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February 2, 2006
Cookie recipes and blows against empire
by BOB
DORAN
A recipe showed up in my e-mail box this morning. It came
from a local chef, but it was not one of hers. Instead she sent
what purported to be "the Neiman Marcus cookie" recipe.
The forwarded e-mail containing the recipe itself was preceded
by an interjection: "I love it when the little guy strikes
back!" followed by an introduction describing the upscale
Neiman Marcus as "a very expensive store" and, shouting
in all caps: "THIS IS A TRUE STORY!"
The tale that followed reminded me of something I encountered
frequently in my years as a chef: Pleased customers would ask
for a recipe so they could try to recreate some dish at home.
I always said yes. In some cases I even kept copies of popular
recipes on hand; sometimes, as with Chuck's crab-cake recipe
(reproduced here a couple of weeks ago), because the recipe was
for some mass quantity that no one would make at home. Another
reason was to avoid exposing diners to the food-encrusted nature
of restaurant recipe collections. (Cooks try to preserve the
illusion that everything is immaculately spotless behind the
door to the kitchen.)
The supposedly true story of the N.M. cookie recipe has a
woman named Diane and her daughter asking for the recipe for
the delicious chocolate chip cookie they'd enjoyed in the in-store
café at a Dallas N.M. The waitress tells them it's available,
but they have to buy it -- for "only two-fifty." The
woman tells her to add it to her tab, only to learn, once she
receives her credit card statement, that the recipe was $250,
not $2.50. She complains, but ultimately must pay. Her revenge:
Share the recipe with everyone she knows and have them do the
same. She fumes, "I paid $250 for this, and I don't want
Neiman Marcus to EVER make another penny off of this recipe!"
The recipe follows, along with a command to mail it to everyone
in your address book, "and ask them to pass it on."
The unstated subtext suggests that upscale department stores
are greedy and should be taken down a notch.
It turns out this "TRUE STORY" is not true at all.
I recognized it because I'd heard the tale before and knew it
as one of many urban legends e-mails floating around the Net.
If you're in the address book of even one gullible e-mail contact
you've probably received a message asking you to help "Save
Big Bird!" or warning of some viral plague that's about
to destroy the World Wide Web as we know it, or at least your
hard drive. While it's easy enough to simply hit delete when
something like the cookie recipe shows up in my e-mail, often
from an otherwise thoughtful friend, I usually take the time
to respond, just so the sender will know that, while their heart
may be in the right place, what they're doing is contributing
to the rising tide of useless spam.
As they put it at Snopes.com,
an excellent source for information on bogus claims, "Every
day we're bombarded with e-mail of dubious origin and even more
dubious veracity: Messages that plead with us to find a missing
kid or help a sick child, sign a petition to right some terrible
injustice, take a stand on an important piece of pending legislation,
forward a message to claim free merchandise or take heed of the
latest computer virus. The messages that aren't outright hoaxes
are often full of misinformation, and even the ones that have
some truth to them are usually out-of-date by the time we receive
them."
A Google search for "Neiman Marcus cookie recipe"
turns up a Snopes page on same, but also the official Neiman
Marcus website, where there's a whole page dedicated to the myth
about their "signature chocolate chip cookie." N.M.
wants you to know it's "a modern folk tale, its origins
unknown, its believability enhanced simply by the frequency with
which it is repeated... If you haven't heard the story, we won't
perpetuate it. If you have, the recipe [supplied] should serve
to refute it. Copy it, print it out, pass it along to friends
and family. It's a terrific recipe. And it's absolutely free."
Snopes founder Barbara Mikkelson traces the legend back to
a similar story found in a cookbook published in 1948 for "$25
Fudge Cake." Here the account concerns a request for a recipe
from the chef of some railroad dining car. As noted in the cookbook,
it was supplied, "together with a bill for $25, which her
attorney said she had to pay. She then gave the recipe to all
her friends, hoping they would get some pleasure from it."
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The myth pops up again in the '60s, re: a "Red
Velvet Cake" served at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. It then
mutates into a yarn about a recipe for Mrs. Fields' cookies.
While it's impossible to be sure about how such myths develop,
Mikkelson posits that there may have been an interim version
with Marshall Fields department store replacing Mrs. Fields,
transmuted through retelling, as in the child's game, "Telephone,"
into Neiman Marcus.
While the store does not mention it, she points
out that, ironically, "Until quite recently there was no
such thing as a `Neiman Marcus cookie.' They developed a chocolate
chip cookie in response to the rumor."
If you were hoping to come away from this with
a cookie recipe, I'll direct you to the Neiman Marcus cookie
page: (www.neimanmarcus.com/store/service/nm_cookie_recipe.jhtml).
If you're interested in the urban legend cookie
recipe, which, by the way, is completely different from the N.M.
version, I will gladly send it to you via e-mail ([email protected]),
but only if you swear that you will not forward it to anyone
else. And I admonish you: Resist the forwarding temptation. The
few clicks of a mouse merely spread a self-replicating virus.
Don't do it.
Above: This is not a Neiman Marcus cookie.
It's one from Ramone's. Cookie eaten by Bob Doran.
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