A Cookie Question

Dear Mr. Eccentric

Me and some of my Navy buddies noticed something the other day. Major brand cookies, like Oreos for example, seem taste different from season to season, even pack to pack – like hard cream and crumbly cookies one day and gooey cream and rock hard cookies the next. Are we imagining things or do the recipes change for some reason.

Commodore De la Galleta, Ret.
U.S. Naval Station Rota, Spain

Dear Commodore,

You and your sweet eating swabbies can relax. You’re right, the recipes do change.

Now, the official story they’ll have you believe is that the taste differs slightly based upon manufacturing location – i.e. the whole hard water/soft water differential. They also will say that they change some ingredients based upon, as you said, the season – like additives to chocolate chips in the summer to prevent melting, and so forth.

However, that’s all a crock. The truth of the matter is there is only one manufacturing location… and it’s mobile. Well, they’re mobile at any rate. You see all major brand cookies are made by a large nomadic tribe called the al-Zulaabiyyah, who follow herds of the rare Double Humped Pastry Camel (Camelus Crustulum). That’s why they taste so good – because they’re all made by hand.

The tribesmen use the camels’ milk and a gluten made from the hooves as the base for their confections. The reason there’s a slight change in taste is the additional ingredients and preservatives used in cookie production. Being nomads, they use the resources of the land around them at the time. Camelus Crustulum‘s migratory pattern is vast (from North Eastern Latvia to Southern Saudi Arabia). As you can expect, bake shops and supermarkets vary from country to country so it’s not always possible to be consistent.

Thanks for you question sir, and keep snacking!