The Way the Cookie Crumbles

If you’ve baked up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, enjoyed a
nice cup of tea and biscuits, or somehow scarfed a sleeve of Oreos,
you will know that cookies—or biscuits, as they were known for most
of their existence, and still are in much of the Anglophone
world—are one of humanity's greatest inventions. But you probably
won't know that they started their illustrious career, more than
four thousand years ago, as a kind of beer bouillon cube! This
episode, we explore how this food of soldiers and sailors was
transformed as it spread all over the world, fueling trade and
empire, becoming the world's first industrial food, and shaping
culture and language along the way. Featuring cookies as
preventative medicine, the biscuit feud that followed the Oreo, and
the true story of where the chocolate chip
cookie really came from—you'll want to pour yourself a
nice tall glass of milk for this one! Or, you know, put on the
kettle for a cuppa... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
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