A Bite of History
Un Bocado de Historia…
Today I learned something really interesting about the word cookie. I was amazed that Italian “biscotto” is very similar to British English “biscuit”, while in spanish is “galleta” even though I would have expected more similarity of italian and spanish then british english. And yet in us we say cookie…
Biscotto and biscuit come from Latin, meaning “twice cooked.” Long ago, bread and pastries were baked twice to make them dry and preserve them longer. Spanish galleta comes from the French word galette, meaning “a small flat cake.” And the English cookie comes from Dutch koekje, meaning “little cake.”, reason that in US it’s called cookie because of dutch immigratants in New york. It’s fascinating to see how words travel and change as people move across countries and languages.
Learning this also made me think about New York City, which feels like a living map of history. Dutch immigrants brought cookies, Polish immigrants brought bagels, Germans brought pretzels, Italians brought pizza — and today, all these foods are part of the city’s identity. Every bite tells a story of the people who came and the traditions they carried.
