The Autopian operates under a rule that the posts that we publish have to have some “Double-E” magic. That means we aim to be both entertaining and enlightening. For this Comment of the Day, you’re the one educating and entertaining me – about cookies.
Matt wrote about the gift that Slate gave him for reserving one of the company’s trucks. The topshot for that piece included a Slate truck hauling oversized Cra-Z-Art crayons. Our readers created a fascinating discussion using that as a starting point. Ash78:
Ahhh, CraZart crayons, like the Hydrox cookies of childhood classism. Next gift will be a Megablox building set.
Cute that it looks like a chalkboard, you know, the ones made out of that dark, exfoliating, hard metamorphic rock of some kind.
Squirrelmaster:
Growing up on the poorer side of things, I remember the treat of getting legit Oreos instead of store brand or Hydrox cookies. I also remember my dad constantly pointing out to people that Oreos are copies of Hydrox, as Hydrox came first, and would be THE name brand…had they chosen a name that didn’t sound like the short name of a toxic chemical.
Nlpnt:
It really does sound like some kind of rust remover, doesn’t it? “David brought 20 gallons of Hydrox with him to California in the back of the J10 three years ago, and now Elise wants it out of the garage before Delmar starts crawling.”
Disphenoidal:
Kind of ironic: “Hydrox is a play on hydrogen and oxygen to evoke cleanliness and purity.”
Wait, what? I still don’t know what these people are talking about. What’s a Hydrox? It’s currently a product of Leaf Brands, and thankfully, the company has a short explanation:
Hydrox® is the original creme-filled chocolate sandwich cookie! It debuted in 1908 and was manufactured by Sunshine® Biscuits. Sunshine Biscuits was purchased by Keebler® in 1996, and in 1999, Keebler® replaced Hydrox® with a similar but reformulated product named Droxies®. Keebler® was later acquired by Kellogg’s® in 2001. Kellogg’s removed Droxies® from the market in 2003.
Leaf® Brands is proud to bring back the original sandwich cookie, Hydrox®! Yep, it predated Oreo and was always free of animal fats. The new Hydrox® release is exactly the way you remember it, circa 1908 to 1999. It tastes like the original Hydrox® you remember; less sweet than the others and those amazing crispier cookies! Look for them throughout the US!
Apparently, Hydrox has huge fans, as the Seattle Times reported in 2008 that there used to be great internet forum discussions and debates about the cookies. You readers have been talking about Hydrox for a while now, with the previous discussion occurring on June 27 in a Morning Dump post!
Today, we asked you about the cars that have known weak points that everyone worries about. Jatco Xtronic CVT:
I don’t want to see a single one of you say it.
NC Miata NA:
I want to say it.
Should I say it?
I’m going to say it….
Ford Powershift.
Ford PowerShift DCT:
Shift carefully, buddy. It might just be your last gear change.
(/s)
Have a great evening, everyone!
Top graphic images: Slate, Leaf Brands
Hmmm… I seem to remember that the real reason they were named Hydrox was because the creme filling was made with then-brand-new hydrogenated oil
Hydrox is vastly superior in every way. Better ingredients, less cloyingly sweet, stays crisper. And they were the true OG of sandwich cookies.
(Also, the Newman-Os (at most markets) and the Joe-Joes from Trader Joe’s are better than Oreo as well)
Hydrox is better than Oreo. Full Stop.
Hydrox are the cookie of choice in the waiting room at Kunkleman Chevrolet. They also use the coffee grounds twice.
This brings up a philosophical question I’ve always wondered about: how would anyone alive today know what something tasted like in 1908? Even with the same recipe you can’t reproduce the same production process.
I once read a cocktail history book and it was interesting how many historical cocktails cannot be reproduced today because one or more of the liquors involved are no longer made. In a lot of cases people have come up with close analogs using modern options, but some just can’t be replicated accurately.
It’s the same reason why many artificial fruit flavors don’t taste like the real thing: the fruits that the artificial flavors were meant to imitate aren’t really around anymore. The biggest example, of course, being the Gros Michel banana.
Apparently it’s still possible but not easy to buy the gross Michel. Ive seen them available to order, but they seemed expensive.
Hydrox may have come first, but Oreo is the better cookie. If I remember correctly, Nabisco smartly licensed Hershey’s chocolate while Hydrox chocolate is some kind of industrial waste product.
I learned all about Hydrox by watching “The Food that made America” discovery series. I don’t think they were a thing here in Canada.
Mercedes you are not alone, I had never seen nor heard of Hydrox before that article. Kinda want to try them now to compare though…
It is a horrible name and “Droxies” is somehow worse. Sounds like one of those weed knockoff products they sell in gas stations
Hmm. Username: McMaster Hydrox. Hmm.
I’m going to dunk them in milk anyway, so why would I care about it being “crispier”?
Hydrox is also an unrelated manufacturer of medical grade chemicals and solutions such as Hydrogen Peroxide. I worked next to the factory in Elgin and had a view of the building out my window for many years. https://www.menards.com/main/grocery-home/health-beauty/first-aid/hydrox-laboratories-3-hydrogen-peroxide-16-oz/hdxd0012/p-1642874269791166-c-13547.htm?exp=false
Did they go out of their way to find the least appealing names possible? All of them sound like the names of cheaper variants of Soylent Green.
To me “droxie” sounds like an offensive name to call a fairy tale pixie…
“I had to chase some damn droxies out of my store yesterday!”
