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113 years ago a cookie was born.
It would go on to become the best -selling cookie in the world.
Oreo cream sandwich Nabisco.
Today Oreos are sold in more than 100 countries around the world in flavors including wasabi, Swedish fish, and green tea.
But four years before Oreos came out there was a different company based in Kansas City that first thought to pair two chocolate cookies with vanilla cream.
Hydrox cookies, a creation of prolific Kansas City philanthropist Jacob Luce, were incredibly popular in the early 1900s.
So why is it that more than a century later, one cookie is America's favorite, while the one that came first is basically unknown?
Not only was Oreo this copycat of Hydrox, it was also built on the back of the company that Jacob had founded himself.
This is the Sporkful.
It's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people.
Before we get to the show, I have a very exciting opportunity for those of you in the New York area.
Listen to this. We're going to be doing a live taping for a select few listeners at Sirius XM's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
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I'm going to be posting the link to enter on my Instagram stories sometime in the next couple of days.
So follow me on Instagram, at TheEsporkful, and watch out for that link.
And maybe I'll see you in person next week.
Okay, let's get to the show.
This week, I'm talking with reporter Mackenzie Martin in Kansas City, one of the hosts of the KCUR Studios podcast, A People's History of Kansas City.
Mackenzie's going to tell us about a war that started in KC, the sandwich cookie war.
Hey, Mackenzie. Hey, Dan.
So I'm curious, before we get into all of this, what do you know about Hydrex cookies?
I know that they were kosher before Oreos.
Okay, that's true. True.
Oreos used to have like an animal byproduct in them.
And my wife grew up kosher.
So like back in the 80s, her mom wouldn't get her Oreos, but she was allowed to have Hydrox.
Have you ever had one though?
I have not. But spoiler alert, I got a bag of them sitting right here with me.
And by the end of this episode, I think I'm going to have some.
But why don't you tell me first, like, how did you get into this story?
Well, I always knew it was a David and Goliath story.
You know, the story of Oreos and Hydrox.
But I only recently realized that it was a Kansas City invention.
And it was a complicated discovery because while I immediately, you know, wanted to be proud of this thing that we had created, Hydrox is also like a national running joke for being second best. You know, people are always making fun of Hydrox for not being as good as Oreos or as popular as Oreos.
Enjoy your Hydrox cookies and your silver medal, Mr. Vice.
No, thank you. I'm all Hydrox down.
They also are really cheap out on the snacks.
Hydrox cookies. So how aware are people in Kansas City of Hydrox's status as sort of a punchline?
How do they feel about Hydrox?
I mean, before I did this story, I don't think people knew that Hydrox was a Kansas City thing.
And so this was my question, too, which is why I really made it my mission to reach out to a bunch of people around town, people in Kansas City history groups, etc. I asked everyone, does anyone remember Hydrox and does anyone care about them?
And I was shocked at how many people, including a number of my colleagues here at the local public radio affiliate KCUR, just immediately had these vivid flashbacks of eating Hydrox cookies.
One day we were having dinner and for dessert, Meemaw brought out Hydrox cookies.
I had never had sandwich cookies like this before.
I'd never seen anything like this before.
I fell in love. I remember getting them out, getting the milk out, because you couldn't have a sandwich cookie without milk, because you had to dunk it and hold it and soften it.
I was the kind that liked to open them up and eat the center first, slowly tasting all of that sugar.
I was, you know, we were sugar freaks.
So back in the 60s, I remember my sister in the backyard sunbathing with a stack of Hydrox cookies.
Right by the towel, you have a stack of Hydrox cookies.
And when I was a little kid, I preferred Oreos because they're sweeter.
But my sister pointed something out.
A Hydrox cookie tastes sharper.
It's got a much more sophisticated taste than an Oreo.
I remember going to a friend's house and they had Oreos.
And because of the branding, I thought, well, these are probably better or whatever.
But they weren't. I preferred Hydrox.
Okay. Clearly, the folks are out there in Kansas City.
There's still some fans.
There's still some Hydrox lifers there in Kansas City.
Oh, yeah. And the idea that people have really strong attachments to these cookies is something I talked about with food writer Stella Parks.
She is a nationally known pastry chef and cookbook author.
She grew up eating Oreos, not Hydrox, but then as an adult, she actually abandoned them in favor of other desserts.
You come out of culinary school with your nose in the air a little bit.
You're like, oh, I only make things from scratch, and oh, you know, I only eat cream puffs.
But then her whole mindset shifted one day, at the time she was far away from home living in Japan.
