Episode 294: Cooking the Books

This week Shauna and Dan learn how to cook the books. Bonus: Accounting Wizardry, Spoof versus Satire, and an Epic Parisian Ice Cream Brawl

It's free to join our Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod

On our Patreon you have direct access to reach Shauna and Dan, plus join our weekly chats and polls. Paid tiers have even more perks, like early access and name recognition on the show. So join us on Patreon!
patreon.com/bunnytrailspod

Copyright 2025 by The Readiness Corner, LLC - All Rights Reserved

Bunny Trails: A Word History Podcast
Episode 294: Cooking the Books
Record Date: September 14, 2025
Air Date: September 24, 2025

Intro

Shauna:
Welcome to Bunny Trails, a whimsical adventure of idioms and other turns of phrase. 

I’m Shauna Harrison

Dan:
And I’m Dan Pugh

Each week we take an idiom or other turn of phrase and try to tell the story from its entry into the English language, to how it’s used today.

Opening Hook
When I was in college, I did a business degree. And much of that degree was focused on understanding a little bit about a lot of things in business. The point wasn’t that I had to do everything, the point was I needed to build a team that could do everything. When my professor asked me what I was least comfortable with, I said finance. He told me that I didn’t need to be a finance expert, I just needed to hire a finance expert. What I needed was just enough knowledge to make sure my finance person wasn’t cooking the books.  

Meaning
According to the Oxford English Dictionary to cook the books means:

Quote
to fraudulently alter account books or other financial records; (also later in extended use) to alter any factual evidence in order to deceive or to suit a particular purpose
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#1283935700 


Cook
Both words in this phrase, cook and book have meaning to the phrase. A Cook is a person who prepares food and that term has been in the language since Old English. In middle english it took on the verb, as in the act of preparing food. 

1500s
And in the 1500s it took on a figurative meaning to prepare or develop something outside of the food context. Here’s an example from The Portraitur of the Prodigal Sonne by Samuel Gardiner from the late 1500s:

Quote
The truth of Gods word is full of sucke and sappe, it is meate that may be rellished without curious cooking it.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#8308242 

1600s
And since the early 1600s, to cook something has also taken on a negative tone meaning to do something dishonest, or to tamper with something, like in this example from John Sergeant’s 1655 work Schism dis-arm'd of the defensive weapons

Quote
All the substantial part being already confuted an hundred times over, and only the cooking it up changed.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#8308299

So it’s easy to see how we went from a person who prepares food being a cook, to that work meaning the preparation of food, to it meaning the preparation of anything, to the negative connotation with preparing something that would be deceitful. And that is how the word ‘cook’ is being used in the phrase ‘cook the books’.

Book
Books, since the early 1400s, has been a term used to describe:

Quote
A systematic record of commercial transactions, minutes of meetings, attendance, etc. Also: a volume containing such records; an account book, a ledger, or (in later use) its electronic equivalent. Frequently in plural.
End Quote
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/book_n?tab=meaning_and_use#302920771 

In our phrase, the book in question is a book of accounts, a volume containing commercial transactions and other records. And hence, to create false or adjusted entries into an accounting book is to “cook the books”.

Now, before we jump into the phrase ‘cook the books’, I should note we are not really going to discuss the ways in which one might actually commit this act. At least not in the main show. However, we will talk about the top 10 ways in which one might cook the books in our behind the scenes episode. Those air every Friday on our Patreon. Patreon.com/bunnytrailspod 

1850
We’ll start ‘cook the books’ with one of the earliest uses of our phrase I could find. This one is from the January 21, 1850 edition of The Globe and Traveller out of London, England. It references an extradition request by the English Government to the United States Government of one Henry Stratton, who is accused of committing accounting fraud and then fleeing to the US with his family. Here is the last paragraph of the article which contains our phrase:

Quote
The mode which Stratton adopted to mystify the accounts and to ‘cook’ the books of the bank, to deceive the trustees and managers, as well as Mr. James, the Secretary, was of a character to disarm suspicion, and was only to be discovered by the closest investigation and the strictest scrutiny.
End Quote
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001652/18500121/015/0003 

1861
This one comes from the Saturday Review out of London, England and is dated July 13, 1861. In it, the author is speaking on potential bias in roles and the phrase comes up as if everyone has always known the phrase.

