black and white cookie

{{Short description|Round cookie with chocolate and vanilla frosting}}

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| alternate_name = Half-and-half cookie

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| course = Snack or dessert

| type = Cookie

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Black-and-white cookies, half-and-half cookies, and half-moon cookies are round cookies iced or frosted in two colors, with one half vanilla and the other chocolate. They are found in the Northeastern United States and Florida. Black-and-white cookies are flat, have fondant or sometimes royal icing on a dense cake base, and are common in the New York metropolitan area. Half-moon cookies are slightly dome-shaped (convex), have frosting on a fluffy angel cake base, and are common in Central New York and Boston, Massachusetts.{{cite news|title=New York in a Dozen Dishes|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vYydBAAAQBAJ&q=half-moon+cookie&pg=PA279|first=Robert|last=Sietsema|date = May 19, 2015|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|pages=279–290|isbn = 9780544453630}}{{Cite web|title=The History of the Half Moon / Black and White Cookie|website=Driving Inertia|url=https://drivinginertia.com/3836/history-of-half-moon-black-and-white-cookie/|date=2013-02-19|access-date=2021-07-12|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|date=2000-10-13|title=Halfmoon Cookies|url=https://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Halfmoon-Cookies/|access-date=2021-07-12|website=Saveur|language=en-US}}

The Amerikaner is a similar cookie in German baking.

History

Designs with contrasting light and dark parts were popular at the beginning of the 20th century, including on baked goods and desserts. Cookies with cake bases also became popular at the time. Culinary historian Stephen Schmidt sees black-and-whites and half-moons as straightforward convergences of the two trends, and compares them to teacakes served in the Southern United States.

= Black-and-white cookies =

File:WiknicNYC 03 b.jpg

The black-and-white cookie is commonly traced to Glaser's Bake Shop in the Yorkville neighborhood of Manhattan, founded in 1902 by Bavarian immigrants.Not to be confused with the village of Yorkville near Utica in Central New York. The black-and-white cookie was among the original recipes used by Glaser's Bake Shop.{{cite news|title=The Black-and-White Cookie's Curious History|first=Robert|last=Sietsema|work= Eater NY|date= Jun 2, 2014|url=https://ny.eater.com/2014/6/2/6214949/the-black-and-white-cookies-curious-history}}

By the post-war period, black-and-white cookies had become part of American Ashkenazi Jewish culinary repertoire, deeply rooted in the Jewish communities of New York City and elsewhere around the United States.{{cite web |last1=Clark |first1=Melissa |title=Black-and-White Cookies |url=https://100jewishfoods.tabletmag.com/black-and-white-cookies/ |website=100 Most Jewish Foods |publisher=Tablet Magazine |access-date=19 November 2021}} The cookies are a fixture at many Metro New York Jewish bakeries, including Moishe's Bake Shop{{cite web |last1=Spataro |first1=Joanne |title=The Real History of Black and White Cookies |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-real-history-of-black-and-white-cookies/ |website=VICE |publisher=Vice Media Group |access-date=19 November 2021}} and William Greenberg's Desserts.{{cite web |last1=Salzhauer |first1=Rebecca |title=An ode to the black and white cookie |url=https://forward.com/food/474337/an-ode-to-the-black-and-white-cookie/ |website=The Forward |date=August 18, 2021 |publisher=The Forward Association, Inc. |access-date=19 November 2021}}

In Italian-American bakeries in New York City, a thin layer of apricot jam is sometimes present below the fondant.

= Half-moon cookies =

File:New Hartford NY Hannaford - Half Moon vs Black and White cookies.jpg (near Utica). The half-moon cookies are significantly larger.]]

Half-moon cookies can be traced to Hemstrought's Bakery in Utica, New York, who started baking half-moons around 1925.Hemstrought's began business in 1920, but does not appear to have baked half-moon cookies before 1925.{{cite book|last=D'imperio|first=Chuck|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIT3CgAAQBAJ&q=half-moon+cookie&pg=PA69|title=A Taste of Upstate New York: The People and the Stories Behind 40 Food Favorites|date=April 14, 2015|publisher=Syracuse University Press|isbn=9780815653233|pages=69–72}}{{Cite news|title=Utica Bakery Home to the Original Halfmoon Cookies Celebrates 100 Years|language=en|website=spectrumlocalnews.com|url=https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/central-ny/business/2020/10/22/utica-bakery-that-introduced-halfmoon-cookies-celebrates-100-years|access-date=2021-07-12}}

