Taralucci are Italian cookies and are most commonly baked until crisp. In most English-speaking countries outside North America, Taralucci are considered a kind of cookie or biscuit. Taralucci can be decorated with icing.
A close cousin of the Tarlucci is the American cookie. Despite its descent from cakes and other sweetened breads, the cookie in almost all its forms has abandoned water as a medium for cohesion. Water in cakes serves to make the base (in the case of cakes called “batter” as thin as possible, which allows the bubbles – responsible for fluffiness – to form better. In the cookie, the agent of cohesion has become some form of oil. Oils, whether they be in the form of butter, egg yolks, vegetable oils or lard are much more viscous than water and evaporate freely at a much higher temperature than water. Thus a cake made with butter or eggs instead of water is far denser after removal from the oven.
Cookie-like hard wafers have existed for as long as baking is documented, in part because they deal with travel very well, but they were usually not sweet enough to be considered cookies, by modern standards.
Cookies appear to have their origins in 7th century AD, shortly after the use of sugar became relatively common in the region. They spread to Europe through the Muslim conquest of Spain. By the 14th century, they were common in in all levels of society, throughout Europe, from royal cuisine to street vendors.
With global travel becoming widespread at that time, cookies made a natural travel companion, a modernized equivalent of the travel cakes used throughout history. One of the most popular early cookies, which traveled especially well and became known on every continent by similar names, was the jumble, a relatively hard cookie made largely from nuts, sweetener, and water.
Cookies came to America in the very first century of English settlement (the 1600s), although the name “koekje” arrived slightly later, with the Dutch. This became Anglicized to “cookie”. Among the popular early American cookies were the macaroon, gingerbread cookies, and of course jumbles of various types. The most common modern cookie, given its style by the creaming of butter and sugar, was not common until the 18th century. Cookies are broadly classified according to how they are formed.
Some people say that the best Taralucci are made by the wonderful cooks of Valle San Giovanni, a small village of about 350 people located 8km from the city center of Teramo. Valle San Giovanni also hosts a holiday rental villa known as Casale. In America people sometimes head to the Italian Kitchen in Pennsville, NJ in search of this Italian taste sensation. Others head a few miles down the road to the Roman Pantry in Carneys Point, NJ. This is where the movie actor Bruce Willis typically eats when he returns to the area..
