By Ann Petersen, SBA Columnist | 01/22/26
(SB) - If you read Editor and Advocate owner, Tim Loftus’, note at the end of last week’s column, you might have been as surprised as I was that Tim was concerned that I had impugned the reputation of the previous editor, Wayne Dominowski. Tim decided to run my column exactly as I had written it in an effort toward “free speech.” If you have read anything that either Wayne or I have written over the past twenty years, you will know that Wayne and I are diametrically apposed on almost every subject, but I have never written a word against him. I was not doing so when I wrote last week that Wayne had refused to publish two columns that I had written. I mentioned that fact because I wanted my readers to know that it was Wayne and not Tim who had rejected those columns. That was full disclosure, not judgement. I apologize if I offended anyone with my words.
I am also touched that Tim wrote a lovely tribute to me at the end of the previous’ week’s column. It has been my pleasure to write these columns for so long and, as a writer by training and practice, I find these weekly thoughts both edifying and if not always, delightful, at least a guilty pleasure. I have no idea how many people read what I have written, and I appreciate the comments, both positive and negative that people share with me. I am not easily offended because I write what I think and everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I often write about something that I find interesting in a book that I have discovered and over Christmas I came across a book, BETTY CROCKER’S COOKY (sic) BOOK, published in 1963. (My acquired copy is definitely well-used!) I was thirteen at the time and learning to bake from my paternal Grandmother. I’ve told you before that my mother did not cook, so the only time we had home-cooked meals was when my grandmother came for Christmas each year. My grandmother was widowed in her thirties and with only an 8th grade education made her living as a cook, first as a housemother at Washington State College in Pullman and later as a dessert maker at a home for men who lived and boarded at a large facility in Spokane, until she retired. Like me, my grandmother loved baking better than cooking and I have many of her recipes in my recipe box. But it was not until I discovered Betty Crocker’s “Cooky book” that I found many recipes that I know my grandmother made, but that I had never had recipes for.
The front of the cookbook has a “Cooky Primer” which as I read it, made me think that my grandmother had written it because so much of it sounds just like my grandmother spoke to me when I was a teenager. My mother did not particularly care for sweets, so we rarely had actual cookies in our home. When we did, my dad and I would happily gobble them up, so I assume that my mother was practicing diet control. My mother lived on coffee and cigarettes and never weighed more than 125 lbs. in her life. I, sadly, took after my father’s side of the family and have monitored my weight for years!
My favorite section of the “Cooky book,” however is the final section, “Betty Crocker’s Best Cookies” which gives a historical record of the favorite cookies by decade, beginning with 1880-1890 when the most popular cookie was “Hermits” that originated in Cape Cod during the Clipper ship days. Spices from the Indies, particularly nutmeg, which was sold whole, appeared for the first time in an 1880 book, MISS PARLOA’S NEW COOKBOOK. Other recipes at the time included both dried fruits and nuts that could be kept in sea chests on many ocean voyages. The favorite cookies of 1890-1900 were cinnamon jumbles that included buttermilk and nearly every home cook had her own particular spin on other ingredients, including wine in some recipes.
The most popular cookie from 1900-1910 was the oatmeal drop cookie that included molasses, cinnamon and raisins. When Fannie Farmer opened her first cooking school in 1902, this cookie was an early favorite recipe. From 1910-1920, when most families still lived on farms, molasses was more accessible than sugar as a sweetener and ginger creams were a favorite cookie. A jug of molasses was in every home and was used to top pancakes and in breads, as well as cookies. During the Depression Era, the inexpensive syrup was one of the few pleasures for poor families.
Ginger was a popular spice as early as the time of Marco Polo and home cooks could purchase dried ginger root that could be used in gingerbread and ginger ale, as well as in cookies. Brownies were very popular in the Roaring Twenties and are still popular today. In 1921, Betty Crocker was chosen to represent General Mills to American homemakers and Gold Medal Flour became its most popular item. In 1924, the radio program “Cooking School of the Air” debuted and became the daily companion for thousands of lonely rural housewives until 1948. Chocolate Chip cookies became popular in the late 1930s when the New England Toll House in Whitman, Massachusetts created the first recipe. Today, we can access so many ingredients that cookie recipes are almost endless.
I plan to use my new cookbook often and I may share some recipes from it with you in the future. In the meantime, happy cookie munching!