I'd been doing pretty well, and then one day I was at this little, like, tiny supermarket corner store.
and as I was like walking down the aisle, I just saw this like kind of flash of blue in the corner of my eye and I glanced over and it was a package of Oreos and suddenly just like this wave of nostalgia hit me and I felt so homesick in a way that I had not felt maybe ever.
I guess it was like my Proust moment where I realized like what a strong connection these foods have and that my childhood was not any less rich because it was built on these kind of packaged food -based memories.
And this tiny package of Oreos changed the course of Stella's career.
The first big food story she ever wrote was about the history of the Oreo, a story that went on to be included in her James Beard award -winning cookbook, Brave Tart.
That book features her own recipes for homemade versions of iconic American desserts like Twinkies, Snickers, Thin Mints, Wonder Bread, and yes, Oreos.
You know, I guess from there, like the Oreo became even more important to me in my own mythology.
But of course, the most important thing in the Oreo mythology is in fact the Hydrax.
And that just brings it back to the beginning.
All right, Mackenzie, so let's go back to that beginning.
So you can't talk about Hydrax without talking about Jacob Luce, who is the namesake of this giant park here in Kansas City.
He was a really important philanthropist in his day.
And I will kick off Jacob's story in 1870 when he's 20 years old, okay?
That's when he moves from his home state of Pennsylvania to southeastern Kansas to get into the dry goods business.
Then in his 30s, he makes likely the smartest decision of his young life.
He and his brother Joseph take over the Coral Cracker and Confectionery Company in Kansas City, Missouri.
He seemed to be very interested in not making a name for himself per se, but like achieving something.
Sella Parks says the mid to late 1800s is when mass produced crackers and cookies were just starting to pop up in America.
Sugar wafers, Fig Newtons.
Packaged little biscuits, tea cookies.
And it dawns on Jacob that he and his brother would make a lot more money if they had less competition with other Midwest bakeries.
So, in 1890, he hires this big shot lawyer in Chicago, Adolphus Green, to get everyone together, and cooperatively, they form the American Biscuit and Manufacturing Company.
Jacob Luce becomes the president, his brother Joseph is appointed appointed to the board of directors, and Adolphus Green becomes their general counsel.
I just want to say that Adolphus Green is a great old -timey name.
It's an old -timey villain name.
It is, right. I could see him twirling his mustache right now.
Yeah. All right, so Jacob Luce forms this company.
Adolphus Green's involved twirling his mustache.
Please continue. And so there are a lot of companies joining up here, Dan.
One of the examples here to just kind of give you a taste is Frank L.
Summer & Company, which is based in St. Joseph, Missouri, and they are often credited with inventing saltine crackers.
Whoa, you're telling me that the inventor of the saltine cracker and the inventor of the precursors to the Oreo were working together in Missouri?
Yes. It's all very exciting in Missouri here.
Missouri is really a hotbed of packaged foods.
Yeah, it's wild. But it's worth pointing out that American Biscuit does not have a total monopoly here because there are two other very similar big bakery corporations.
There's the United States Baking Company and the New York Biscuit Company.
And this intense competition becomes a full -on biscuit war with these companies constantly trying to outdo each other with new products.
And so you started seeing, like, animal crackers and vanilla wafers and graham crackers.
Until 1897. Oh, what happens in 1897?
Well, Jacob Luce is in poor health, so he steps away from the company.
And in his absence, the people in charge of the other two companies decide they want to end the war.
And they do something against Jacob's wishes.
These rival companies team up and convince Jacob's company to merge with theirs.
And Jacob's brother goes along with it.
So together, the three biscuit empires form a powerhouse called the National Biscuit Company, which later changes its name to Nabisco.
National Biscuit Company, Nabisco.
But so you're telling me, though, Jacob is not happy about this merger.
No, he is not. He feels like his company has been taken away from him.
He returns from his illness much richer, thanks to the merger, but also very bitter about it.
So, in 1902, Jacob announces that he is going after Nabisco.
Oh, drama. And along with a businessman named John Wiles, he forms a new business, the Luce Wiles Biscuit Company.
At the time, the Wall Street Journal calls Jacob the, quote, best known bakery magnate in the country and is basically like Nabisco should be very worried.
And they were right because over the next six months, 40 or so employees quit Nabisco to go work for Luce Wiles, which obviously pisses off Nabisco.
The two companies were constantly trying to compete by offering very similar types of cookies or biscuits.
This is Kansas City food historian Andrea Broomfield.
The famous Nabisco biscuit was called you need a and Luce Wiles responded with take home.
So, you know, you need a biscuit or take home a biscuit.
These names were selected, thankfully, over the alternative, which was perhaps right now would be a great time for you to snack on a small biscuit.
