Wanna cookie?

IT MAY COME AS A SURPRISE TO ANYONE WHO HAS SAVORED A sweet, oven-fresh cookie--which is to say, nearly everyone--that this ubiquitous and infinitely variable confection was first developed as a durable way to feed the soldiers and sailors of ancient history. Baked once and stored in tins, fatless, sugarless squares of dough were cooked a second time before being distributed to men about to embark on a sea voyage or land battle. Called "stone bread" by sore-jawed soldiers, these cookies bore a closer resemblance to weapons than the treats we now devour with milk, coffee or a little sweet wine. Fat and sweetening agents were eventually introduced to the mix, which may have compromised the dough's shelf life but certainly enhanced its gustatory appeal.

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The word cookie is derived from the Dutch word koekje, which means "small cake", and likely refers to the cooking of dollops of dough in an oven to test its temperature, a practice employed before the advent of oven thermometers. Young members of a household were given these lumps as a treat, thereby beginning the long and happy relationship between childhood and cookies. As their guilds flourished during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, cooks began to experiment with eggs, sweeteners and leavenings. Most had already transitioned from the boiling and frying methods employed in ancient Rome to baking in enclosed ovens, although Middle Eastern and Indian cooks continued to boil and fry their sweetmeats. Colonial American cooks employed wine, rose water and sweet spices to flavor their cookies, at least until Thomas Jefferson returned from France with vanilla in 1789. Roughly one hundred years later, as several baking companies merged to form the National Biscuit Company (later shortened to Nabisco), the Fig Newton[R] made its debut in the United States, and in 1902 came Barnum's Animal Crackers[R], whose string was meant for ease of hanging off the family Christmas tree. 1912 saw the advent of the mighty Oreo[R], whose name is likely based on the word or, French for gold, which was the color of the original package. Ruth Whitman, operator of the Toll House Inn in Massachusetts, accidentally created the chocolate chip cookie in 1933, when she added a chopped chocolate bar to sugar dough in the hopes of creating a uniformly chocolate cookie. Pepperidge Farm[R] pioneered the use of butter in mass-produced cookies in 1955, and Nabisco upped the ante on the Oreo[R] in 1987 by introducing a decadent fudge-covered version. Then, of course, there are Girl Scout Cookies[R], whose child-driven, grassroots distribution network has not stopped the Scouts from moving nearly 200 million boxes every year since the late 1990's.

In the last few years it has become de rigeur for high-end pastry chefs to replace petits fours with cookies at the end of a sumptuous meal, because no matter how fine the wine or how rare the steak, at the end of the meal we all need a little something sweet.

Connie McDonald & Pamela Weekes

Levain Bakery * New York, NY and Wainscott, NY

CONNIE MCDONALD AND PAMELA WEEKES HAVE PROBABLY PROVED THE downfall of many a diet, which is somewhat surprising, since their friendship (and eventual business partnership) was forged over serious athletics.

"We met while swimming. We trained a lot together, did a lot of triathlons together and have been friends ever since," explains McDonald, who took her culinary training in 1992, from Peter Kump himself, at his eponymous culinary school (recently renamed the Institute of Culinary Education). Weekes chimes in, "We both wanted to have a business, but we had no idea what kind of business it would be, or that we'd end up doing it together." They made their start running a wholesale baking company out of a downtown restaurant's massive kitchen, where they paid their rent in bread. Eventually wearied by the high volume and low profit margins of wholesale baking, the partners began to search for a retail space to showcase their artisan breads.

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"Have you ever looked for commercial space in New York when you're on a budget?" asks McDonald. "It's brutal. Some of the spaces we looked at were terrible. This place," she says, motioning around to the diminutive retail space and bakery, "at least it had a hood, it had a ceiling, and a floor."

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"We actually had to dig up the floor," says Weekes. "We were so naive about commercial real estate, we thought the landlords were responsible for fixing things up the way we wanted them, but we soon learned that everything came 'as is." In December 1995, the two opened Levain Bakery, initially offering a modest selection of breads.

"My favorite things that we did from the beginning are the breads," says McDonald. "We used to make this great red grape and rosemary focaccia, but people would come in and look at it and say 'are those hot dogs?' because of the way the grapes were sliced."

"Connie and I ended up eating most of it, and the red grapes were expensive, so we got rid of it," adds Weekes. More successful, however, were the cookies that McDonald began baking on a whim. Their four varieties of mountainous, six-ounce cookies remained something of a neighborhood cult item, however, until the New York Times ran a short article extolling their considerable virtues.