A Not Quite 1950's Cookie Swap

A good excuse to get together and trade some tasty treats!

Before we move on to discuss those other looks at international treats I had promised, there's a post I really wanted to get out before the end of January. After a long hard semester, my friends and I wanted to get together to have some kind of celebration that we made it through in one piece... but then everyone got busy with the holidays, so we ended up having it the weekend before the new semester got started. 

I've often joked with friends and coworkers and basically anyone who will listen to me talk about historic food that I not so secretly want to throw a bunch of authentic period themed parties, minus the casual or overt racism and sexism associated with the period. Since so many of my friends are fellow historians, they've been a lot more on board for entertaining the idea of an authentic Mad Men themed party, or Downton Abbey, American Girl... you get the picture. 

We didn't quite get there with the period authenticity this gathering, but I thought it might be fun to talk a little bit about the history of cookie swaps and hostess culture, while also highlighting the treats my extremely talented friends made. It's been a lot of fun to meet so many people with an interest in baking! 

Back in 2016, American Girl released a new holiday party outfit for Maryellen and a cookie set, complete with colorful apron. The catalogs make specific note that hostesses of Christmas parties would often wear colorful printed aprons, just like the one Maryellen is wearing. This immediately got me interested in what kind of party she might have been hosting, and it seems like a cookie swap would indeed be accurate to the period!

When searching newspaper databases, the term "cookie swap" first starts appearing in the 1930's or so, and hits increase as you start moving into the mid century. Food editor Clementine Paddleford for the Los Angeles Times - who I had to cite many a time in the article I wrote last semester, which I plan to talk about a little around these parts someday - commented on how this was the perfect solution to holiday gifting, as everyone could come away from the party with an attractive plate of cookies or other baked goods to take home.

Of course people have been getting together and exchanging sweets for hundreds of years, but I do think it's telling that more of these parties and the term "cookie swap" sees more use as we marched into the mid 20th century. Hostess culture was a very real thing for women of the 1950's, 60's, and even into the 70's. Parties were an opportunity to flaunt how perfect your home and family was, and were often semi formal events with real invitations mailed to guests, tasteful decorations, and everyone well dressed and groomed.

My party definitely wasn't up to the standards of an authentic 1954 cookie swap, but I did have a chance to break out the collection of Starbucks You Are Here mugs I've acquired over the past two years.

I debated trying out a new recipe to share with everyone, but at the last minute chickened out and decided to make my grandmother's (or Peg Bracken's) elevator lady spice cookies instead, along with some blueberry scones, as this was also a tea party. 

We had a really impressive and tasty spread, complete with three different kinds of scones, lemon bars, macarons, cupcakes, brownies, and several different cookies, as well as cheese biscuits! I was so excited my friend Meg decided to make these, as my grandma likes to do a version of them for Christmas and other random family gatherings, and they're super tasty. I'll definitely have to share the recipe here sometime. 

Although this wasn't a wholly authentic 1950's gathering, it was a lot of fun to get together and hang out with a bunch of like minded women without the lingering stress of an assignment we all knew we should be working on instead. There's been a lot of frustration in going back to grad school, but I've been really lucky to meet many cool people who I'll hopefully keep in touch with for a good long time. 

And hopefully we'll get to throw some more intense historically inspired parties when I've got time to make decorations!

Although I think this spread looks nice enough on its own!

Rebecca's Mandelbrodt

A twice baked cookie that's perfect for dunking!

I faced a major problem in figuring out what to do for Hanukkah this year. While last year's latkes and applesauce turned out pretty darn tasty, the mess they caused in our kitchen (the day before Thanksgiving...) made my mom put her foot down pretty quickly about any Hanukkah adventures we did this year: no frying anything in oil.

Unfortunately, that's a pretty big part of the Hanukkah story. Like, the part, so a lot of Hanukkah recipes involve things being fried in oil, whether they be doughnuts or potato pancakes. I was pretty stumped on what to do, and was resigned to spending a lot of time ferreting around on the internet trying to find something that was both period accurate and didn't involve frying anything.

But then Food Network saved me during the first episode of their Holiday Baking Championship, where one of the bakers made a Jewish cookie called mandelbrodt, and I knew I had found my feature for this week.

Rebecca's Latkes and Applesauce

Happy Hanukkah!

I survived Black Friday! Thanks to everyone for their well wishes, it actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. That said, I'm pretty sure I've confirmed that running a cash register is not my calling in life, and I'm (semi) patiently waiting for something better to come up.

Anyway, as I'm sure all of you know thanks to the increased publicity this year, Thanksgiving was also the first night of Hanukkah! There was absolutely no way I was letting this holiday pass me by, no matter how busy I was at work, so I made sure to set aside some time this week to do a feature about one of my favorite holidays. Enjoy!