And another thing to point out is that Nabisco's you need a biscuit was super popular because it was the first cracker that stayed really fresh.
Like it used to be that crackers were sold in barrels, which got disgusting towards the bottom.
You know, the bottom of the barrel.
Is that where that saying comes from?
It is. But Nabisco perfected this technology they called the inner seal, which was this ingenious system of inner folded layers of wax paper and cardboard that kept things super fresh.
In order to compete, Luce Wiles needed something special and innovative.
And back then, the answer was chocolate.
Native to Central and South America, for centuries chocolate was imported, making it a delicacy.
It wasn't until the mid to late 1800s that we got innovations like cocoa powder and milk chocolate.
So, Loose Wiles sees chocolate trending, and in 1908, they do something no one has done before.
They put two crisp, bitter dark chocolate wafers around a layer of sweet vanilla cream, and they call it Hydrox, America's first chocolate sandwich cookie.
And it's an immediate hit.
Hydrox isn't intended to be an everyday cookie.
It's a special event, billed as the aristocrat of cookies.
Here's Stella Parks again.
The Hydrox had this, like, really elaborate laurel wreath and this really elaborate font.
It was, like, a very Baroque little cookie.
It especially takes off at soda shops, where it's the perfect pairing for ice cream.
Yeah, I just think it's hard for us, through today's lens, to understand just how new and different this cookie was.
The incredibly elaborate design and also a sandwich cookie.
I mean, people hadn't seen something like this.
When it hits your tongue, like, you can feel that embossed design on it.
Like, that's a completely different, like, experience.
And then, of course, there's the name, which obviously stands out.
Even today, it doesn't sound like a cookie name.
What's the deal with the name?
I mean, it sounds chemically, but back then, it kind of fit into this American obsession with food sanitation.
It's supposed to be like hydrogen and oxygen are these pure, clean elements.
There's nothing, there's nothing cleaner.
There's nothing finer.
Oh, okay. That makes sense.
And I guess this is sort of around the time like right after Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and people are very concerned about factories.
And like when Wonder Bread came out, the slogan was untouched by human hands.
There was a lot of a lot of discussion about sort of people wanted foods that seemed very pure.
Yeah. And so Loose Wiles has a big emphasis on food sanitation and working conditions.
By 1912, four years after Hydrox's debut, they have beautiful sunlit factories from Chicago to Kansas City to Dallas, all the way to Boston and New York.
And the sunlight in those workplaces is by design.
At a time when most Americans think of factories as dirty and unsafe places to work, Luce Wiles is trying to be different.
I really have a lot of admiration for Jacob Luce.
He wanted to bring all this light into the work floor, both for promoting sanitation and health, but also for the well -being of his employees.
The New York Bakery in Long Island City, Queens, in particular, demonstrated Jacob Luce's commitment to his employees.
It was called the Thousand Window Bakery.
And as a side note, it was the world's largest bakery for more than 40 years.
A muckraking journalist from the New New York Globe, hoping to do an expose on the factory, instead found something completely different, like that they were using more premium butter and making their own vanilla, and that they had women's restrooms furnished with beautiful rugs and lounge chairs, a laundry room, and trained nurses on site.
The journalist came to the conclusion, and I'm just going to quote here, that it was impossible to go through that wonderfully tiled, perfectly ventilated, sunlit institution with every modern sanitary device installed without paying tribute to the genius which has devised it.
So Jacob Luce is getting a lot of credit for his beautiful factories for treating workers so well.
But if he's opening all these factories, it sounds like the business is also going well.
Yes. And, you know, reporters attributed these two things to each other.
The company was successful because of the way that he encouraged and inspired his workers.
Like one thing that they noted was that he was always seeking advice from younger employees.
Okay. And so meanwhile, what's going on with Nabisco at this time?
Well, at this point, the head of Nabisco is Adolphus Green.
The very same lawyer that helped Jacob Luce way back when he started American Biscuit.
I had a feeling we were going to hear from Adolphus Green again.
it again. Adolphus and Nabisco respond to Loose Wilds and its impressive New York factory by building their own enormous New York bakery on 11th Avenue in Manhattan.
Nabisco is a much bigger company, but Loose Wilds is still seen as a real competitor.
There's a publication called The United States Investor, and they had this one article, the headline was Exchange National for Loose Wilds?
So they're literally saying, like, abandon your stocks at Nabisco.