Quote
It is quite reasonable for a Church of England debtor to object to his accounts in bankruptcy being prepared by a Baptist official assignee. It is no more than fair for a Dissenting grocer to say that the parson of the parish is not a safe savings bank manager, because he may be tempted by his zeal for religion to cook the books of all the Wesleyan depositors in the district.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Saturday_Review/78BLAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22cook+the+books%22&pg=PA39&printsec=frontcover 

1893
Here’s a good example of the phrase from the Detroit Free Press, as published on January 12, 1893 in the Barton County Democrat out of Kansas, USA. 

Quote
The republican papers have always made - or attempted to make - a great deal of capital of the fact that the books of the government balanced eight years ago into the insignificant sum of two cents. But that only showed that the g.o.p. was so sure of continuing in power that it made no effort to hide its grabs by “cooking” the books. It is quite possible that the books of the pension department will balance to a dot. But that will not change the fact that the government has been robbed of millions in that department.
End Quote
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83040198/1893-01-12/ed-1/?sp=3&q=cooking+the+books&r=0.617,0.83,0.525,0.2,0 

I didn’t look up whatever potential scandal was being mentioned here because honestly USA politics is still as vitriolic now as it ever was and I just can’t engage with it on any sort of a regular basis. Suffice it to say the party not in power in 1893 is accusing the party in power of cooking the books to balance the budget. And I have no idea if it is true or not. 

1920
This next one has quite the title, and I’m going to include it not only because of the phrase being used but also because the title is quite evocative. This is from the Washington Herald out of Washington, DC, USA and is dated August 23, 1920. Our phrase is used in an article titled: Yank Who Made Ice Cream in Paris Fights with Partner and Knocks Out Fifteen Employees Who Attacked Him. It seems Jed and his business partner Fitch had a disagreement about the profit sheets at their ice cream factory in Paris, France. Fitch brought 15 employees loyal to him to attack Jed with clubs. And when the dust settled, apparently a bruised and battered Jed was the only man still standing. And he was then promptly arrested. We’ll pick up the story from the article:

Quote
At the station house he proved he was the one attacked and now he has filed suit against his erstwhile partner charging him with “cooking the books” which being translated, means converting profits into seeming losses.
End Quote
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045433/1920-08-23/ed-1/?sp=2&q=cooking+the+books&r=0.31,0.662,0.618,0.235,0 

The article goes on to mention that Parisians are disappointed in the lack of ice cream available to them while this all gets sorted out. 

1946
This next one was published in The Economist out of London, England and is dated April 6, 1946. It is referencing the accounting practices of the Coal Board. 

Quote
The accounts are to be in such a form as the Minister may direct, and the Opposition—with varying degrees of tact and expertise—attempted to show that this was placing too much power in the hands of the Minister and exposing him to the temptation of cooking the books for political purposes.
End Quote
https://archive.org/details/sim_economist_1946-04-06_150_5354/mode/2up?q=%22cooking+the+books%22 


1958 
We’ll wrap up the most exciting of things, part of a political speech from August 7, 1958 during debate on the second reading of an appropriations bill in the Parliament of Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. This excerpt is by Peiter Keuneman:

Quote
Good book-keeping should at least bring out the true state of affairs of the institution whose books have been kept. The Minister of Finance does not do this. He is either blissfully ignorant of the meaning of the figures which stick out under his nose or else he is trying to fudge the accounts and cook the books.
End Quote
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Parliamentary_Debates/j-8dAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22cook+the+books%22&pg=PA2359&printsec=frontcover

In addition to the insinuation of cooking the books, he also drops another term I really like, and that is the word ‘fudge’ to mean lie or deceive. Which interestingly, was the primary meaning of the word for over a century before we started using it to describe a type of desert. 
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fudge_n?tab=meaning_and_use#3517283
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/fudge_v?tab=meaning_and_use#3516970 

With that, it’s time to move to our more modern uses but first we need to say thank you to our sponsors. 

A Quick Thank You
This episode is sponsored by our amazing Patrons on Patreon. And the cool thing about Patreon is it is 100% free to join the community! 

