by B.J. Roche

One of the depressing things about the rise of places like Applebees, Subway and Chiles is the accompanying decline of foods from particular places. It's like seeing tulips in the flower shops at Christmas time. It just feels wrong.

So I was glad to see a nice piece in the The Boston Globe today that tells the story of  Joe Froggers, gingerbread-like cookies that were originally baked at a small tavern at the top of Gingerbread Hill in Marblehead. My great uncle Henry used to own the Colonial-era tavern, owned by a freed slave name Joseph Brown, and in winters, we'd skate  on Black Joe's Pond right next door.

Truth be told, I never liked Joe Frogger's that much when I was a kid. But down the hill was Sadie's penny candy and fudge shop, and Sadie had plenty of items I--and every other kid for a few generations--did like. Sadie ran the place out of a side room in the grey-shingled, weather-beaten, seaside house she shared with her sister and brother--across from Studie's beach and Brown's Island beyond. Sadie's was so famous that the spot now bears one of those historic markers.

My mother and I were discussing Joe Froggers recently when we found an old recipe in another magazine. The story was that they actually used salt water in the originals. Typical Marblehead.

You can't go home again, but you can bake these cookies.

What foods do you remember from the place you grew up?