at bread dough, it's it's like 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.520 two totally different things. Yeah, two different things. So not 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.160 really a bread, not really cake. So you might say 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.039 a pastry, it's a pastry. No wrong again, because pastries 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:27.599 at their base usually have some sort of flower of 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:30.880 some sort of fat and the water and it didn't 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:34.440 see water. Yeah. I looked up a bunch of pastry recipes, 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.800 Croissants and Danish is water. I didn't see water in 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.279 any of them, but water in all of them. None 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.760 of them had water. It's it's implied in the recipe. 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:47.240 Just work with okay, all right. It's so universally known 0:05:47.279 --> 0:05:50.400 that you pull water in in pastries that you they 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.920 don't even include it in the recipe. The one recipe 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:55.000 I did say that I saw this headwater was a 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.119 bear claw. Really yeah, like a bear claw croissant doesn't 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:03.240 have water and not the recipes. That's really interesting. So 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.080 a lot of people do say cookies are a type 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.840 of pastry. I've seen elsewhere that that's not the case. No, 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:10.880 it's a cookie. So I came up with a definition 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.840 of cookies, if I may share it myself, A cookie 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.919 is quote. I'm quoting myself here, so I don't know 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:21.400 if it's right to actually say quote, but usually small, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.200 off and round, usually flat, handheld dessert consisting of at 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:31.960 least flour, a fat like oil or butter, and sugar. That, friends, 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.920 is probably the greatest definition of cookie anyone's ever put 0:06:36.000 --> 0:06:38.960 to paper, the only issue I would take is usually round, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.080 because I've seen a lot of chipped cookies. But but 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:45.680 that's why I said, usually, okay, what would you say, 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:48.680 sometimes round? Frequently round? I might bump that up to 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.599 often I said off and round? I thought you said 0:06:51.680 --> 0:06:58.239 usually no, usually small, off and round, usually flat. Okay, alright, boy, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.720 I like it. Okay, So we've got the definition of cookies, 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.640 and I appreciate you indulge in me because I really 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.240 did kind of wade through a lot of the Internet 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:11.400 to put that together. But there was something in there 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.360 that's really important too, which is sugar. And you think, well, yeah, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:17.280 of course sugar cookies are sweet. Well, there's other things 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:20.720 you can sweeten cookies with besides sugar, Like you got 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.000 molasses cookies, you've got honey cookies. Um, there's a lot 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:26.120 of different cookies you can you can make, but if 0:07:26.160 --> 0:07:28.640 you dig into those recipes, you're gonna find they still 0:07:28.720 --> 0:07:33.120 use sugar. And sugar is an extremely important um ingredient. 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:35.760 As we'll see a lot of people say basically, cookies 0:07:35.760 --> 0:07:40.120 didn't exist until sugar came along. Yeah, depending on where 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:41.680 you are in the world, they're going to call them 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.760 different things. If you watch ted Lasso, you're gonna know 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.160 they call them biscuits in England, uh and also Australia. 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:54.040 In Spain there gelattas. The Germans call them kicks. I 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:55.920 don't know what that Christmas cookie. Don't even how to 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.160 pronounce that you took German? You don't know. I was 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.480 gonna ask you. I don't know. Man, that's five consonants 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:07.760 just to start the award. Please chin t l z H. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.600 I would say it's probably like petch gin or something. Okay, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.160 but again, no vowels in the beginning of that and 0:08:14.280 --> 0:08:18.200 most of that word. Yes, what about Italy? Oh you're 0:08:18.200 --> 0:08:21.200 talking about to be Scotty? Very nice? Yeah, which you 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.640 can find wrapped in a little jar at your local 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:28.120 um coffee place. Yeah, I'm not a fan of about Scotty. 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:30.800 It really depends. But no, for the most most part, 0:08:30.880 --> 0:08:33.480 I'm not. Which it's a good thing we're not alive 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.160 and like the or fifteenth century, because we wouldn't have 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:39.800 had many options, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.600 get it that almondy taste is fine, but if I'm 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.719 gonna burned calories on a cookie, it ain't. It's not 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:47.599 gonna be a b Scotty, I got you, you know 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:50.080 what I mean. So the word cookie itself chuck comes 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.719 from the Dutch, who have the word uh cook j 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.760 ko e k j e means small or little cake 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.640 once again, right, So oh that's There's a lot of 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.120 different words for cookies, that's the point. But cookies are 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:08.439 their own thing, um, and over thousands of years people 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.440 have said these are great. I like this. I'm going 0:09:10.480 --> 0:09:15.320 to contribute to humanity's understanding of of baking by creating 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.880 this cookie and that cookie. And now finally we're living 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.640 in what I consider the pinnacle of the age of cookies, 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.079 because I can't imagine we're going to come up with 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.640 better cookies that aren't just variations of what we have now. 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.040 I feel like we've created all of the great cookies, 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.800 and that really, if you dig into it, most of 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:39.160 the greatest ones, the apex, the pinnacle of them, were 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.840 created here in the good old Us of a agreed 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:47.240 but not the first cookies because we're a young country 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.760 and most people say that cookies have been around since 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:55.920 Persia around seventh century CE. Uh. They had sugar for 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.680 a while, and they had been making cakes and things 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.280 like that. You had be you know, pretty wealthy. And 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:03.680 that's a sort of a repeated thing you'll see in here. 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:07.040 As far as the early days of sugar being available, 0:10:07.480 --> 0:10:09.520 you had to have pretty much a lot of money 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.160 and be part of royalty or at least super wealthy 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.520 to eat these sweet confections. But at some point there 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.600 was a Persian baker who said, all right, I got 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:20.920 a test out. I'm making a cake. I want to 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:22.800 see if this oven is ready. We don't have thermometers 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:24.599 or anything like that, so let me just throw a 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.000 little bit of this uh I guess dough in there 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.160 and see what happens. And it came out this little 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:37.079 little baby cake and tasted awesome, and so whatever accents 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:40.920 the Persians might have used, said, this is fantastic. Let 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:43.800 me keep doing this. I've discovered a new thing. Yeah, 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.400 they said, like, why don't I just make a batch 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.920 of test cakes only? And the cookie was born. That's 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.679 the story, It's not it's it's not entirely clear if 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:58.439 that's true. Um, it's spread all over the internet. I'm 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.240 not just in like the copy pay way like it 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.960 does seem to be that. Food historians tend to think 0:11:04.000 --> 0:11:07.360 like that's that's possibly what happened. But even if that 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:12.040 is true, it ignores a lot of the previous evolution 0:11:12.520 --> 0:11:18.000 that led to two cookies, um, that came before the Persians. Yeah, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.840 and you know, we kind of mentioned this early. You know, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.880 it comes from the tradition of baking bread, of course, 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:26.800 something that we've been doing for fourteen thousand years. But 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:31.199 those those have those leavening agents. Uh. The Mediterraneans used 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.960 to honey and they made these honey pastries for a 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:38.880 long long time. The Russians made these cookies called uh 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:45.840 priyan nix something like yeah, no, of you, I don't 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:52.000 I don't know, Okay, They're made from honey, rye, flower 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:56.280 and berries and those go back to fourth century BC. Uh. 