Loose Wilds is really pulling ahead here then on the 10th anniversary of the loose wiles biscuit company adolphus green and nabisco unveiled their own sandwich cookie the oreo biscuit advertised as two beautifully embossed chocolate flavored wafers with a rich cream filling not only was oreo this copycat of hydrox it was also built on the back of the company that jacob had founded himself To better compete with Nabisco, Luce Wiles decided they needed to rebrand as Sunshine Biscuits.
Sunshine Biscuits made lemon coolers, Vienna fingers, and they acquired the company that invented Cheez -Its.
Oh, right, because I feel like you see this on the box of Cheez -Its.
I've often seen the Sunshine Biscuits logo.
They also produce candy, cinnamon drops, licorice lozenges.
At one point, Lewis Wiles had the largest single candy factory in the U .S. But in 1923, Jacob dies, and the company is taken over by his co -founder, John Wiles.
Both men were exceptionally driven in the business world, but they approached things a bit differently.
My great -grandfather, John H.
Wiles, wasn't good with the employees.
He was mean. That's Wendy Case, John Wiles' great -granddaughter.
And according to her, he was incredibly anti -union.
Which is relevant because from the 1920s through the 40s, there were several high -profile labor strikes.
And this, among other things, contributed to declining company revenue.
Then, in the mid-'50s, Nabisco really took the lead in the race between the two cookies when it increased the price of Oreos.
Hydrox, which was suddenly much cheaper, started being seen as Oreo's budget -friendly, off -brand alternative.
And it didn't help, says Stella, that Sunshine was hell -bent on exposing Oreo as an imposter.
Once Oreo came out, all the Hydrox advertisements had this really, like, whiny quality to them of, like, we here first. But you've got to remember my name, Hydrox, Hydrox, don't forget Hydrox, remember?
The strategy backfired because Hydrox was constantly comparing itself to Oreo, and in doing so, it put more attention on Oreos.
On top of that, Hydrox wasn't properly trademarked, which made it really hard to cultivate any kind of strong brand recognition.
There were lots of other products called Hydrox on the market, from table water to literal bottles of hydrogen peroxide.
1966 is the beginning of the end.
That's when Sunshine Biscuits is acquired by its first company in a long string of new owners.
all of which tweak the marketing, the formula, or rebrand Hydrox completely.
But despite being beloved by many, Hydrox never lives up to sales expectations.
So in 2003, Kellogg's more or less pulls the plug on the cookie.
There was some outrage, as you would expect.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a man named Gary Nadeau from O 'Fallon, Missouri, who wrote online, This is a dark time in cookie history.
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.
And Hydrox probably would have stayed gone if it hadn't been for a man who is good at resurrecting things from the grave. I knew immediately that if I could get it back to the original design, I would have a home run.
Oh, it's getting exciting.
That's after the break.
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Get this new customer Welcome back to The Sporkful.
I'm Dan Pashman. A few weeks ago, I joined Scott Wiener.
Scott is one of the most knowledgeable and passionate pizza experts in America.
He also has the Guinness record for the world's largest collection of pizza boxes.
He's up to nearly 2 ,000.
He's the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours.
And on Sundays, he puts together a very special kind of tour.
So Scott, set the scene.
Where are we and what's happening today?
So we're at the corner of Fulton and Gold Street in lower Manhattan, which is where I start every Sunday pizza bus tour.
and what is the sunday pizza bus tour sunday pizza bus tour is electric this is unlike the other tours we do throughout the week that are walking tours where you go to one neighborhood and we go to a bunch of places in that neighborhood the sunday tour we go around all over the place wherever the school bus will take us so it's the most improvisational tour and it's like the one that's definitely the most interesting because the most can go wrong what's the thing that went the most wrong on one of these tours?
You know, fortunately it hasn't gotten that bad because it's always salvageable, but there have been times where I'm like, oh, I forgot that today is the Five Borough bike tour.
Oh, there was one time there was a car show on Arthur Avenue, and I was like, okay, we're going to park the bus a block away.
Everybody will find us.
Everybody didn't find us then.
I left two people in the Bronx.
That was, okay, scratch what I said about nothing ever going wrong.
This was such a fun episode.
You got to listen and ride along with Scott and me.
We get to hear him figuring out out the route on the fly, taking the temperature of pizza ovens with an infrared thermometer, and debunking some very common New York City pizza myths.
And also, we get a big update on Scott's love life since he was on the show back in 2018.
If that one's up now, check it out.
All right, now back to reporter Mackenzie Martin in Kansas City and the story of Hydrox.
Something to know about Elia Kassoff is that he is an extremely nostalgic person.
I had great memories of high school.
I mean, I was the head of our high school reunion.
Elia grew up in Palm Springs, California, a land of hot springs, manicured golf courses, and a vacation getaway vibe.
