Hydrox: How A Cookie Got A Name So Bad

Science Diction

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Friday, Society & Culture, Science, Origin, Culture, Words, History, Word, Language

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 16 October 2020

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The first Oreo rolled out of Chelsea Market in Manhattan in 1912, but despite the cookie’s popularity today, Oreos weren’t an immediate cookie smash hit. In fact, there was already another cookie on the block that looked remarkably similar to Oreos: two chocolate wafers embossed with laurel leaves, and white cream in the center. This cookie was widely loved, made with the highest quality ingredients, and saddled with a curious name: Hydrox. So how did a cookie get a name so bad? Producer Alexa Lim takes us all the way back to the early 1900s, and brings us a story of the rise - and the crumble - of a cookie named Hydrox. Guests: Carolyn Burns is the owner of The Insight Connection, and a former marketing director for Keebler. Stella Parks is a pastry chef and the author of Brave Tart: Iconic American Desserts. Ellia Kassoff is the CEO of Leaf Brands. Footnotes & Further Reading: For more Hydrox history, check out Brave Tart by Stella Parks. Can’t get enough Hydrox? This is a fun website. Credits: This episode of Science Diction was produced by Alexa Lim, Elah Feder, and Johanna Mayer. Our editor is Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt is our composer and contributed sound design. Fact checking by Danya AbdelHameid. Chris Wood mastered the episode. Our Chief Content Officer is Nadja Oertelt.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There's this scene in the 1998 version of the parent trap that I really think influenced the cookie-eating habits of an entire generation of American kids.
0:10.9	So the two girls are at camp, they don't yet know their twins, and they're sitting around their cabin on a rainy afternoon.
0:18.9	When one of them pulls out a kind of strange snack.
0:21.6	What one?
0:23.6	Oh, sure. I love Oreos. At home, I eat them with... I eat them with peanut butter.
0:29.6	That's a young Lindsay Lohan, doing her best at an English accent.
0:32.6	You do? That is so weird. So do I. You're kidding.
0:38.0	Most people find that totally disgusting.
0:40.6	I know.
0:41.6	I don't get it.
0:42.6	Me either.
0:44.6	I get it.
0:46.4	But the thing is, I don't actually think it was the peanut butter Oreo combo that made it gross.
0:52.6	I think it was just the Oreo. Because I am just going to say it,
0:58.2	I think Oreos are hugely overrated. They're dry. The cream is oily. They don't taste anything
1:06.3	like chocolate, which I realize not a popular opinion. I mean, Milk's favorite cookie, right?
1:14.2	Except Milk's favorite cookie is basically a copycat of an older, and some people say
1:19.6	better cookie. Meet Alexa Lim. She's a producer on Science Friday, and Alexa recently has
1:25.7	shifted her focus away from space and viruses and towards
1:29.3	cookies. So the other day I was talking to Carolyn Burns. She used to be a marketing director for
1:35.2	Keebler, you know, the big cookie company. In 1996, Keebler bought another company that made cookies,
1:41.4	and Carolyn's job was to figure out how to integrate and sell all of
	...

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