Half moons are still very popular in Utica,{{Cite web|title=Half Moon Cookies Make Their Mark in Utica|url=https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/watertown/explore-ny/2015/05/4/half-moon-cookies-make-their-mark-in-utica|access-date=2022-01-10|website=spectrumlocalnews.com|language=en}} and local media often debates which bakery makes the best half-moons.{{Cite web|date=2018-04-06|title=CNY's best half-moon cookies: And the winners are...|url=https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/erry-2018/04/c9410e63969836/cnys_best_halfmoon_cookies_and.html|access-date=2022-01-10|website=syracuse|language=en|author=Jacob Pucci}}{{Cite web|title=Half Moon Cookies Make Their Mark in Utica|url=https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nys/watertown/explore-ny/2015/05/4/half-moon-cookies-make-their-mark-in-utica|access-date=2022-01-10|website=spectrumlocalnews.com|language=en|author=Alana LaFlore}}

Half-moons are often frosted higher on one side than the other. In Boston, sometimes the domed side is frosted rather than the flat side.{{Cite web|date=2015-12-04|title=The 11 Best Cookies in Boston|url=https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2015/12/04/best-cookies-boston/|url-status=live|access-date=2022-01-14|website=Boston Magazine|author=Kyle Grace Mills|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304073846/https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2015/12/04/best-cookies-boston/ |archive-date=March 4, 2020 }}

=Amerikaners=

The Amerikaner is often decorated like the black and white cookie, but can be frosted entirely in vanilla instead.{{cite web|url=https://www.thrillist.com/eat/new-york/black-and-white-cookies-the-10-things-you-didn-t-know-thrillist-new-york|title=WW2 Black and White Cookie|publisher=thrillist.com|access-date=September 1, 2017|author=Khushbu Shah}} The origin and name of Amerikaner in Germany is unclear, as is their possible relationship to black-and-white cookies. It is sometimes claimed that the cookie was introduced or reintroduced by American GIs serving at US military bases in Germany during the 1950s. Another theory proposes a corruption of the word Ammoniumhydrogencarbonat (ammonium bicarbonate, a leavening agent).{{cite book|title=Alles Kokolores? Wörter und Wortgeschichten aus dem Rheinland.|first=Peter|last=Honnen|publisher=Greven Verlag|location=Cologne|year=2008|isbn=978-3-7743-0418-5|page=10}} In the former East Germany, due to anti-Americanism, the name Ammonplätzchen (Ammonia cookies) was used.{{cite book|title=Trabbi, Telespargel und Tränenpavillon. Das Wörterbuch der DDR-Sprache|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bAoeAQAAIAAJ&q=ammonpl%C3%A4tzchen |last=Martin|first=Ahrends| publisher=Heyne| location=Munich|year=1986|isbn=978-3-4530-2357-4|page=18}}.

As a racial metaphor

In the 1994 Seinfeld episode "The Dinner Party", Jerry eats a black-and-white cookie while waiting in a New York City bakery with Elaine. He uses the cookie as a metaphor for racial harmony, saying the chocolate and vanilla represent black and white people living together. If the colors mix together well on a cookie, Jerry argues, so can different races in society, suggesting the answer to poor race relations is to "Look to the cookie!"{{cite book|title=A History of New York in 101 Objects|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year= 2016|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n8XkDAAAQBAJ&q=black+and+white+cookies+history|first=Sam|last=Roberts|page=137|isbn=9781476728797}} While campaigning in the 2008 United States presidential election at a deli in Hollywood, Florida, Barack Obama bought two black-and-white cookies and said about them, "it's a unity cookie."{{cite news |title=Barack Obama and the black and white cookie |newspaper=The Miami Herald |date=21 October 2008 |first=Lesley |last=Clark |url=http://miamiherald.typepad.com/nakedpolitics/2008/10/barack-obama-an.html| access-date=30 May 2013}}{{cite news |title=Obama: McCain is 'running out of time' and 'making stuff up' |url=http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/21/obama-mccain-is-running-out-of-time-and-making-stuff-up/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022234353/http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/21/obama-mccain-is-running-out-of-time-and-making-stuff-up/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 22, 2008 |first=Sasha |last=Johnson |work=CNN |date=21 October 2008| access-date=30 May 2013}} In a 2015 op-ed in Tablet magazine, African-American Rabbi Shais Rishon argued that the cookie, with its cleanly separated black and white sides, better represented racial segregation.{{Cite web|date=2015-11-11|title=Black and White and Not All Right: These Cookies Must Stop!|url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/black-and-white-and-not-all-right|access-date=2021-11-23|website=Tablet Magazine|language=en|author=MaNishtana}}