Happy Birthday Half Moon Cookies! An Upstate Tradition (But Which Side Do You Eat First?)

Half Moon cookies were invented in Utica, N.Y.  Oh, sure there have been other pretenders to the throne (don't even get me started about New York City's "black and white.")

The legend began when Harry Hemstrought, a former architect, opened up a little bakery in Utica in 1925.  His signature cookie, half chocolate icing, half white, caught on immediately with his customers.  Hemstrought's Bakery continues to churn out more than 13,000 Half Moon cookies daily , each one baked fresh every day.  The chocolate side is a fudge icing, the white is vanilla.  The recipe used today is the original one dating from over 80-years ago.  It is a handwritten recipe still tacked to the wall of the bakery

So how do you eat your Half Moon cookie?  Which side do you start with?  I have to admit, I start with the chocolate side and chomp my way through to Vanillaville!