Why Are These Cookies Called Chinaman Chews?

On Sunday, DH and I went on a "three hour tour" aboard a tugboat in New York Harbor.  And in the spirit of Gilligan's Island, this lasted a *bit* longer than anticipated.  Once home (after a lovely and oh-so-welcome glass of wine at Acqua, an excellent Seaport restaurant), I couldn't wait to turn on the oven, for it was cold and windy aboard the tug near the end.

I found an intriguing recipe called, I thought, Cinnamon Chews, in a recipe box I got recently in Akron.  These are very unusual: the batter is baked in one piece, cut into squares and then those squares are rolled into balls.  Quite a bit of geometry going on in one baked good.

The batter with dates and nuts incorporated.

Sometime during the making of these, I realized that there wasn't any cinnamon in them and took a closer look at the handwritten recipe.  The recipe's author, Ethyle (note the exotic spelling!) called them Chinaman Chews and I can't figure out why.  A Google search turned up not one clue. (I typically find some information on Google, like when I made Strawberry Rival Pie, my search revealed that rival is another term from crumb topping.)  If anyone out there can illuminate the origins of Chinaman Chews, please let me know.

The baked bar, which was cut into squares and each square was rolled into a ball, steps I forgot to photograph.

In any event, these unique cookies are delicious, easy and fun to make (you get to play with your food). They were a VERY big hit at work, though they are quite sweet. Not that there's anything wrong with that!