Origin and Evolution of Cookies

Cookies have an ancient heritage, dating back to the time of the pharaohs in Egypt, when they were made with honey. In the Middle East, cookies later were sweetened with sugar, which was cultivated in seventh-century Persia. The Venetians, who imported sugar from Alexandria as early as the fifteenth century, commonly used sugar to sweeten all manner of desserts, including cookies, and they are thought to be the original refiners of sugar in Europe. The macaroon is one of the earliest of cookies still known in modern times. A reference to the French macaron, a word that comes from the Italian maccarone, dates at least to 1611, most likely indicating that the French adopted the cookie from their Italian neighbors. From there the cookie spread to Holland and crossed the channel to England, where references to “mackroons” and other cookies, such as “jumbals,” are to be found in seventeenth-century family manuscripts, including Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery.