cookies and related stuff

[victor steinbok]

What got me going here is the OED definition of a "ginger snap":

ginger-snap n.  (a) a thin brittle cake flavoured with ginger,  (b) (U.S.) a
> hot-tempered person, esp. one with carroty hair.


OK, I expect "cookie" to be a disfavored term in the OED definition, as it
is mostly US (although, I'm sure, it would have showed up in many other
places, by now). But, if not cookie, then "biscuit", right? Of course,
cookie is also defined as "cake".

I am not going to get into an extended discussion of the gaudy "current
sense" definition of "cake":

A composition having a basis of bread, but containing additional
> ingredients, as butter, sugar, spices, currants, raisins, etc. At first,
> this was a cake also in form, but it is no longer necessarily so, being now
> made of any serviceable, ornamental, or fanciful shape; e.g. a tea-, plum-,
> wedding-cake, etc.


This was written by someone who's never set his foot in a kitchen or a
bakery. There are two kinds of "cakes"--the country/home variety (e.g., ring
cake, coffee cake, cream cake, perhaps even bundt cake) and layer cake--the
Paris/Viennese variety (layered with creams, fruit fillings, nuts,
chocolate, etc.), German chocolate cake, etc. Only one of these resembles
"bread" in any way. The other may have "dough" at one stage, but it's not
"bread dough" by any stretch of imagination (and some varieties have no
flour or dough in them at all!).

Items missing under "cookie":

cookie-press (a bit more recent than cookie-cutter, but still quite
common--a "gun" or a syringe with a cookie-cutter opening, similar to a
pastry bag)
cookie dough (straight forward, but still used as a combination--one
quotation under "paddle")
cookie jar (shows up in 5 quotations, but no entry)
cookie sheet (flat baking "pan" with no banked edges, as opposed to
"jelly-roll sheet/pan" which is flat with raised edges)
cookie exchange/swap (exchanging of home-made cookies at Christmas)

Other missing cookies:

butter cookies--cookies where butter (or butter substitute) is a main
ingredient
refrigerator/icebox cookies--cookie dough that prepared in advance,
refrigerated, then sliced and baked; also, cookie dough sold pre-packaged in
supermarkets
Christmas/holiday cookies (?)

Sadwich cookies are listed--and one of the quotations mentions "chocolate
peanut butter cookies". New Year cookies can be found within the definition
of New Year (attrib.). Springerle and Springerle cookies are in the same
entry (springerle). But Speculaas--which is the Dutch version that is
arguably better known--has no entry and not even a single citation.


I am not sure if other ingredient-based combinations deserve an entry, such
as oatmeal cookies, chocolate cookies, vanilla cookies. But ginger cookie is
listed, so why not others? So is molasses cookie. So is "poppy-seed cookie"
under attrib. (cake, cookie, roll, etc.). "Chocolate-chip cookie" is under
"chocolate", right next to "chocolate cream" (see below) and "chocolate
biscuit".

Oreo is listed, along with "oreo cookie"

1. orig. U.S. A proprietary name for: a type of black chocolate sandwich
> biscuit filled with a white vanilla cream. Also freq. in Oreo cookie.


Toll House cookies are listed.


 Ginger snap is listed as "cake", not "cookie" or "biscuit" (see above).
"Vanilla wafer" shows up in a quotation under wafer==ice-cream sandwich, but
not as a cookie:

1. b. ellipt., a sandwich of ice-cream between wafers.


Cream has no subentry for a variety of filled cookies or biscuits. "Cream
cookie" has no entry at all, although "cream cracker" is described as an
"unsweetened biscuit" (not the same thing--"cream cookies" are sandwich
cookies that have a creamy filling, rather than one of fruit jelly or solid
chocolate). No "cream filling" either. Vanilla cream is mentioned in the
Oreo lemma, but has no separate entry. Chocolate cream covers both the cream
and the candy/confection with cream filling. But when someone refers to
boxed chocolates with cream filling as "creams", he better not look for it
in the OED--it's not there.

Pillow cookies/biscuits don't exist, as far as OED is concerned.


Several idiomatic uses are not covered either.

"Tough cookie" shows up in 4 separate citations, but has no entry.

But "to toss one's cookies" is covered--well, one made it. On the other
hand, since "cookie jar" is not there, nor is "[caught with/got one's] hand
in the cookie jar".

VS-)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org