New York City bakeries have flourished since Dutch times, specializing in sweet treats celebrated around the world.

Almost nothing is more iconic to New York than the black and white cookie, which is why it has garnered a prominent place in this WebBook. Tasting one is a mandatory experience for visitors to the city, like attending a Broadway show, cruising on the Circle Line, and taking a selfie with a firefighter.

The cookie story begins with the first settlers of New Amsterdam, the tiny Dutch trading post at the southern tip of Manhattan established in the 1620s. The Dutch had a passion for baked goods, creating what became some of America’s most popular snacks. They brought with them their knowledge of making oleycoekes (doughnuts,) krullers (crullers,) wafuls, pan-cakes, pretzels, and koekjes (cookies, or “small cakes”, a perfect description of black and white cookies.)

Although Dutch koekjes are etched into New York legend, there are differing stories concerning the origin of black and whites. Some say they evolved from half moon cookies (named for either their lunar appearance or Henry Hudson’s ship) made by Hemstrought’s Bakery in Utica, New York in the early 20th century. A more concrete tale points to Glaser’s Bake Shop in upper Manhattan, where famed black and white cookies were made from their inception in 1902 until their regrettable closing in 2018.

Today, black and whites are available in most bakeries, delis, supermarkets and bodegas around town, but quality varies greatly. Avoid those cellophane-wrapped versions which sit on grocer’s shelves for an eternity, and go with the fresh bakery versions. There are many excellent bakery black and whites to be had; my favorites are the lemony ones from Pasticceria Rocco in Greenwich Village, the fat fluffy versions at any Zaro’s, and the traditional delicacies found at William Greenberg Desserts on the Upper East Side.

Actually a round, flat cake rather than a common cookie, black and whites are baked in a domed shape, and are iced upside-down on their “bottoms.” Quality is determined by the freshness of the cake and pliability of the frosting, or fondant, which should bend slightly upon breaking or biting, rather than shatter into shards. Another determining factor is the flavor of the frosting; if both sides of the cookie taste the same, you’ve got a loser. White should taste of vanilla, and black like chocolate.

The black and white got a tremendous boost when it was featured on an episode of Seinfeld in 1994. Jerry waxed poetic about the “two races of flavor living side by side in harmony,” and “If people would only look to the cookie, all our problems would be solved.” Sales of the cookie spiked after this broadcast, and reruns continue to send fans to New York in search of the fabled treat.

A world of cookies

New York’s astonishing diversity results in an international variety of cookies. By exploring the boroughs and neighborhoods you’ll discover a wealth of sweet treats: Jewish rugelach and hamentashen, Italian biscotti and amaretti, Polish kruschiki, German gingerbread, French macarons, Puerto Rican mantecaditos (shortbread), Indian nankhatai (eggless cookies), Chinese almond cookies and fortune cookies, Dutch butter cookies and stroopwafels, British melba toast (made in the Bronx for many decades), traditional Sottish shortbread, Mexican wedding cookies, Russian tea cookies, and so many more.

You may wonder why cookies and bakeries are such a big deal in New York’s history. The answer can be found at the start of any recipe...

Gather the ingredients

Flour: When you think of New York, you probably don’t think of flour. Early in the colony’s history wheat was grown on Golden Hill, which is now Wall Street, and was ground into flour by a windmill. But as the city expanded, as did the number of bakeries, grain had to be imported from the midwest at great expense. Then the Erie Canal opened in 1825 and the cost of wheat dropped from $100 a barrel to $6. Overnight the city became “the country’s principal flour market and a veritable grain silo for the world,” according to Joy Santlofer in her remarkable book Food City. Massive grain elevators lined the shores and flour mills flourished in every borough, providing flour for bakeries everywhere.

Chocolate: Millers also processed raw cacao beans for making chocolate. New York’s love affair with the exotic delicacy began in multi-cultural New Amsterdam, where the small Sephardic Jewish community established themselves as chocolate-makers. By 1702 there were seven chocolatiers in New York City. In the 1730s miller Jacobus Roosevelt was operating a specialized “Chockalet Engine House.” Although much of early chocolate was used for drinking, eventually it helped establish New York as a thriving center for candy (the famous Delmonico’s restaurant actually began as a confectionery.)

Sugar: The refining of sugar was one of the city’s oldest and largest industries, established in the early 1700s by such formidable names as Roosevelt, Bayard, Van Cortlandt and Livingston. Sugar houses were the tallest buildings in the early city: the multi-story stone structures were so massive that they were used as British prisons during the Revolutionary War. Sugar refining was not a pretty business. It involved southern and Caribbean slave labor to gather the cane, the use of ox blood or bone char (from bones gathered in “Pig Town”, where the Plaza Hotel now stands), and the unbearable heat and nauseating smell endured by the immigrant workforce. But by the 1850s New York City had become the foremost sugar producer in the world, with a dozen factories churning out 190 million pounds a year (including the famous Domino plant built in 1856 on the East River in Williamsburg.)

