I found this clearly untested recipe for Pili (a nut native to the Bicol Region of the Philippines, also known as Canarium comune, L.) Brownies which does not have pili nuts and the recipe calls for it to be served as cookies. These might make a good peanut butter cookies. This is from 'Everyday Cookery for the Home' (c. 1934: recipe (p. 78) and description (p. 226).
by Chill_Boi_0769
2 Comments
Isn’t the more likely conclusion that it’s just a typo for “pill,” as in pill- or drop-shaped brownies?
Given that the cookbook’s intended audience was ‘the housewives of the Philippines,” I don’t think it could be a typo for “pill.” (Pill brownies aren’t a synonym for cookies, anyway.)
The simplest explanation would be a mistake in typesetting: this is a peanut butter cookie recipe that should have had a different title, and there was supposed to be a pili brownie recipe that is now missing. Typesetting errors *did* happen in the era before computers.
Since the 1930s is still in the period of Home Economics experts trying to standardize cooking, there’s also the possibility that someone wanted to promote peanut butter as a substitute for pili. However, the recipes I was skimming early in the book do use local ingredients, so why not pili too? Active peanut-butter marketing board? Pili shortage? That also wouldn’t explain why it’s a cookie.
Yeah, I think this was a typesetting error.