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It Took A 1983 Pseudo-Legal Trial To Determine The Origins Of The Fortune Cookie

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In 1987 Matt Nader of the San Francisco-based Blue Chip Cookie Company created Cookie Day, saying: “It’s just like having National Secretaries Day… It will just be a fun thing to do.” This fun and sweet holiday was also championed by The Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

Although the day did not originate with him, some details about it can be found in Random House’s “The Sesame Street Dictionary”, which was published in the 1980s as well. Since then, the word got around the globe that there was much tasty fun to be had on December 4th, and people from various countries the world over began to celebrate Cookie Day.

  • The Oreo, the best-selling cookie of the 20th century, was developed and introduced by the American company Nabisco, in 1912.
  • The U.S. leads the world as the biggest cookie bakers and eaters, spending more than $550 million annually on Oreos alone.
  • The Girl Scouts first began selling cookies In the 1920s.
  • In 1989, New Mexico named the ‘bizcochito’ its official state cookie. Bizcochito, derived from the spanish word ‘bizcocho’ which means biscuit, is a delicious shortbread cookie flavored with anise and topped with cinnamon sugar.
  • Early American tinsmiths began making cookie cutters by hand back in the 1700s.
  • The U.S. has a National Cookie Cutter Historical Museum located within the Joplin Museum Complex in Joplin, Missouri.
  • The official state cookie of both Massachusetts and Pennsylvania is the chocolate chip cookie.
  • American cookie jars evolved from British biscuit jars and first appeared on the scene during the Depression in the 1930s when housewives began making more cookies at home, rather than buying them at the bakery, and needed containers for them.
  • In the Middle East, chocolate chip cookies are eaten with a knife and fork and topped with chocolate sauce.
  • Did you know 13.5% of Americans admit to eating 20 or more chocolate chip cookies at a time?
  • The average American eats 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
  • Half the cookies baked in American homes each year are chocolate chip.
  • Those cookies Cookie Monster scarfs down are actually rice cakes with brown dots painted on them.
  • Chocolate chip cookie consumption increased by 10% following the introduction of detailed nutrition fact labels.
  • In the late 1970s, Secretary of State John Kerry was bored of being a just a lawyer so he opened a Boston cookie store that remains in business today.
  • Cookie cutters were created in the 1700s by early American tinsmiths.
  • Introduced in 1902, the animal cracker was the first commercial cookie in the U.S.12. Americans consume about 2 billion cookies each year, which averages to be about 300 cookies a year each.
  • Sesame Street in Nigeria has a version of Cookie Monster named Zobi the Yam Monster. Since not many Nigerian children have access to cookies, the producers decided to give Zobi an insatiable craving for one of the country’s staple foods. He often shouts out, “Me eat yam!”
  • In 2005, 110 people tied for second prize in the Powerball lottery. Officials suspected cheating but later discovered that all the winners got their “lucky numbers” inside fortune cookies and all the cookies came from the same factory in Long Island City, Queens.
  • Oreo cookies are actually the knock-off brand of another company, Hydrox.
  • The head of Google’s Webspam team was nicknamed “p*rn Cookie Guy” for bringing his wife’s homemade cookies to anyone who found unwanted p*rn in Google search results.
  • Gingerbread men originate from the Court of Elizabeth I of England, who ordered the cookies to be baked in the likeness of important guests to her court.
  • Fortune cookie is actually an American invention originating in California. There are many theories, and much speculation surrounding the mysterious origin of the fortune cookie. As to in which city the fortune cookie originated and as to who invented it, Chinese-American, Japanese-American or 14th century revolutionists, there has been much debate. In 1983, there was even a mock trial held in San Francisco’s pseudo-legal Court of Historical Review to determine the origins of the fortune cookie.
  • In 1987, US Military published a 26-page standard, MIL-C-44072C, with ultra-precise and extremely specific directions for mass producing oatmeal cookies and brownies.
  • Cookies were first made in Persia. The earliest cookies are thought to date back to 7th century AD Persia (now Iran), shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region.
  • Cookies came to America through the Dutch in New Amsterdam in the late 1620s. The name cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, meaning “small or little cake.” The earliest reference to cookies in America is in 1703, when “The Dutch in New York provided…’in 1703…at a funeral 800 cookies…’”

Sources:

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