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.360 And then we have our good old biscuits, Yeah, which 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.120 are they seemed to kind of have evolved from the 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.520 Romans who created something called rusk, which is you know 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:09.880 what you don't like about biscotti. Yeah, take away anything 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:14.040 even remotely likable about biscotti, and you've got rusk where 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.600 it was like it was a yeah, hard tech what 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:20.120 what like the Navy's um adopted and use this hard 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:22.240 tech and the reason that I think it was initially 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.840 created was because the Roman soldiers who were going further 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:28.480 and further afield, conquering all these different lands, they were 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.400 supplied with this this rusk as rations because what they 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:35.840 would do is they would bake bread and then they 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:37.920 would cut the bread into pieces and they would bake 0:12:37.960 --> 0:12:40.959 it again, which would remove almost all of the water content, 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.960 all the moisture content from it. And you'd still have 0:12:44.000 --> 0:12:46.960 the nutrients, but none of the moisture, which means that 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.000 it would um, it would stay for keep for a 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:52.640 very long time, like it wouldn't it wouldn't mold because 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:56.280 it didn't have any water to create mold. Yeah. I 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.120 mean when you hear that story, like why would they 0:12:58.200 --> 0:13:01.480 purposely just keep making it and making it tastes worse 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:05.400 and worse. But it was just a necessity for for rations. 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.840 It was preserving it. Yeah. And there's a there's a 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:14.400 name for that baking process, right, that's right. Biscato from 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.120 Italian means twice baked. And that's where you get biscotti. Yeah. 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.160 Not only is that where you get biscotti, chuck, that's 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.640 also where you get biscuits. With the uk Um and 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.720 Australia New Zealand and a few other places referred to 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.360 their cookies as biscuits. That's a derivation of biscato. That's right, 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:36.440 pretty neat. This is making me nothing but hungry. That's okay, 0:13:36.480 --> 0:13:38.760 because there's plenty of cookies in your future. I can 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:40.480 see it now, and I also see chuck in our 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.160 future and ad break happening. This is very nice, that's 0:13:44.160 --> 0:14:05.000 all that coming. So okay. So, as we said, most 0:14:05.000 --> 0:14:07.720 food his storians who think about these kind of things say, yeah, 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.040 it was Persia. Persia's the place where, um, where cookies 0:14:12.080 --> 0:14:14.760 were kind of invented. And the reason you can't really 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.760 argue with that is because if you are of European 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.400 ancestry or live in a country that was founded through 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:25.040 European colonization, there's a pretty good chance that all of 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.440 the cookies that you've ever been exposed to came after 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:33.680 the introduction of sugar and cookies and spices um by 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:38.520 the Persians to the Europeans through the Crusades. That's right. 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:44.040 The crusades happen, and anytime there's a conquering nation, one 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.000 thing is for sure going to happen, and they are 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:48.480 going to spread, They're going to find all the delicious, 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:51.280 wonderful things that that culture does, and they're going to 0:14:51.480 --> 0:14:54.320 steal them and take them back to their home lands. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.560 And that's how things spread throughout the world. And that's 0:14:57.560 --> 0:15:01.240 what happened with cookies. Yeah, and sugar, that's right. So 0:15:01.320 --> 0:15:05.000 starting these Arab countries and they said, let's bring back 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:08.400 ginger and cinemam and cardamum and the sugar and all 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:13.280 this delicious stuff, and let's start making our own cookies. Yeah. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:14.880 And then one of the reasons why all of this 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.800 stuff was in Persia at the time, Chuck, is not 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:21.760 just because the Persians had already started cultivating sugar they 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:24.320 had easy access to it, but they had access to 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:27.400 things like ginger too, like you said, um, which came 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:32.200 from Asia Um or East Asia, I should say um. 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:34.480 And the reason that they had access to this is 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.440 because they were pretty well located along the Silk Road. 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:42.040 But Europe, and especially Western Europe, was located very far 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:43.920 off of the Silk Road. So even though this stuff 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:48.960 was pretty commonly traded further east, you could not get 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.360 it in Europe unless you were one of the most 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:55.560 fabulously wealthy people on the planet at the time. Yeah, 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:57.680 and you know, as time crept on a little bit, 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.160 there was a little more access us two things like sugar, 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.360 but it was still, um, kind of like a special 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.840 occasion thing. You didn't necessarily have to be super wealthy. 