School is in session, and we put the CPS butter cookie to the test

Curious City

Summer is coming to an end, and it’s time to go back to school. Today, the number of Chicago Public School students complaining about school lunch might only be matched by the complaints over homework assignments. So it may come as a surprise that decades ago CPS students actually looked forward to eating cafeteria lunch. In our last episode, WBEZ’s Sarah Karp found that privatization of food services and revamped health guidelines shifted the menu for CPS students. During Karp’s reporting, many alumni kept mentioning an old lunchtime staple, the famed CPS butter sugar cookie. This was a cookie served district wide and baked fresh by lunchroom staff during the 1960s-1980s. The cookie has long been discontinued in schools, but there’s still a cult following. Dozens of copycat recipes pop up on a simple internet search, and one woman even turned it into a business. Curious City decided to put this cookie to the test. With the help of CPS culinary instructor Jeffrey Newman and a dupe recipe, we re-created this classic lunchroom treat. Is it worth all the hype? Will current CPS students like it? Or is this merely a dose of childhood nostalgia?