“Grandpa, you can’t call them that! You have to say ‘pixie’, or ‘little person of magic'”
Droxies sound like a barbiturate that gets used as a knockout drug.
“I got doxxed and droxxed. Here’s my cautionary tale…”
“Droxies” sounds more like a slang term for some kind of date-rape drug than it does a cookie. Hell, it sounds like more of a date-rape drug than “Roofies.”
Even worse, “doxies” is an old term meaning “prostitutes”. Better be real careful with your enunciation when you tell your wife you’re headed to the store to pick up some droxies. 😉
Carry droxies incase you find a guy od’ing on marry-juanna
It sounds like a medical product named by the mad scientist who “developed” it, sold from a stage coach by a snake oil salesman.
Funny thing about Oreos, I’ve been eating my wife’s Wal-mart brand “Twist-and-Shouts” for so long now that real Oreos taste strange.
Wal mart cookies are the best cookies. So much better than overpriced girl scout cookies.
The thin mint knockoffs are pretty good.
They are the best of the best.
Laughs in a guy with 3-4 boxes of Do Si Do’s still in the freezer. (I bought a case.)
Here’s a copycat recipe:
https://www.mashed.com/364600/copycat-girl-scout-do-si-dos-recipe/
Make these cookies yourself and (after you verify with your lawyer using these words won’t get you on a list you don’t want to be on) you can tell the next scouts at your door to suck it!
Phew, now I can tell my kids I was here for the start of the Novelty Transmission-based Comment Profile Wars.
See? This is why I’m a member here. I learn lots of things…about everything…from y’all. I had no idea that Hydrox (it’s not just the name, but the font they use that might be holding them back a bit) came before Oreo. As a connoisseur of what most might consider useless knowledge, this keeps my brain well-oiled.
My wife found 2 liter bottles of RC Cola at our local supermarket yesterday, so of course I bought two. I just wish they sold Vernor’s Ginger Ale in NJ (cough).
Using Mercedes’ logic, does that mean if I get a COTD, it’s actually “Triple-E” magic? 🙂
Lastly, I would take a CVT over the abomination that is the Ford PowerShit, but I hope Jatco doesn’t let that go to his head.
We used to have a lot of RC Cola available here in western NY on tap at smaller establishments. The diet RC is not great, but the stuff with sugar is good. I am NOT a fan of Vernor’s.
I think at this point my love of Vernor’s is purely sentimental since it reminds me of happy memories growing up in the Chicago and Detroit areas. I have to remember not to inhale whilst taking a sip, though!
We love Buffalo Rock ginger ale down South, which I’m told is kind of like Vernors (which is also sold here, but I’ve never tried it). It’s that old-school ginger ale that tastes a little too close to wasabi and has the same effect on my sinuses and tear ducts.
It’s a really old, independent recipe that got grandfathered into a Pepsi bottling contract, from what I understand. Not super popular, but definitely a fun treat. I find that mixing it with wine works great, as well as Moscow mules 🙂
You must be farther south than the Raleigh area. I’ve never heard of that brand and I lived in the Triangle for 9 years. Now I have to look for it.
As someone pointed out to me a while ago, Vernor’s is a ginger SODA not a ginger ale. How’s that for pedantic?
I guess we could file that under ‘technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.’ 🙂
I know you would. Continous variability beats clunky clutches all day.
Well, it’s really a ‘lesser of two evils’ type of choice.
Head gasket sealers make Subarus worth buying LOL
My former wife is a huge Lego fan (AFOL) and would buy bricks on E-Bay and apparently auctions from Goodwill (who knew?). Sometimes there would be incomplete sets she could complete with her hoard of bricks and other times complete sets. It would me amuse me when she would rail against finding Mega Bloks mixed in like Mommy Dearest and wire hangers.
We had a Lego room. In her current house the entire finished basement is wall to wall Lego. I think she has a rider on her homeowners insurance to cover their loss.
Growing up in the late ’80s – early ’90s, I can confirm from first hand experience that Mega Bloks are the original “we have x at home.” I would be invited over to a new friend’s house with the promise of buckets and buckets of “Legos,” only to find the little bricks were those horrible, thin-walled things with no internal locking structures.
Also, while we’re there, Wilbur Buds > Hershey’s Kisses
Though I will happily eat a bowl of either if it’s in front of me, because I have poor self control
The thing to remember about a Hydrox of old vs the current Hydrox is the current version is sweeter. The original had the slightly bitter cocoa taste that was truly Hydrox. Eating the original with a Coke was truly a taste treat. It was bliss on the tongue with the sweet and bitter on the taste buds. But that is my memory.
LMAO, for the record I have nothing against Hydrox, Cra-Z-art, RC cola, or any of the also-ran brands out there. I just thought Matt’s choice of crayons was interesting, like he called up the Autopian legal offices in Manhattan and they said “Look, buddy, I can’t tell you what to do, but if you’re going to ruffle some feathers that push the boundaries of Fair Use, I think you should stay away from those deep pockets at Crayola. They once set my minivan on fire AND named a color after it, just to send a message.”
I remember a business professor stating something along the lines of “If you are going to steal from anyone, either steal from the best and do it as covertly and carefully as you can or steal from the worst and hope they can’t afford to sue you…or will go bankrupt before they can.” I don’t know if those were wise words, but they made me laugh and were apparently memorable.
I am still amused that of all the things to get CotD for, we got it for Hydrox cookies!
This is why I always maintain that “Business Ethics” is an oxymoron.
Beware Big Crayon!