Chocolate Chip Cookies and Transatlantic Trips

In my last post I wrote about my grandmother’s dumplings, now I am going to leap a couple generations ahead and post my son’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, well not my son’s but the one on the back of the bag of chocolate chips. He learned to bake pretty early out of necessity. You see, he was unfortunate to be born in a family of sweetaholics, anything sweet- chocolates, candy , ice cream, disappears almost on the same day it is bought, terrible I know, especially when I am supposed to be an example of healthy Mediterranean eating.

This infliction affected most of my family when I was a child and probably hereditary for my father was the biggest sweet tooth of all. He would look around for desert at the end of a meal, and of course there usually wasn’t anything, with five kids who scavenged the house from top to bottom including all my parent’s top candy hiding places. If the situation was critical my father would take all of us to buy pints of ice cream, glow in the dark lemon meringue pie, and cancerous colored candy corn. We were a happy family sitting around the kitchen table on a sugar high, smiling, our eyes a little too glazed over.

So what are chocolate chip cookies doing on a Middle Eastern food blog? That’s a good question, if I was a strict editor I would post a baklava recipe but as it is they are my favorite cookies and on my blog they will go.

I will, however, tell you why Arabs are not famous for their chocolate chip cookies. Arab sweets, as a rule, do not traditionally include chocolate but dried fruits, nuts and sugar, products that were available to them. By the time cocoa, chocolate in its unprocessed state was discovered by the Spaniards in Mexico, the Arab world was losing control of large parts of their Empire. Culminating in 1492, famous as the year Columbus discovered America, Ferdinand and Isabella had expelled or converted all the Muslims and Jews from their country. Europeans were becoming more technologically advance and were literally leaving the Arab world behind as they sailed westward. It wasn’t long before Europe gained increasing control of trade and became the new center of international commerce. That said, the ancient Aztecs and Mayas drank their cocoa without sugar, it was the Arabs who developed sugar making on a large scale, a technique which the Europeans adopted.

The Spaniards loved their cocoa so much they manage to keep it a secret for 100 years, the best kept secret of the universe. Eventually other European countries got their hands on it and with a bit of hocus pocus alchemy the bitter cocoa of the Aztecs became the world’s favorite flavor. Fast forward a couple hundred years to 1934 and another transatlantic trip, chocolate chip cookies were being made in a little inn called Toll House, in Whitmann Massachusetts. The inventor of these cookies is accredited to Mrs. Ruth Wakefield, or so the story goes. In anycase, somewhere along the lines a bags of chocolate chips were imported to Israel and now, what can I tell you? The best chocolate chip cookies are found here, in the Middle East, the ones my son makes.

Sadly, the story of chocolate is not nearly so happy for it is one of conquest, slavery and daily hardship for many people. Even in this age many cocoa farmers barely make a living and to help them the Fairtrade Foundation was set up. Fairtrade strive to for decent working conditions, long term sustainability and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing worlds. The Fairtrade logo is found on products that respect the lives of these people. (couldn’t figure out how to post the logo)

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Presenting:

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Most popular cookie in America and Massachusetts’s State Cookie. Trendy cookie even in the Middle East

1 cup soften butter (250 grams)
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/4 cups white flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 package chocolate chip cookies (300 grams)
Preheat oven to 190 C. Combine softened butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl and mix until fluffy. Add flour, salt and baking soda into the mixture and stir well. Add chocolate chips and mix gently. 1 cup of walnuts or other nuts can be added.
Using a wet teaspoon drop a teaspoon of the dough on the cookie sheet, separated by several cm as they spread when cooking. Bake for about 10 minutes. Makes about 35 cookies.

-Recipe from a bag of Oppenheimer chocolate chips

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 David Hall April 16, 2009 at 11:40 am: Hi Sarah

Not only a great story, a superb recipe and made by your little man! Brilliant stuff. Will be popping over regularly.

Cheers
David

2 Sazji April 22, 2009 at 4:15 am: Very interesting post! This would also help to explain the Turks’ relative chocolate deficiency; many things with chocolate look really dark and delicious but are tasteless and many people really don’t seem to care. They’re catching up fast though. That said, Güllüoğlu’s chocolate baklava looks great but tastes like cheap cocoa; it’s still a low-priority ingredient.

3 koshercamembert May 7, 2009 at 5:51 am: Thanks for elucidating the chocolate mystery in the Middle East. What great history! – Zahavah/Gayle