European Sugar Cookie Becomes Big Business In North Carolina

A Southern regional baking specialty – the Moravian sugar cookie – that has attracted a worldwide audience actually originated in old Czechoslovakia, making its way to North Carolina with immigrants escaping religious persecution in the 1700s. It’s become big business in the Winston-Salem area, represented by Dewey’s, which annually produces a million pounds of the sweet treat – round, thin, serrated on the edges and packed in Pringles-like tubes – and by Mrs. Hanes, whose 110,000 pounds a year are produced the old-fashioned way, rolled out and cut by hand. Dewey’s strategy is to modernize the Moravian cookie: it now offers variations on the basic theme, including chocolate-dipped, a “S’Moravian” (toasted marshmallow between two chocolate-dipped ginger cookies) and a ginger cookie topped with blue cheese, toasted walnuts and honey.