"The dough for Oreo, you could almost make a coin out of it."
October 16, 2016 6:06 PM   Subscribe

 
From the Mental Floss article: The Hydrox was introduced in 1908. But Sunshine had relatively little of the advertising or production power of Nabisco, which was formed in 1898 as a conglomerate of baking companies:..When the National Biscuit Company introduced the Oreo cookie in March of 1912...In 1924, Nabisco made a slight alteration to the Oreo...Turnier had arrived at the company in 1923...

These dates are, more or less, the span of years of the first, second, and final acts of P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood. I now have a more rational basis for a critical reading of "I drink your milk shake; I drink it up."
posted by lazycomputerkids at 6:35 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's not a four leaf clover or Iron Cross, it's a Geneva Gear.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:57 PM on October 16, 2016 [6 favorites]


It's not a four leaf clover or Iron Cross, it's a Geneva Gear.

Two more steps and this is the start of the third National Treasure movie.
posted by GuyZero at 7:03 PM on October 16, 2016 [5 favorites]


Also Oreo-related: ever make bets on which side the cream will end up after you twist it open? Here's a cheat for The Oreo Twist Game
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:12 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Here's a cheat for The Oreo Twist Game

Aw. I mean, it does what it says on the tin and their findings are totally sensible and everything, but I was really hoping for something more like "if you apply just the right torque the cream will end up on the left every time" :(
posted by btfreek at 7:45 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


you could almost make a coin out of it

Oddly enough my daughter did precisely this today at church. I was assured the gold colored Oreo was "eatable".
posted by Ogre Lawless at 7:59 PM on October 16, 2016


Consumers largely passed up Hydrox and opted for Oreos

Perhaps in part because "Hydrox" is just about the least appetizing name for a snack any one has ever heard.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 8:00 PM on October 16, 2016 [20 favorites]


"Add Hydrox to milk for a restful night's sleep after prolonged athleticism."
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:06 PM on October 16, 2016 [3 favorites]


I've had Hydrox cookies, and they struck me as being pretty much like generic/store-brand Oreos. And while I'm still somewhat of a sucker for Illuminati-esque random symbol exegeses, my guess is that the design signifies nothing more significant than someone having a little fun with product design; the real meaning of the ornate embossing is that it gives a larger surface area for the milk to soak into.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:17 PM on October 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Captain America whispers "hail hydrox"
posted by BrotherCaine at 10:04 PM on October 16, 2016 [11 favorites]


Funny, I just saw the Youtube video on how these are made.

(These are not actually Oreo's, but Newman-Os, which sounds like something you'd see on the Seindfeld show, but are actually a Paul Newman brand).
posted by eye of newt at 10:13 PM on October 16, 2016


Surely the real question is "Why are American Oreos disgusting, while Canadian ones are delicious?"

Most people don't realize how different they are.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:21 PM on October 16, 2016


^^^no! This is a joke, right?
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:24 PM on October 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Surely the real question is "Why are American Oreos disgusting, while Canadian ones are delicious?"

Most people don't realize how different they are.
--blue_beetle

There are several taste-tests online. And it appears that people prefer the one they grew up with.
(checks) You are from Canada, so your opinion confirms this.
posted by eye of newt at 10:41 PM on October 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


I prefer US Oreos, which I grew up with, but they stopped making them in 2006, changing the recipe to eliminate trans fats. I approve of that, of course, but they haven't tasted the same since.
posted by mmoncur at 5:15 AM on October 17, 2016


The two cookies had more in common than a similar taste

What? Hydrox tasted the way the name sounded, like medicine.
posted by Splunge at 5:51 AM on October 17, 2016


By the 1970s Hydrox was so completely vanquished that I had no idea what this Wacky Package was about. And now apparently Keebler killed off the name all together and I never noticed.
posted by TedW at 6:16 AM on October 17, 2016


I'm surprised that they haven't played with the embosssing: Short seasonal runs, promotional one-offs, commemorative versions, movie tie-ins.
posted by sourwookie at 6:50 AM on October 17, 2016


Am I the only one who thinks that it just looks like a manhole cover? Like the primary goal of the design was to keep people from slipping on it?
posted by phooky at 7:06 AM on October 17, 2016 [2 favorites]


"Why are American Oreos disgusting, while Canadian ones are delicious?"

I was going to say "They're all Mexican now", but apparently that's not quite the case.
posted by achrise at 9:46 AM on October 17, 2016


"Half the flour consumed in the United States is extracted from Oreos."
posted by oulipian at 1:10 PM on October 17, 2016 [1 favorite]


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