I gave in to the urge to snack earlier tonight.
I opted for a couple of oatmeal cookies. (Literally two – not like “I had a
couple of drinks with the boys,” which more typically means six.) Cookies are
never exactly healthy. They don’t really qualify as cookies if they are. Still,
I could have chosen worse. Oats, the central ingredient, have a lot going for
them in terms of nutrition. That is not why I picked them though. When I was a
kid my Scottish maternal grandmother (yes, we called her Granny) always had
oatmeal cookies in her kitchen in a porcelain cookie jar in the shape of a log
cabin. So, oatmeal cookies have a nostalgia factor for me. The aroma alone has
a nostalgia factor. (I still have the cookie jar btw.) Besides, just for flavor
and texture I like them better than chocolate chip – and I like chocolate chip.
The first page Google results of a
search (including Wikipedia) on the origins of oatmeal cookies will tell you
that the recipe dates to 1896 when it was published in Fannie Farmer’s
cookbook. This isn’t true. She never said it was. It is fair to say Farmer’s best-selling
cookbook popularized the cookie. Recipes for it, though, can be found in
earlier 19th century newspapers and magazines. The origins go back
much further than those. 32,000 years ago human hunter-gatherers
would eat anything that didn’t eat them first. Wild oats were very much on the
menu, albeit mostly in northern climes since oats don’t grow well in warm
environments. In cooler temperate zones they grow readily in a wide range of
soil types. Despite such a deep prehistory however, after the Neolithic shift
to farming oats were the last of the great grain crops to be domesticated –
thousands of years after wheat, rye, and barley. The reason is that raw
unprocessed oats are hard to eat and they don’t store well. Horses like them in
raw form, but humans generally speaking don’t have horse teeth. I’ve tried raw
oats (from horse feed) and they are really not as bad as all that, but as one’s
primary diet I can see how they would tire the jaw. I don’t think it is an
accident that the rapid expansion of oat farming occurred at the same time as
the domestication of the horse. Oats make superb animal feed. (To this day 90%
of the US crop goes to animal feed.) Since the crop was on hand anyway to feed
animals, humans immediately set to making oats more palatable for themselves
too. This meant grinding, rolling, or cutting the groats (whole oats) into
smaller bits (even down to flour if you keep at it) that are easier on the
teeth. Even so, oats were most commonly cooked in water to a soft texture as
porridge or gruel. (I like oatmeal porridge.) Oatmeal porridge was available in
ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and ancient China, but it wasn’t well regarded.
Romans thought of it as horse food that you ate if you couldn’t afford better. They
disdained Germans and Caledonians (in modern day Scotland) for their oat-heavy diets,
but then again they had a hard time militarily with both so perhaps they should
have given the matter further thought. At least some Romans apparently did. We have
references to what seem to be oatcakes carried by Roman soldiers in Britain –
perhaps picked up from the locals. Oatcakes are still a Scottish thing:
oatmeal, water, butter…that’s about it though you can add more. Bake but don’t
burn. (Written recipes for these date to the 1300s.) Tell me this isn’t more
than halfway to an oatmeal cookie. What is missing other than sugar? Perhaps cinnamon,
nutmeg, raisins, et al., but those are enhancers, not essentials. I’m pretty sure there were retired Roman
soldiers who reminisced about the oatcakes they ate in their youth up by
Hadrian’s Wall. Perhaps they then raided the horse feed to make some at home. I
can relate, though I’ll resist the call of the cookie jar until tomorrow. I’ll
also give Fannie her due. There is something to be said for being the popularizer.
An invention that remains in obscurity is not much fun for anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment