Cookies were originally used as low-stakes ways to test the temperature of an oven

Watch an animation of what happens inside cookies as they bake in an oven

As temperatures rise and butter melts, trapped water expands, spreading the dough, which remains held together by a network of proteins. Maillard reactions produce browning on the surface beyond 310 degrees Fahrenheit (154 degrees Celsius), while caramelization can be triggered by baking past 356 degrees Fahrenheit (180 degrees Celsius).

Leaving cookies for Santa became popular in America during the Great Depression

During the period of economic hardship, many parents wanted to teach their children the importance of sharing and gratitude. The tradition dates even further back to ancient Norse mythology. The god Odin and his eight-legged horse, Sleipner, were left food in exchange for gifts.

Turkish delight recipes were initially kept secret

The chewy confection dates back to the 1700s, and initially was served at the sultan's court. The palace's secret recipes were eventually published in one of the earliest Ottoman cookbooks by Mehmet Kamil.

The ancient origins of focaccia

Focaccia, the Italian flat oven-baked bread that’s often a canvas for delightful culinary artwork, has been around for thousands of years. Archeologists have recently discovered evidence of flatbreads similar to today’s focaccia dating back to the Late Neolithic period in the Fertile Crescent. Researchers believe that communities from present-day Syria and Turkey made these distinctive loaves for large gatherings. Learn more about the bread’s history in this Archeology News article.

Emily Dickinson was a prolific baker

Dickinson scholars have collected her recipes for gingerbread, doughnuts, and more, noting that she often wrote poems on the backs of them. The Emily Dickinson Museum says that the kitchen "was a space of creative ferment for her, and that the writing of poetry mixed in her life with the making of delicate treats."

Danish cookies became a treasured Lunar New Year gift, thanks to their unique tin container

Hong Kong experienced an economic boom in the 1970s, which led to snacking, including on Western foods, becoming a cultural norm. Kjeldsens butter cookies became a popular treat, and their packaging, a distinct tin container, presented them as more refined than a simple snack. Instead, they were considered a worthwhile present for Lunar New Year.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Ice cream can be traced back to the 7th century

Documents from ancient China refer to a frozen milk dish, a predecessor of the treat we now know. That evolved into a blend of buffalo milk, flour, and fragrant camphor oil that more closely resembled our ice cream.

Why pickles became a thing

Pickles began in Mesopotamia around 2400 BCE as a way to preserve vegetables amid heat (and spoilage). They spread through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where Julius Caesar reportedly fed pickles to his soldiers, and brining was treated as a culinary art. The technique is broadly useful, as salt and water can extend the shelf life and deepen flavor for almost anything.

Early timekeeping tools included sundials, water clocks, and astrolabes

Astrolabes also provided a person's latitude based on the height of the stars in the sky, thus aiding in navigation. Incense and candle clocks relied on the constant burning rate of fire to track the passage of time based on premarked locations with equal-interval spacing.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s

Although early dating sites like Match.com weren't launched until the 1990s, the history of dating apps dates arguably back to the mid-1900s when computer scientists used IBM computers to solve matchmaking and compatibility problems.

Before it was a drink, coffee was used for handwashing

Five centuries before the caffeinated drink was consumed, coffee beans were used for their aromatic quality. One 10th-century text explains how it "obliterates greasy smells of food on hands and whatever of sweets and fats. Whether traveling or at home, neglect not to wash your hands with it."

The idea of a check—or promissory note—goes back to antiquity

As long as traders have looked to pay in cash or coin, the idea of an IOU has been close behind. Clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (roughly modern Iraq) and Persia (Iran) suggest proto-checks were used at the time. Islamic traders innovated "sakks" in the 9th century, leading to the broader adoption during the Middle Ages in Europe.

Thermopolia were ancient Roman snack bars

Although they weren't exactly restaurants, with sit-down service or extensive menus, thermopolia were modest food counters for Romans looking for quick bites—often bread with fish, cheese, and lentils.

The dreidel is a gambling toy common in Europe in the 18th century

It comes with many Jewish legends and folklore, including claims that young Torah scholars in ancient times used the toy as a secretive means of studying. Historians agree, though, that no evidence of dreidels exists beyond the 18th century.

Conversation candy hearts were originally message-free medicinal lozenges

In 1847, a Boston pharmacist invented a machine that automated the production of his pharmacy's medicinal lozenges and then formed the New England Confectionery Company, which later became part of the company now known as NECCO. By the late 1800s, they were producing cookies with Valentine-themed messages and eventually brought the romantic messages to their smaller lozenges, which they later called Sweethearts.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Ads follow you around the internet through cookies

A technology called “cookies” enables advertisers to essentially team up and follow your behavior around on the internet. This video explains why it seems like ads seem to follow you as you go from website to website—as well as data privacy advocates’ war against cookies.

The word ‘coupon’ comes from a French word meaning ‘to cut’

The history of coupons starts in the US with the Coca-Cola coupon that was mailed to consumers, offering them a chance to come try the soda for free in a nearby pharmacy. A coupon created by cereal company Post is one of the earliest widely cited follow-ups—it offered a penny off a box of Grape Nuts in 1909.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

What Costco does with its unsold baked items

Ever wonder what Costco does with its seemingly endless supply of muffins and other baked goods? Rather than mark down the items or toss them in the trash, the big-box retailer donates the perishable food to Feeding America, a network of food banks and other programs that help feed those in need.

Latkes, or fried potato pancakes, are eaten on Hanukkah to honor the miracle of the lasting oil

Deb Perelman, author of seminal food blog Smitten Kitchen, walks us through her foolproof recipe for classic potato pancakes. Among her tips: choose russet potatoes for a lighter latke, use a towel to wring the water out for extra crispiness, and add a sprinkle of baking powder for a little more lift.

The terms 'bug' and 'debugging' were popularized by Grace Hopper's team

Engineers working on the Mark II computer at Harvard University identified a moth in one of its components in 1947, which caused it to malfunction. Describing the incident as the "first actual case of bug being found," the term first used by Thomas Edison in 1878 to describe faults in an apparatus caught on.

What is a calorie?

Today it may go without thinking that we measure food by calories...but where did this come from and what does it mean? A kilo-calorie (or, as we call it, simply "calorie") is the amount of heat energy needed to raise the temperature of one...

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

The first Thanksgiving meal likely featured a venison stew called sobaheg

Agricultural knowledge was vital to the Pilgrims’ survival in a new, unknown land. Explore how to make sobaheg, a Wampanoag venison stew that would likely have been served at the first meal between the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims.

TikTok is obsessed with weird cottage cheese recipes

Cottage cheese “cookie dough.” Pizza cottage cheese bowl. Cottage cheese queso dip. TikTok influencers are suddenly posting nonstop cottage cheese recipes. It might be echoes of the 1990s weight-loss obsession, when diet culture encouraged the consumption of questionably tasty low-fat foods and not much else. Now, cottage cheese’s high protein content has made it an intriguing prospect for online fitness gurus who say that it’s the key to building muscle.

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

When you complete a CAPTCHA on a website to prove you are human, you may be unknowingly training algorithms for self-driving cars, whose systems require training data to help identify crosswalks, bicycles, and other outdoor objects.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.