My friend and I were sitting at the bar of our favorite cidery, having a tasty beverage and idly watching the muted big-screen TV mounted on the wall before us. I read some of the closed-captioned words on what appeared to be a cooking show and I suddenly became animated. “Look at that,” I said to my friend. “I hate when they use the word ‘crack’ to describe something.”
The term “crack” is in the popular lexicon to describe something irresistible. “Crack” cookies, or “crack” cake, for instance. But this casual usage belies the origin of the phrase. In Miami Florida, Caribbean immigrants taught young people how to convert powdered cocaine into a smokable form. The name “crack” was adopted from the crackling sound made by the cocaine crystals when they were smoked. Crack was cheap to manufacture and sold cheaply and had a devastating effect on the inner cities. In African-American communities, crime soared, and incarceration rates increased dramatically between 1981 and 1986. President Reagan instituted a “War On Drugs” that focused on harsh penalties for the possession of even the smallest amount of the drug.
There is another term in common usage that has a sinister origin: “hack.” I read expressions of joy about cooking hacks and yard-care hacks, where the phrase denotes a better way to do something. I met a man in St Louis Missouri in the early 90s who was “into computers” as we used to say. We lived in the same building and ran into each other in the hallway. He learned that I worked in the advertising department of the Famous-Barr department store. I invited him into my apartment, and one night, after the consumption of a few beers, he told me of his theory of computer information theft. According to this man, breaking into someone else’s computer was an important skill to have, and a service to all who use computers. His view was that “hacking” into a company’s computer files alerts the owners to the vulnerabilities of their systems, a lesson they can use to develop more efficient firewalls. Beer-buzzed though I was, I was clearheaded enough to ask: “So, you steal a person’s stuff to teach them to lock their doors? And not because you are a bandit?” He disavowed the notion of banditry, but I am still dealing with the repercussions of the 2017 Equifax data breach, where hackers were able to obtain critical information about more than 147 million people.
The TV show “CSI: Cyber,” starring Patricia Arquette, aired for two seasons, starting in 2015. My obsession with crime shows has me watching this occasionally, late at night. The show is about FBI agents teaming with former “black hats” – cyber crooks – to uncover cybercrime and bag the bandits. I’ve not heard a line of dialogue that glamorizes the hacking of computer systems. The former “black hats” acknowledge that what they did was illegal and unethical, and now that they have reformed, they use their skills for good. To hack is to “gain unauthorized access to (a computer file or the data held in one.)” The verb should not be converted to a noun and made to seem as if it would apply to a better way to bake a Bundt cake.
As for “crack” cookies: If you’re talking about that “instantaneous and intense high,” and the weight loss, high blood pressure, hallucinations, seizures, and paranoia that are the byproducts of crack cocaine use, as well as the devastation of communities and the shredding of families, then by all means, call those cookies crack cookies.