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.160 But it wasn't like all of a sudden, the working 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:12.280 class of Europe was all of a sudden just baking 0:16:12.320 --> 0:16:15.240 cookies all the time. Um. But that did give birth 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:19.360 to a tradition, which is if it's a special occasion 0:16:19.400 --> 0:16:23.120 thing like oh, I don't know, Christmas time, then that 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.480 became a tradition, is making cookies and handing out cookies 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.600 to neighbors. Because you're not gonna bake a bunch of 0:16:29.640 --> 0:16:33.600 cakes and deliver thirty five cakes to your neighbors because 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.200 that's a waste. But what you could do, like our 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.320 old friend Mona Collin teen used to do, she stopped. 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.000 I don't think she listens anymore anyway, she'll never hear this. 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:47.120 But it was really nice, Like I mean, maybe ten 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.440 different varieties every year, big box of it was great. 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:54.360 It was great. But that's where that tradition comes from. 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.480 Around Christmas time, on special occasions, baking batches of cookies 0:16:58.480 --> 0:17:00.600 and sharing them with friends and neighbors. Because they were 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.720 splurging to show off for Baby Jesus. Sure, that's what 0:17:04.800 --> 0:17:07.280 you do. So um. One of the things I came 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:11.520 across though, was that a family in medieval Europe or 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.680 Middle Aged Europe, um baking cookies around the holidays, we're 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.880 probably breaking the law. Because the trade guilds were really 0:17:20.920 --> 0:17:23.320 powerful at the time. And among those trade guilds where 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.240 the baker's guilds who had managed to get laws and 0:17:26.320 --> 0:17:29.479 acted that said you can't even bake for yourself in 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:31.320 your own home. You have to buy your bake goods 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:33.240 from a baker who's a member of a trade guild, 0:17:33.280 --> 0:17:37.960 a trained baker. Um. And apparently everybody said nuts to that. 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:39.760 We're not We're not going to listen to that. And 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:42.719 over the course of a century or two, those that 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:45.359 kind of enforcement went away because who doesn't want to 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.080 bake in their own home? You know? Yeah? I mean, 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:50.479 I'm a union guy, but I draw the line at 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.200 some point, you know, Yeah, baking in your own home 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.120 is that line? Yeah? And it literally became the will 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:57.719 of the people, and they were just like, no, no no, no, 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:02.240 we're not doing this anymore. We gotta bake at home. Uh, 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.919 they were you know, some of the first recipes and 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:10.360 some of the first cookbooks in North America were cookie recipes. Yeah, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:12.600 not just that, like even earlier than that, there was 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:15.640 um cookbooks that came out in like the sixteenth century, 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:20.760 the early seventeenth century, and they started having cookie recipes 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:23.399 in them and cake recipes in them. Uh. And the 0:18:23.440 --> 0:18:26.080 reason why, one of the reasons why it was because 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:30.040 the European powers had started to call in nice places 0:18:30.040 --> 0:18:32.879 where you could grow sugar, because people had gotten a 0:18:32.960 --> 0:18:35.320 little taste of sugar and the demand was so great 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.439 that they went out and actually conquered new areas so 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:41.679 that they could grow sugar, which lowered the prices of sugar, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.800 which meant that the average household was way more likely 0:18:45.840 --> 0:18:47.480 to be able to afford it, and say like the 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.640 sixteenth or seventeenth or probably eighteenth century, um. And that 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.600 as a result led to these cookbooks coming up, like 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:58.760 like there's one called The Good Huswife's Jewel Chuck, did 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:03.440 you say housewife? Know? Huzzwives? What is that? Just I 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.679 guess a variation of I guess an old old timey 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:10.439 English way to put it. But if you look at 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.359 there's a recipe for fine cakes in there, and if 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.320 you look at it, you're like, how did anybody produce 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:20.200 anything like this? Like we we expect extremely precise recipes 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.200 these days when you open a cookbook, well for baking especially, Yeah, 0:19:24.240 --> 0:19:26.959 because I mean it's a science experience, a chemical reaction 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:29.960 you're doing with baking. Cooking is a little more like 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:33.439 an art, right. So with a Good Housewife jewel with 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:36.679 the recipe for fine cakes, you could find um ingredients 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:40.000 like take two or three yolks of eggs in a 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.360 good quantity of sugar. Yeah, and I think each one 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.280 was was signed like good luck, Yeah, figure it out. Yeah. 