Rooster Cookie Cutter

The Pennsylvania German  custom of recognizing the Christmas Holiday Season with an orgy of baking gingerbread figures and cookie-making was firmly entrenched in Pennsylvania from the time of the earliest settlement.  While the tradition arrived here unchanged as to substance, it underwent alteration as to the material used to shape the cakes, for the majority of cake bakers here used tin cutters instead of the wooden molds; a change probably brought on by economic conditions in this new country.  Very few skilled artisans could devote the time to such a minor job as carving in hard wood the elaborate forms used by the bakers in their homeland. 

To meet the demand for cookie and cake cutters the whitesmith devised cutters of tin as a substitute.  Horse or deer or bird or man, these delightful articles of the rural tinsmith's craft were turned out in infinate variations.  They are indeed an interesting source of playful forms.  While tin is a ductile material and capable of being bent into complicated outlines, the whitesmith understood the need of keeping the basic form simple.  If it became too complicated, alterations in the shape of the cookie after its trip to the bake oven  would so distort its outline that it would no longer gladden the eye of the consumer.  Half the enjoyment of the connoisseur of Christmas cakes and cookies lay in their shape; the other half in their taste. 

The designer of cookie-cutters understood their function perfectly.  To really enjoy eating a cookie, it should have numerous little projections on which to nibble, which prolonged the gustatory delights of Christmas cookies.  Whether they were sugar cookes which were light in color, or molasses ones which were dark, the shape was the thing. At Christmas, no Pennsylvania German housewife felt satisfied until she had made at least a bushel or more of cookies, cut in decorative shapes to be served with apples and cider to Holiday guests and family.

Thus, cookie cutters became treasured objects, passed down from generation to generation along with the recipes.  The aesthetic of the cookie cutter is in the form and, while function defined form, there was also room for flights of fancy.  The cookie cutter which we present here has all the elements of good folk art and, as such, most certainly was a treasured object.  The patina is simply wonderful as is the form. Ex Weld Collection.  Size is 4-1/2" x 5".
$525.00
ROH13543

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