Harlemite Norman Rockwell Was A Cookie Monster

In a recent article titled The 15 Most Popular Posts from Open Culture in 2013 from the Open Culture 2013 listed East Harlemite Norman Rockwell Cookie Recipes as one of the most popular.

Norman Rockwell, prolific painter and illustrator of 20^th century Americana, often worked so single-mindedly that he missed meals. In 1943, Rockwell exhausted himself to such a degree that, while completing the Franklin Delano Roosevelt-inspired series of paintings entitled Four Freedoms, he lost 15 pounds over the course of seven months. This drop in weight is, perhaps, all the more shocking when given some context: Rockwell was far from being a corpulent man. In fact, when the then 23-year-old artist attempted to enlist as a serviceman in the U. S. Navy during World War I, he was judged to be eight pounds underweight, standing at six feet and tipping the scales at 140 pounds. Rockwell, however, was not to be deterred by something so trivial as his bodily composition. He gorged himself on bananas and doughnuts when he came home that evening. The next day, Navy recruiters dully welcomed the sufficiently bloated Rockwell to the fold.

When Rockwell did eat, he had a penchant for oatmeal cookies. At least two of the artist’s letters detailing instructions for making this choice snack on March 2, 1966 and in the 1970’s.

Here is the recipe from 1966 iteration of the oatmeal cookie recipe:

Here is a later version, from the 1970s, found on The Saturday Evening Post website:

Seems the only change between the two recipes is:

• The amount of the baking soda from 1 teaspoon and 1/2 tea spoon.
• The baking time from 375 degrees to 400 degrees.
• The time in the oven from 10 minutes to 7 to 8 minutes.

If you decide to make one of these recipes don’t forget to drop us a note to let us know how it went.