We have new things every weekday on the feeds. On Monday’s we have a conversation about what movies, shows, books, podcasts and whatever else everyone is enjoying, Tuesdays see early access to the week's podcast, Wednesdays have all the links, books, songs, and other content mentioned in the week's episode, Thursday has patron’s only polls, and Friday’s are our lightly-edited behind the scenes video featuring all the cut content, goofs, and bonus facts you could imagine.

We’ve got some other pretty cool stuff, too, like Original Digital Artwork once a month, made by Shauna, and direct access to talk with us. No algorithm’s getting in the way of what we see or don’t see. Plus, you can get awesome name recognition like Pat Rowe does every episode. And our top spot is currently occupied by the amazing Mary Halsig Lopez

You can join the Bunny Trails community for free at bunny trails pod on Patreon. 

That’s patreon.com/bunnytrailspod 


Modern Uses

As we start our modern uses, I do want to mention there are many variants for ‘cooking the books’ and the phrase isn’t used as much anymore as it once was. The more popular terms are financial engineering or creative accounting. We’ll link to the google nGram on the terms so you can see the change over time yourself if that interests you. 

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=cooking+the+books%2Ccreative+accounting%2C+financial+engineering&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3

A few other terms I’ve heard include ‘massaging the balance sheet’, ‘creative bookkeeping’, and ‘accounting wizardry’. But despite other phrases taking the spotlight for accounting shenanigans, there are still several ways we see the phrase in popular culture today. 

1980 Band
We’ll start with Cook da Books which was a British new wave band that formed in 1980 from two other bands, Dogems and Brooklyn. They found success throughout Europe during their time together. Perhaps their biggest hit came from the song Your Eyes off the soundtrack for the French film La Boum 2 starring Sophie Marceau. While they never found commercial success in the US or the UK, they did find a fan base in much of the rest of Europe, especially in France thanks to the success of the movie. They were also popular in Hong Kong and the Philippines. 

We’ll link to a youtube video for the song Your Eyes as well as a web archive link of their unofficial fan page in the show notes, available on our Patreon or at bunnytrailspod.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20090124022612/http://solitairemusic.net/cdb.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl03dgoKlZs 

2007 Short Film
Cooking the Books: A Recipe for Murder! is a 2007 short film by Jaqueline 
Hankins. It was written for the musical comedy film series, Hip Hop Musical Mysteries and is a wall street spoof. A spoof means you are making fun of something, but usually in a good-natured way. So this short film is joking about Wall Street, the proverbial financial center of the United States. Here is the synopsis from the trailer:

Quote
Indicted by the Feds for stock fraud and embezzlement, Harold Johnson & Associates would rather murder than go to jail.
End Quote
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ZETSvrjKc

It looks kooky and silly and I would absolutely watch it.

2014 TV Show
Cook the Books was a 2014 TV Show that ran for one season. You can find it on Tubi, and here is the synopsis from there:

Quote
Hosted by broadcaster, foodie, and cookbook fan Carly Flynn, this series celebrates cookbooks, food authors and celebrity chefs.
End Quote
https://tubitv.com/series/300005030/cook-the-books

2015 Book
Cook the Books is a 2015 book by Jessica Conant-Park and Susan Conant. It is the 5th book in The Gourmet Girl Mysteries series. Here is the synopsis from the publisher:

Quote
Gourmet girl Chloe Carter is keeping busy with grad school and spoiling her best friend's three-month-old son. Now, courtesy of Craigslist, she has a new job as assistant to cookbook author Kyle Boucher—a job that stirs up painful memories of her ex-boyfriend Josh, who chose the shimmering beaches of Hawaii over a life with her on the mean streets of Boston. The gig heats up when Boucher asks her to compile a book of recipes from Boston's top chefs. Chloe leaps from the frying pan into the fire when she arrives for a meeting with Digger, one of Josh's friends and a rival chef, and discovers a dead body instead.

