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MEMORIES:
kendra remembers...It was all about the cream for me. This memory is weird ,but it always stays with me. I remember ... More »
Posted on 03/31/08
PHOTOS:
Cookies come. Cookies go. Oreos stay.
Introduced for the first time in 1912 by Nabisco’s John Unger, the little cookie featuring a sweet cream center sandwiched between two chocolate wafers was given the Greek name Oreo, meaning “hill,” for its mound-like shape. But what started as a hill became nothing short of a mountain.
In appearance, it’s nothing all that special. A textured cookie made from basic cake dough, high fructose corn syrup, Dutch cocoa, and pure chocolate liquor. But in nearly one hundred years, an estimated three hundred and sixty-two billion Oreo cookies have been sold, making it the best-selling – if not most beloved – cookie of the twentieth century.
When not eaten by themselves, they can often be found adding mojo to a vanilla milkshake. The common ice cream flavor Cookies ‘n’ Cream is simply vanilla ice cream with some variation of Oreo cookies crumbled into it. The popular children’s treat known as a “cup o’ dirt” is actually chocolate pudding with crumbled Oreos and gummy worms.
Popular culture holds a particularly endearing place in its heart for the inexplicable magic of Oreos. This love affair has been well documented in film (The Parent Trap [’98], Rounders), television (Friends, Futurama, 7th Heaven, Survivor), and popular music (“Weird Al” Yankovic).
For most people though, Oreo is more than a cookie. It’s a memory. It’s a twist of the wafers and a lick of the “white stuff.” It’s a dunk into a glass of cold milk. It’s a late night snack with dad. It’s brain food for a house full of rowdy kids. It’s the name of the black and white family dog. It’s soul food for friends to share over a chat. It’s an afternoon on the front porch watching the world stroll by. It’s unlike anything else, but somehow just like all of us all at once.
