In Western culture, what's the most important Christmas food? The Christmas cookie! There are entire baking competition TV series about the creation and decoration of Christmas cookies. There are entire family traditions about families baking and distributing Christmas cookies. There are secret recipes, national recipes, traditional recipes. In fact, it's become kind-of an obsession in the United States. I'm reaching back to the late 19th- and early 20th-century for cookie recipes (along with one cruller recipe and a few candy recipes) to give you a feel for how Americans fed their guests with sweet holiday treats. Some of the recipes are actually European, but they hold on fiercely here in the States. And to other countries, I give my apologies - I used newspapers.com with broad keywords, but I couldn't find cookies in the Canadian and British newspapers that came up. Lots of cakes and puddings, but no cakes that were actually cookies. I promise that I will do an episode based on your newspapers in 2019! Keep it sweet, my pumpkins, however you spend the next few weeks. 2019 is going to be better.

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