The oven is radiating with warmth as you slide another batch in. Half are topped with Hershey kisses and the rest are cut into the beloved Christmas tree and candy canes. The smell of sugar and spices fills the air as you pop another piece of cookie dough into your mouth. The holiday's seem to be filled with tins and boxes wrapped with ribbons filled to the brim with cookies of all flavors enveloped in parchment. Cookies are a staple of the holiday season, but where do these traditional sweet treats originate from?
Christmas cookies date back to Medieval periods as people across the world celebrate the winter solstice by gorging on a feast. Wine that was brewed in the spring was ready to be tasted and with winter approaching, winter was the time to feast before the famine. The Christmas holiday began to overtake the winter solstice celebration, but the feast still remained. In the Middle Ages more spices and dried fruits were being incorporated into desserts creating the flavors widely recognized today. Cookies were also easy to give as gifts to family and friends unlike pies and cakes hence the festival cookie exchange.
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Gingerbread Men
The ginger spice was originally used as a way to flavor meat after it was heavily preserved and was added to food in hopes of building a resistance to the plague. The first known gingerbread recipe seems to have come from Greece in 2400 BC. The shapes we know and love today comes from Medieval Fairs in Europe, but the 'men' portion of gingerbread comes from Queen Elizabeth I who had the gingerbread shaped into the favorite men in her court.
Sugar Cookie
The beloved sugar cookie is known for being cut into a variety of shapes and decorated into masterpieces by the hands of the creator whether they are barely a year old or well over the hill. Sugar cookies came from Europe who adopted the tradition from Spain. The cookie began as a Jumbled which is a biscuit shaped into pretzel forms or knots and baked until crispy. These cookies were savory rather than sweet and since they were unleavened they would last several months. Due to their ability to easily transfigure into shapes, it has become a popular tradition to use cookie cutters and leave the creations out for Santa.
Peanut Blossoms
I have found that peanut blossoms not only have a rich history, but each individual seems to enjoy the treat differently. People either eat the Hershey kiss off the top first then enjoy the peanut butter cookie, they eat it as if it were any other normal cookie, or as I tend to do eat the peanut butter portion first then the chocolate kiss to finish it off. Legend has it that Ohio resident Freda Smith was out of chocolate chips for her cookies thus using one Hershey's Kiss atop her peanut butter cookies. She entered the cookies into the Pillsbury Bake Off in 1957, but ended up losing. Later down the line the cookie recipe began to gain popularity and in 1999 it was inducted into the Pillsbury Bake Off Hall of Fame.
Talk about a sweet ending.
