Whippet cookies: what do you call them?
A regular reader asks me to pose this question: what did you or your family or friends call these cookies (and what language did you speak at home)?
Variations on whippet cookies are made worldwide and are given various fanciful names. The Wikipedia claims that anglos in Montreal have called them “nun’s farts” which I have never heard. Pets-de-sœur are a different thing entirely.
(For language background purposes: we spoke English at home, my mom was born here, my dad in an Irish Catholic enclave in the north of England. He had a few odd turns of phrase but no weird names for whippet cookies.)
Michael Black 01:05 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
I’ve never known them as anything but whippets.
MarcG 01:41 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Whippets for me as well and English at home except when my French Canadian father stubbed his toe.
mare 02:24 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
You don’t want to know what they are/were called in Dutch. https://blogs.transparent.com/dutch/this-dutch-treat-is-racist/
At the time I had no idea. Cringeworthy anecdote: During a couple of weeks of the year they were sold in my high school during lunch break for 10 cents each to raise funds for UNICEF. Some kids bought many boxes and organized “Chocolate-coated marshmallow treats”-fights in the hallways were they threw them at other students. A snowball fight without snow. They’re really hard to get out of your hair.
Jebediah Pallendrome 04:16 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
I always called them Choco-Mallow Mouth Flavor Explosion. My family’s from Luxembourg but I grew up in Laval.
maggie rose 07:51 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
We called them Mallowmars when I was a child growing up in NYC, my Dad’s favourite. I think they’re a different recipe than Whippets, but are the same idea. Still sold as Mallowmars in the states, though I haven’t tasted them in many years.
maggie rose 07:57 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
According to this cooking site, there is a cult-like following for both cookies in New York and Quebec. Short history and recipe here https://naramata-blend.com/2017/12/11/mallomars-or-whippets-cookie-hack/. I often have a Whippet for old time’s sake. I keep a box in the frig.
John B 09:45 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Pretty much stick with the dominant brand name: Viva Puffs out west, before I moved to Montreal, Whippets here.
Tim F 09:58 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Thanks for putting the question out there, Kate. You can tell from the Wikipedia page title that the name is contentious, but as mare suggests, “Whippet”/“nun’s fart” is not the biggest controversy by a mile.
Just glad to know I’m not crazy.
Kate 10:29 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Thanks, Jebediah. Thanks all.
Ephraim 12:07 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Whippets. Though, I don’t really like them. In Israel they are called Krembo and they are MUCH taller. https://chicagored.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/israeli-cookie-kramboo_b1.jpg (Incidentally, it’s Dumbledore’s favourite treat in the Hebrew translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, according to my cousin.)
Blork 12:17 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
I’m pretty sure we called them whippets when I was an anglo kid in Nova Scotia. My Francophone sweetie called, and calls, them whippets.
Blork 12:19 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
…and I highly doubt that Wikipedia reference is correct. As you say, Nun’s farts are a completely different thing, and even Montreal anglos are not that thick about such expressions.
Kevin 12:25 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Any anglo who used the term “fart” in front of his mother would have been spanked.
Kate 12:30 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
This is true, Kevin. It was a proscribed word in our house – instead, we were allowed to use one of my father’s words for it.
Trump.
Wiktionary says “(slang, Britain, childish, vulgar) Flatulence.”
ant6n 13:48 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Back when I grew up in the old country (in Germany), we had a variation of these that were called “Negerkuss” (Negro’s kiss), even in the early nineties. Before my time they were even called “Mohrenkopf” (Moor’s head).
They’re taller, more fragile, and a big mess (=fun) to eat when you’re young. Germans are pretty reactionary when it comes to the language involving racism and sexism, so only in the late nineties did these things turn into “Schokokuss” (chocolate kiss) or “Schaumkuss” (foam kiss).
CE 15:40 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Growing up on the east coast in an anglo household, they were called whippets. I don’t remember eating them very often.
In South America, I saw a packaged version of them made by Nestlé which were sold with the chocolate bars called Beso de negra (black woman’s kiss) which wouldn’t be considered to be particularly racist there. The package had a voluptuous woman blowing a kiss.
jeather 15:45 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Definitely called them whippets, they were popular with my siblings. Never heard of other names for them as a kid, but a lot of people are completely baffled by the name, it’s very regional.
Tee Owe 16:43 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Where I grew up they didn’t exist as such, but what did exist would have been called chocolate marshmallows, a poor substitute. Where I live now they are called floedeboller, polite term for what used to be called negerboller, not used anymore. Never heard of whippets. In my childhood the polite word for fart was puff – all to be found in the Wikipedia links that are posted- BTW to say that English was our household language is to miss the fact that there are many versions of English, not all understandable to each other. Try moving from Montreal to Australia via London!
Kate 17:17 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Tee Owe, an old friend just married a man who started out in England, lived here in Montreal in his childhood, was moved back to England by his family, moved to Australia after he qualified as an MD, and is now living in California with my friend. I’m going to talk to her soon, and will ask her to ask him what he calls a whippet cookie.
…I’m relieved that we didn’t have a racist name for them here.
Daniel D 19:49 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
“Tea cakes”, but I grew up in the U.K. (the best ones come from Marks & Spencer – Do they have any of those in Canada?)
Kate 20:03 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
The Marks & Spencer in Montreal shut down years ago.
I can’t get my head around these being cakes. They’re too small.
EmilyG 20:50 on 2020-12-30 Permalink
Whippets.
Chris 14:48 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
We called them “May Wests”, or are these something different?
Michael Black 15:00 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
May Wests have no marshmallow or biscuit. They are a vanilla cake coated in chocolate.
Hervé 19:17 on 2020-12-31 Permalink
Des ouipets, bien sûr