Butter: In early New Amsterdam each family owned its own cow, which was their sole source for milk and home-churned butter. Every morning the town herdsman would collect all the cattle and lead them to “The Flat”, a grazing area which is now City Hall Park. At the end of the day, he would return each cow, announcing their arrival by tooting his horn. From such humble beginnings New York’s dairy industry was born. As the city grew and cows had to be moved to greener pastures in the suburbs, the city struggled with spoiled milk and “swill milk”, which was poisonous and unchurnable (for the full swill milk story, see the Egg Cream chapter.) Finally, pasteurization and refrigeration guaranteed fresh milk and dairy-churned butter delivered to the city’s families and bakers.

All this activity fueled the growth of bakeshops: in 1806 there were 97 bakeries in the city, in 1850 there were 550, and by 1900 there were an astounding 5,778 New York bakeries, producing one sixth of America’s baked goods.

So now we have flour, sugar, butter and chocolate. Let’s make cookies!

But first, let’s make crackers

Cookies may satisfy our sweet tooth, but the crackers that preceded them saved countless thousands of lives. Soldiers, sailors and other travelers facing long journeys depended on crackers, the only food at the time which resisted spoiling. Also called “hardbread”, “hardtack” or “biscuits” (from the Latin for “twice-baked”) these sturdy crackers were made without shortening and would keep indefinitely.

New York bakers supplied hardbread crackers for the Revolutionary army. When the Gold Rush began, and when wagon trains began moving west, it was New York City bakeries which supplied the necessary hardbread rations. During the Civil War, the city fed the entire Union Army, which consumed countless millions of crackers. Biscuit bakeries blossomed across the city; it was said that “New Yorkers couldn’t throw a brick without hitting a bakery.” For the First World War, a specialized sealed wrapper was developed to protect crackers from being contaminated by nerve gas. During World War II, New York City bakeries sold $90 million of biscuits to the armed forces, and also assembled full “K Rations” containing crackers, instant coffee, sugar cubes and candies (all New York specialties.)

Soldiers returned from battle with a taste for crackers, and could find them in local shops, displayed and sold loose in cracker barrels. The quaint image of the ol’ cracker barrel in Pop’s corner grocery may inspire wistful longings for yesteryear, but the contents in “the bottom of the barrel” were often rotten, swarming with insects and vermin. Yikes. Someone had to invent a new way of packaging, shipping and selling biscuits. That someone was also responsible for creating the most popular baked goods of all time.

The whole storeo

If you’ve ever visited Chelsea Market, that vast compendium of food shops and restaurants between 15th and 16th Streets on Manhattan’s west side, you will have noticed the factory-like setting: high transom windows, industrial ceiling fans, tin ceilings, brick archways and wooden floors. Outside there are skyway passages connecting multiple structures (including Google’s headquarters) and an elevated railroad, now called the High Line, passing right through the main building. A clue to the origins of this place can be found in a small lighted display near the Ninth Avenue entrance, which contains boxes of Uneeda Biscuits, Spiced Wafers, old photos, and advertisements for Oreos.

You’re in what was once the world’s largest bakery complex, spanning 7 acres: The National Biscuit Company, better known as Nabisco. (Select to enlarge:)

This was the realm of Adolphus Green (see bio), who consolidated many smaller bakeries to create the juggernaut National Biscuit in 1898. Surprisingly, Green started out knowing nothing about baking. He was a lawyer who specialized in forming “trusts” rather than cookies. He visited bakeries and retailers across America, learning all he could. He hated the open cracker barrel sitting on the floors of many markets, and vowed to challenge the old ways of making, distributing and selling baked goods. Instead of bulk barrels, he put his biscuits in moisture-proof boxes to maintain their freshness, and carefully branded and designed the packaging to attract shoppers. And he spent millions on advertising. In its first year, Nabisco sold 10 million boxes of biscuits per month. The national (and global) cookie industry was born on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, as was the Fig Newton, Barnum’s Animal Crackers, Lorna Doone, and the illustrious Oreo.

(there’s another bio link at the end of this chapter)

Nabisco had its rivals, the largest being the Loose-Wiles Company, makers of Sunshine Biscuits, which constructed the “thousand window bakery” in Long Island City. It was topped by the largest electric sign in the world, visible 7 miles out to sea. The place was so big that messengers roller skated between departments. In 1908 Loose-Wiles introduced a chocolate sandwich cookie called Hydrox which became enormously popular. Not to be outdone, Nabisco countered with its “Oreo” sandwich cookie four years later, which became its largest selling product. Today, the world eats 40 billion Oreos a year. Nobody seems to remember Hydrox (though it’s still around, made by a different company.)

One of New York’s favorite cookies, Mallomars, were introduced by Nabisco in 1913. The chocolate-covered marshmallow grahams are a big seller in the metropolitan area, but are relatively unknown in the south and west. It seems they can only be produced in a cool climate, and only during cooler months, since they tend to melt in the heat. Avid fans await their return to the grocery shelves each September.

By the 1930s one thousand elevated rail cars per month pulled into the Nabisco plant on the elevated tracks to deliver flour, butter, spices, sugar and nuts, and take away finished products. But like most New York manufacturers, they found the skyrocketing cost of doing business in the city prohibitive. Nabisco sold its Chelsea operation in 1956 and moved to New Jersey. The last bake at the factory was for 320,000 “survival crackers” ordered by the government during the Cold War. These were packed in airtight containers and stored under the Brooklyn Bridge in case of an emergency. They were completely forgotten until they were discovered fifty years later during a routine bridge inspection. The crackers were as fresh as the day they were made.