Last month, our daughter gave her dad a box of Girl Scout cookies - shortbread style- his favorite. When she was a Scout, we always bought a case of these cookies and stored them in the freezer, a year round treat. In recent years, our daughter-in-law has kept him supplied with cookies that the children of her friends were selling.
The cookies certainly prompted talk about our daughter’s years as a Scout. They also sent me in search of the history of these cookies always on sale in between January and April of each year.
Cookie History
In 1917, members of the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma, baked cookies in their homes and sold them in the high school cafeteria to raise money for troop activities. By 1922, The American Girl Magazine published a recipe from Florence E. Neil, a local director in Chicago, Il, for cookies. She estimated the approximate cost of ingredients for six-to seven dozen cookies to be 26-36 cents. She suggested the girls sell the cookies for 25-30 cents per dozen.
By 1935, the Girl Scout Federation of Greater New York had turned to a commercial baker to produce cookies to sell. The group purchased its own die in the shape of a trefoil for the baker to use. They were packaged in a box labeled “Girl Scout Cookies.”
I did not remember selling cookies during my time as a Scout during the World War II years. I’ve just learned that because sugar, flour and butter were rationed in the 1940s, we sold calendars instead. That I vaguely remember.
By the 1950s, 29 bakers had been licensed to bake Girl Scout Cookies again. I was no longer a Scout. With the turn of the 21st century, girl scout troops sent cookies to military troops overseas. By 2014, cookie sales went online. And at the 2016 Academy Awards, in recognition of a century of selling cookies, Scouts took to the stage to sell cookies to Hollywood’s A-list.
Liners for Slow Cookers
The same weekend our daughter gave her dad cookies, I used our slow cooker to serve grits. I make a pot of grits several hours before we want to serve them at a fish fry; and then, I keep them warm in a slow cooker with a liner. It works so well. For years, I refused to serve grits with our fish fries because I didn’t want to spend an hour or more, stirring and adding liquids to keep the grits the perfect consistency for a large group of people. In fact, my sister-in-law and I had added baked beans to the family fish fry menu to eliminate having to stir grits.
Not long ago, we attended an extended family fish fry where all the ladies joined the hostess in the kitchen while she continuously stirred grits for the large gathering. She has far more patience for the process than I.
But the addition of a simple liner to the slow cooker has made my job even easier. Clean up is easy, simply by trashing the liner.
Liner History
While the original Crock Pot was sold by the Rival Company, it was invented by Irvin Naxon, in 1938, as he was trying to make his grandmother’s “Cholent Stew,” a meal eaten by Eastern European Jews. With his invention, Naxon marketed the first slow cooker as Naxon Beanery All Purpose Cooker. The Rival Company purchased the Naxon Company and changed the name to Crock-Pot. Today, multiple companies offer a version of a slow cooker.
With the turn of the 21st century, designers at Reynolds ‘ Kitchens were applying for patents for a slow cooker liner. Similar to the oven bag invented mid 20th century, the slow cooker liners are BPA safe and meet FDA regulations. And they make clean up a snap.
For those who don’t want the expense (about $1 per liner) or distrust cooking in plastic, there are several helpful hints online for easier cleanup. One suggests coating the pot with a cooking spray before adding ingredients. Another suggests filling a crusty pot with a mixture of baking soda and hot water and letting it soak for an hour or more.
I like the liners.
2020
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