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:50.119 But but apparently people got it right enough of the 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:52.680 time that these things really started to take off and 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.479 people were would bake cookies more and more. Yeah. We 0:19:56.520 --> 0:20:01.280 mentioned shortbreads earlier that came from Scotland, and the name 0:20:01.359 --> 0:20:05.720 shortbread might sound a little weird, but it was, um, 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.200 it was sort of a hybrid. It was it basically 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:12.359 means crumbly cookie. Um. Yeast was swapped out for butter 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.000 and sugar was added in when they had this leftover 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.359 bread and these hard biscuits, and it became shortbread and 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.560 they used short met crumbly. So that's where the crumbley 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:26.040 comes from and the uh there was a tax on biscuits, 0:20:26.119 --> 0:20:29.280 and then the Scottish Heritage site says that they called 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:31.679 it bread to get around the tax on biscuit. So 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:34.480 that's why the only reason it's called shortbread, basically it 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:37.840 should have been called crumbly cookie exactly. Yeah. Somebody, some 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:40.719 tax collectors, like, that's a cookie. He said, no, it's 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.400 a it's a bread. It's a short bread. Quiet. Yeah, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.080 that got me looking into the etymology of how the 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.359 cookie crumbles and it's It was one of those uh, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:54.120 sort of disappointing ones where they just said, like uh 0:20:54.560 --> 0:21:02.200 mid like nine fifties America, not Scotland in the eighteenth century. Yeah, 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:05.600 it couldn't be traced back to uh like a specific person. 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:07.960 And basically they some people said it might have come 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.720 from like say lev In France. Uh, but I just 0:21:11.760 --> 0:21:14.720 I just love that line. In the apartment and Billy 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.520 Wilder is the apartment. He says it a couple of times. 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:22.080 He says, that's how it crumbles. Cookie wise said that 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:23.720 that's how the cookie crumbles. He said, that was it? 0:21:23.800 --> 0:21:26.600 Jack Lemon. Jack Lemon said that, Yeah, that's just a 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:29.359 nice little turn of phrase by Billy Wilder. Good stuff, man. 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:32.520 I ended up watching Casablanca the other night. It just 0:21:32.600 --> 0:21:35.479 happened beyond and I caught it towards the beginning. It 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:38.840 really is maybe the greatest movie ever made. It is 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.120 amazingly good. Like I liked it during my James Dean 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.159 like Humphrey Bogart teenage phase, but as an adult watching it, 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:49.720 I haven't seen it in many, many years. It's just 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.439 it's astounding how good it is, the acting, correcting, the lighting. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:57.040 It's crazy. I need to do it. Chuck you will 0:21:57.080 --> 0:22:00.000 like it is such a good movie. I can't imagine 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.800 than anybody's ever seen Cassi Blanc have been like that sucked? 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:06.919 Probably so have you seen The Apartment? No? I never have. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:11.080 Al Right, well i'll trade you gotta see that. That 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:14.160 was on movie Crush. That was our good friend Scott Ackerman. 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.159 That was his movie, pick the Apartment or Cassi Blanca, 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.080 The Apartment. And Scott is such a pro and such 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:26.560 a sweetheart. He rewatched the movie and uh like reread 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.800 Mike multiple chapters of Billy Wilder's book in preparation for 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:31.600 that episode. That's what like what a pro he is 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.400 and designed an original movie poster for it. Yeah, did 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.840 he signed for me? That's nice. It sounds like Scott Ackerman. Yeah. 0:22:40.440 --> 0:22:43.920 So alright, short bread is where we were cookies, Well, 0:22:43.960 --> 0:22:45.560 we were talking. I think what the point we were 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.400