Monday, February 11, 2008
Hydrox Cookie Fans Won't Get Over It
Don’t try to pass off an Oreo to a Hydrox cookie fan and expect to get away with it. Aficiandos of the discontinued sandwich cookie would rather fight than switch, and that’s what many of them are doing on a Hydrox web site, which is part support group, part search team for the closest thing to Hydrox attainable.
Kim Burton, a 27-year-old electrical engineer who grew up on Hydrox, created the web site about seven years ago. On the visitor page, Hydrox fans mourn their loss together, as well as share their victories in discovering suitable replacements that don’t taste like (bleh!) Oreos. “This is a dark time in cookie history,” wrote Gary Nadeau on the web site. “And for those of you who say, ‘Get over it, it’s only a cookie,’ you have not lived until you have tasted a Hydrox.” “As a deep down Hydroxian its passing will be mourned forever,” added Michael from Queen Creek, Arizona. “There will be an imbalance in my system without certain levels existing within me. ALL HAIL HYDROX!!!!!!!!!!”
But some find hope on the horizon. Craig in Southern California wrote, “ALL YE HYDROX FAITHFUL, REJOICE ! ! ! I swear that Famous Amos CHOCOLATE Sandwich Cookies are Hydrox in disguise ! ! ! I found mine in a Super A’s market and my sister found them in a WalMart near Austin, Texas. . . The Famous Amos version IS Hydrox: size, weight, crispness of the cookies, texture of the filling, the aroma, and most important: THE TASTE ! ! !”
Other sightings (and, more appropriately, tastings) of cookies were also found by Gene from Kansas City. He wrote about a brand called Tuxedos that he found far from home in a Safeway. Thrilled with their closeness to Hydrox, he shipped three cases of Tuxedos to his home in Kansas City to tide him over for the rest of the year. “I am enormously & finally happy now!!!!” Gene wrote.
Web site founder Kim Burton discovered years ago that the cheaper Hydrox actually predated the Oreo, having been launched in 1908 by what would later become Sunshine Biscuits Inc. Hydrox-less, Burton has pretty much given up on sandwich cookies altogether. “If I want a cookie I just make a batch,” she says. “Chocolate chip are the best.” (I couldn’t agree more.)
Despite the pleas of the Hydrox fan base, Burton doesn’t expect Keebler to resurrect the sandwich cookie. “If it happened, sure, great, I’d buy them and eat them every week forever. But if not, I’ll understand. The web site sends Hydrox people the message that they’re not alone, that it’s okay to tell your friends that Oreos don’t taste like good sandwich cookies, they taste… well… corporate.”
I was never a fan of either Hydrox or Oreos—unless they were crumbled in some ice cream. But I salute the sincere loyalty of so many Americans who won’t easily give up their chocolate sandwich cookies, at least not giving their favorite sweet its due.