Digger died of smoke inhalation from a blaze that started in his kitchen. Unable to believe that an executive chef would allow a grease fire to get so out of control, Chloe starts an unofficial search for the murderer. As if she didn't have enough on her plate already, now Josh is back in town. Chloe must decide where her future truly lies, but as a killer prepares to strike again, the amateur detective will find herself racing against time to protect those nearest and dearest to her.
Ended Quote
https://www.amazon.com/Cook-Books-Gourmet-Girl-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B016VNII94 

2016 Blog
Cooking the Books is a weekly column written by Doreen Sheridan for criminalelement.com. In it, Ms. Sheridan reviews a book and cooks a recipe that was used in the book. There are thousands of these reviews because she started this project in 2016 and is still going at the time of this recording. 
https://www.criminalelement.com/tag/cooking-the-books/

2020 Podcast
Cooking the Books with Gilly Smith is a podcast that started in 2020 and
still runs as of the time of this recording. In this podcast, food IS the story. Here is the synopsis from the about me section of the Acast show page:

Quote
It's about all of life from climate change to culture and politics to people through the prism of food. It's for foodie book lovers who want to hear something more profound about the way we live, making the link between delicious food and the impact of food production on the land - through books.

Hear how A-lister food writers have changed the conversation about food as Gilly talks through their four chosen food moments from their latest books. As she joins the dots between stories from the old country and food identity, plant-based recipes and climate change, she shows how a deeper connection with food really could save the planet.
End Quote
https://shows.acast.com/cooking-the-books 

2021 Youtube Channel
Cooking the Books is a Youtube channel with about 68k subscribers and over 7 million views across 300ish videos. The oldest video on the channel is from 2021 and they are still putting out videos as of the time of this recording. Here is the description from Anna, the host:

Quote
I've collected vintage cookbooks for many years and love trying out 'new' (to me) vintage recipes. If you love food, cookbooks, and all things vintage, then you've come to the right place!
End Quote
https://www.youtube.com/@cooking_the_books

Some of the titles are 1960s Dinner for Two, 1940s Budget Dinners, and 1960s Casseroles. So if that seems like your thing, you should check out her work. She is really good at explaining things so everyone understands while not sounding like she is talking down to anyone. 

Wrap Up
I really enjoy doing shows where the phrase has a clear pathway from its entry in the English language to how it is used today. This one has that clear pathway from a person called a Cook in Old English, to cooking as a verb in Middle English, to a figurative usage, then to the negative of that figurative. And in the 1800s it met up with books, short for books of account, to bring us this fun phrase. And even though it is being usurped by some other less obvious phrases, I still find cooking the books to be my favorite term for fraud that happens with business financials. Assuming I’m allowed to have favorite ways to describe crimes. I’m not committing them, mind you. This is getting off the rails, which is another good phrase that perhaps we’ll do in the future. But anyway:

Dan:
That’s about all we have for today. If you have any thoughts on the show, or pop culture references we should have included, 
reach out to us on Patreon, patreon.com/bunnytrailspod or comment on our website bunnytrailspod.com

Shauna:
It’s poll time!

Recently we asked our patrons, when thinking of shoes - What kind of fastener do you prefer?

With almost 80% of the vote, slip-ons won the day.

Mary is clearly on team slip-on:
Quote
I now wear Hey Dudes all the time. I only wear other shoes if I have to and my feet wonder why. 
End Quote

Jan comes in with another viewpoint:
Quote
Laces. I put too much effort into learning how to tie them to abandon it now. 
End Quote

Dan:
When I wear shoes, I am in camp slip-on.  My favorite pair of shoes are Nohea Mesh Shoes by OluKai. I have two pairs and they are my primary non-dressed-up shoe. When I need to dress nice, I wear a pair of Helsinki loafers by Ecco. All of those are slip-on. 

I will have to agree with Jan in some areas, though. My running shoes and my hiking boots both have laces and that is probably for the best in my case.

Shauna:
I prefer no shoes at all... so I went with slip-ons. But I don't mind laces on my running shoes or hiking boots. I have velcro on my hiking sandals. They are by Xero and they're amazing. 

As a reminder, our silly polls mean absolutely nothing and are not scientifically valid. And patrons of all levels, including our free tiers, can take part. Head over to patreon.com/bunnytrailspod to take this week’s poll!

Outro 

Shauna:
Thanks for joining us. We’ll talk to you again next week. Until then remember, 

Together:
Words belong to their users.