Read article : Culture through Cuisine: Sugar Cookie
NAZARETH, Pa. - It's sweet, simple, and brings back memories with just one bite.
"Reminds me of being a kid," said Mike Kemmerer, manager at Stehly's Bakery and Eatery.
Sugar cookies sometimes get overlooked with the vast array of cookie concoctions, but people in Nazareth are passionate about them and they have good reason.
Most of us have had hundreds of sugar cookies in our lifetime which actually originated in Nazareth.
Kelly Miller does marketing for Stehly's Bakery and Eatery and said, "It's like wow I can't believe something so historic is from right in our backyard."
In the mid 1700's the Moravians, which are Protestant settlers from Germany, perfected the sugar cookie in Pennsylvania.
Bill Brackbill, the former President of the Nazareth Bath Regional Chamber of Commerce, tried to make the sugar cookie Pennsylvania's official state cookie in the early 2000's.
Brackbill worked with many people including local lawmakers to introduce legislation in the state capitol.
Tina Smith is the current President of the Nazareth Bath Regional Chamber of Commerce and said, "I remember hearing about it working with Dr. Brackbill and actually making the trip to Harrisburg."
Brackbill said an active and vocal group traveled to Harrisburg expecting push back.
He said, "There was some opposition in central Pennsylvania and they introduced a couple of days later legislation to make the chocolate chip cookie official state cookie.
Who would think there would be a cookie clash?
"It was a sugar cookie, chocolate chip cookie battle in Pennsylvania. We had a demonstration, we had a protest, we had a sugar cookie protest in Harrisburg," recalled Brackbill.
In the end neither proposal passed, but that's not stopping businesses like Stehly's Bakery and Eatery from rolling sugar cookies out.
Miller said, "It's just a dying art so we tried to keep it alive here for other people to come on and by them."
While Stehly's sticks usually sticks to a thinner cookie, Shubert's bakery also sells a thicker version.
Either way, the owner of Shubert's said, "There's a lot of love that goes into them."
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