The New Mexico Biscochito Trail: Origin of the Biscochito
by Isabelle Medina Sandoval
The text from my granddaughter Gabriella confirmed that she received my messages answering her question regarding the etymology of biscochito. Under Roman rule, Italians created the twice baked biscotti cooked with almonds or anise. Latin specified bi for two and coctus for cooked/baked according to Garland D. Bills and Neddy A. Vigil in the text The Spanish Language of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. Although the biscochito is the official New Mexico State Cookie, Bills and Vigil identified that only eight percent of the 2008 Spanish speaking respondents in the study voiced the term biscochito to identify cookie.
After the 1492 founding of Spain, Sebastián de Covarrubias wrote the first Spanish dictionary in medieval Spanish in 1611, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. He defined the old Spanish vizcocho as a for-profit bread cooked twice (hardtack) for naval trips. His other definition identified vizcochos as gift cakes made of flour, sugar, and eggs. The diminutive form of biscocho is biscochito meaning little cake or cookie.
Early Spanish Biscochito
Gabriella’s text expressed her pleasure with yesterday’s endeavor. Our baking focus was to replicate the cookie by using ingredients of the early Spanish. She was intrigued with using the New World leavening of tequesquite. She creamed the sugar, butter, anise, eggs, tequesquite, and brandy with a wooden spoon. Then she mixed the flour and salt to the wet items. We used the gas oven because we had no outside adobe Spanish-Moorish horno as described by William W. Dunmire in Gardens of New Spain. After baking the biscochitos, Gabriella dipped the warm cookie in a sugar/cinnamon topping.
Gabriella recognized that flour, butter, eggs, tequesquite, and brandy were accessible by farming or trading with others. She was amazed to learn that sugar, some anise, and cinnamon were transported by Camino Real caravans from Mexico City to Santa Fe. She checked the food references written by William W. Dunmire.
Local salt and leavening were utilized by cooks. In her book, The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes, Cleofas M. Jaramillo noted that salt was hauled from Colorado. Tequesquite (Náhuatl word), a natural mineral salt, was used as a natural leavening according to Rubén Cobos in A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish because baking powder was not invented until 1856. Jaramillo observed that olive oil was available but expensive. In the book, On the Edge of Empire, David J. Weber described spices, sugar, olive oil, and pots/pans as sold in 1815 Santa Fe.
Olive oil, lard, or butter? It is probable that butter was used for fat because hogs were scarce; olive oil was expensive. Weber cited that the wealthy Taos Don Severino Martínez listed sixty cattle, one thousand sheep, and six hogs in his 1827 will.
Sephardic Jewish Connection?
I texted Gabriella to ask her opinion about the biscochos I made. Gabriella texted that she liked the biscocho because it tasted like our cookies. She added that “biscocho” was a mutual New Mexican and Sephardic term to describe the anise cookie.
A friend gifted me with a copy of Cooking the Sephardic Way published by the Sephardic Sisterhood of Temple Tifereth Israel in Los Angeles. The cookbook described biscocho, enhanced with anise liqueur and sesame seeds, as the most loved cookie. Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 for not converting to Christianity; exiled women preserved the biscocho tradition.
The Sephardic biscocho shared common New Mexico ingredients. Sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, fat, and anise were used. The fat of the Sephardic cookie was olive oil. In another cookbook, Sephardic Cookery, Emily de Vidas Levy wrote that she preferred to use vegetable oil rather than expensive olive oil. The early use of butter, vegetable fat, or olive oil in New Mexico possibly reflected the culinary practices of Sephardic Jews. As for sesame seeds, this plant was not grown in New Mexico.
Dunmire referred to the “bizcocho” as Sevilla baked hardtack shipped to settlements. The Sephardic medieval term “biscocho” designated sweet cookies. Covarrubia’s vizcocho description encompassed either hardtack or sweet pastry.
Like Levy, I used Crisco for my cookie recipe; my grandmother used butter. Product availability and cost of goods determined the cook’s final selection. Unknown women modeled ancestral traditions in new places.
A decade ago, I experienced a breakfast conference conversation with the deceased Jewish scholar, David M. Gitlitz, an approachable and highly intellectual giant. I told him that my favorite book he authored was A Drizzle of Honey. In his extensive research, Gitlitz uncovered crypto-Jewish recipes listed in Inquisition documents.
Scouring the Gitlitz cookbook for biscochitos, I found no recipe. Yet Sephardic Jews and New Mexicans shared the tradition of making anise cookies. According to Gitlitz, Iberian Jews ate similar foods to both of Muslims and Christians. He noted that medieval upper-class women made “vizcochos” or cookies and sprinkled cinnamon/sugar as a final gastronomic finish.
The New Mexico Biscochito Trail
As stated in the description of the New Mexico State Cookie, the biscochito was established by early Spaniards. Bakers preserved old traditions in isolated places. The modest multicultural biscochito embodied the confection perfection of Roman, Iberian, Arab, Christian, Jewish, and Native culinary artists.
Gabriella texted that she believed kitchen traditions kept words and flavors alive!
New Mexico recognized the distinctive cookie. Females of the New Mexico Biscochito Trail transcended ancient global fortitude.
Gabriella texted one more request. Please - make more Biscochitos! 💗
Biscochitos Recipe
by Isabelle Medina Sandoval
Sift: *6 cups flour; *3 tsp. baking powder; *1 tsp. salt
Cream: *1-pound softened unsalted butter or vegetable shortening; *1.5 cups of sugar
Add to butter and sugar: *2 tsp. of crushed anise seeds; *2 well beaten eggs; *4 ounces of brandy or 4 ounces of wine
Cream: Anise seeds, eggs, brandy or wine with butter and sugar
Mix: *Sifted mixture to *Creamed mixture, 1 cup at a time
Refrigerate: *Place dough in refrigerator for one hour
Roll: *Dough out; use light coating of flour on rolling pin and board; cut into shapes or use cookie cutters
Bake at 350: *10-12 minutes until a light brown
Cool Cookies: *1-2 minutes
Dip Warm Cookie: *In bowl of *1 cup sugar with *2 tablespoons of cinnamon
Place Biscochito on Cookie Rack to cool
* Use brandy or wine of early Spanish
*The word biscochito (cookie) is the modern word for medieval Spanish Vizcochito.
Dr. Isabelle Medina Sandoval is a published poet and genealogy researcher and former Bilingual Director for the Santa Fe Public Schools.
Bibliography
Bills, Garland D. and Vigil, Neddy A. The Spanish Language of New Mexico and Southern Colorado. 2008. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
Cobos, Rubén. A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish. 1983. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press.
Corrubias, Sebastián de. Tesoros de la lengua castellana o española. 1611. Madrid: Turner, 1977.
De Vidas Levy, Emilie. Sephardic Cookery. 1983. New York: Central Sephardic Jewish Community of America, Inc.
Dunmire, William W. Gardens of New Spain. 2004. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Gitlitz, David M. & Davidson, Linda Kay. A Drizzle of Honey. 1999. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Jaramillo, Cleofas M. The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes, 1981. Santa Fe: Ancient City Press.
Sephardic Sisterhood, Temple Tifereth Israel. Cooking the Sephardic Way.1971. Los Angeles: Sephardic Sisterhood, Temple Tifereth Israel.
Weber, David J. On the Edge of Empire. 1996. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press.
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