Cookie

Filed Under January 2007, columns 

Unjust desserts.

Dear Word Detective: I have often visited your website in response to the stupid questions that wander through my mind. Today’s question is: Why is it called a “cookie”? How did that happen? I mean, we came from England where they were “biscuits,” and now we’re in America and it’s a “cookie.” But why “cookies”? You cook lots of things. Like stir-fried rice. But stir-fried rice isn’t “cookies,” and neither is a cake. Do you have the answer? — Rachael.

Yes, but first I have a stupid question of my own. If “cookies” over there are called “biscuits,” what do you call biscuits? It can’t be “scones,” because scones are different from biscuits. Incidentally, it is apparently impossible to get decent scones where we live in Ohio. The “natural foods” supermarkets sell little cakes of sour clay they call “scones,” but I wouldn’t feed them to a dog. Scones are supposed to have butter, eggs and sugar in them, all of which are apparently verboten in the Peoples Republic of Foodonia. You should see the brownies these neo-puritans produce — like little brown sponges soaked in motor oil. Anyway, if you call both cookies and biscuits “biscuits,” doesn’t that get confusing, especially for the kiddies?

The gulf between British English and American English is famously colorful, of course, and entire dictionaries have been devoted to translating common terms in one language into the other. What we call the “hood” on a car, you call a “bonnet,” our “trunk” is your “boot,” your “chips” are our “Freedom fries,” your “Prime Minister” is our “poodle,” and so on. Just kidding. Anyway, it’s rare that one term in the UK lacks an equivalent in the US, although you can certainly keep “eel pie” all to yourselves.

In the case of “cookie,” the questions you raise are valid. Most food we eat (at least outside of Foodonia) is cooked, so what’s so special about “cookies”? Some of them (known, perplexingly, as “no-bake cookies”) aren’t even cooked.

So let’s blame the Dutch. The American term “cookie” actually has nothing directly to do with the English verb “to cook.” It’s derived from the Dutch “koekje,” meaning “little cake,” a diminutive of “koek” (cake). “Cookie” first appeared in American English in the early 18th century, when the Dutch colonial presence in the New World was still a fairly recent memory.

So there you go. Just don’t ask where “Oreo” came from. Even the people who make them don’t know.

 

 

Comments

3 Responses to “Cookie”

  1. David on January 17th, 2007 8:15 am

    “Anyway, if you call both cookies and biscuits “biscuits,” doesn’t that get confusing, ”

    No, because here in the UK(or England anyway) we simply don’t eat anything resembling what you in the US refer to as biscuits. Truly.

  2. baltomd on January 23rd, 2007 3:40 pm

    What about crackers with cheese? Here in the US those can be biscuits too.

  3. marcparis on January 29th, 2007 8:38 am

    Just a wee comment… in French “cookie” is now used. In a rather common phenomenon (what is this called, Evan?), the “class” word “cookie” in English refers to a particular type of cookie in French, namely chocolate chip cookies.

    Otherwise, we have “biscuits”, “petits gâteaux” (little cakes), “gâteaux secs” (dry cakes), or of course, “petits fours”.

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