He didn't eat a lot of packaged goods because his mom was really health conscious.
But when he did... We always were a Hydrox family.
And that's because Elia's family is Jewish, and they kept kosher.
My mom would order the kosher meat from L .A.
and have it shipped on a Greyhound bus.
Right, that's what I would say.
So my wife, Janie, has very vivid memories of Hydrox cookies because those are the kosher ones.
Those are the ones that her mom would buy.
And Hydrox was certified kosher by the Orthodox Union.
Yes, they were certified by the Orthodox Union in 1924.
And what that meant is that there was a stamp on the package so that you could tell at a glance what packaged food was kosher.
Oreo, on the other hand, was not kosher when Elia was growing up.
And Nabisco items always had beef fat and lard. As a family, we always stayed away from that stuff.
Oreos cut out those ingredients and finally went kosher certified in 1997, more than 70 years after Hydrox.
So for a long time, Hydrox had a huge hold on the kosher market.
And cookies and other treats like this had a huge hold on Elia.
Another one of his favorite childhood sweets was Astro Pops, which are these cone -shaped, brightly colored suckers.
So it was my favorite lollipop growing up.
Even as an adult, Elia would regularly buy Astro Pops at his local corner store.
One day I walked in, I said, where's your Astro Pops?
And they said, oh, I think they're discontinued.
And I said, what? So this is around 2010.
Elia was a recruiter in the tech industry at the time.
I was freaking out.
So I called up the company, which was Spangler Candy.
They make dum -dum lollipops and circus peanuts.
And I spoke to the president, and it just came out of my mouth.
I just said, would you sell the rights?
Spangler would indeed sell the rights.
And thus, Elias starts on the arduous journey of reviving brands that had disappeared from shelves.
Astropops are just the first of many.
His new title? CEO for Leaf Brands LLC.
Elsie. I just said to myself, what other favorite candies did I have as a kid that would help me bring back my own memories of childhood that are no longer being made?
Next was Wacky Wafers, then Tart and Tiny's.
And let me guess, pretty soon, Elia sets his sights on Hydrox.
Yes. At the time, its trademark was owned by Kellogg's.
So in order to snag the trademark for himself, Elia had to legally prove that Kellogg's had no intentions to produce more Hydrox.
OK, so how does he do that?
So partly he poses as a customer.
You know, he emails Kellogg's and is basically like, hey, I really love Hydrox.
Are you making any more of them?
And they send him this official letter that's like, we have discontinued Hydrox.
We don't plan to make any more of them.
And he uses that to claim the abandoned trademark.
Right. So if you own a trademark, if you're not using it, if you're not defending it when somebody else may be encroaching upon it, then it can be declared abandoned.
So he basically used that to prove that they have abandoned the trademark and he's able to get it.
Yes. But once he gets the trademark, he's still at square one.
It's not like Kellogg's gave him the secret formula.
So Elliot gets an old vintage 1998 unopened box of Hydrax cookies on Craigslist. And it is worth pointing out here that this is around 2012, 2013, so this box is going on 15 years old here.
And he recruits a food scientist, and he basically goes to work trying to recreate the sandwich cookie of his boyhood dreams. And Elliot gets a ton of Hydrox superfans to taste test the prototypes.
So he starts mailing out these samples and asking for people's reactions.
Like, is this the same kind of chocolate flavor?
How does the texture of the cream compare to what you remember?
And there was one other sample, and I don't remember which one.
It was pretty much almost unanimous.
Finally, in 2015, about two and a half years after he sets the wheels in motion to revive the cookie, Elia relaunches Hydrox to much national fanfare.
They're back. Remember Hydrox cookies?
Some 4 ,000 supermarkets start carrying them.
Hydrox cookies are back.
Pretty exciting for the few who remember them.
Kathy Greider in Kansas City told me she totally freaked out when she found out.
When I first came back, I ordered like five packages so I could give everyone from my family a package.
Look, everyone hates change.
If I can slow that down in certain aspects of people's lives, then I've done my job.
In 2016, LSS Hydrox made about half a million dollars in sales.
Oreo, on the other hand, made about $2 billion in sales globally.
We probably sell about the same annually as Mondelez drops on the ground per day in production.
Mondelez is the parent company of Nabisco that now owns Oreo.
And if you ask Elia why Hydrox sales are so low, he says the one to blame partly is Big Oreo.
He claims they're sabotaging him.
I guess it's a thing where the big guys, they go in and they hide the competitor's product.
In 2018, Leaf Brands actually filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission asking for $800 million in damages.
Ellia never heard back, but obviously I had to reach out to Mondelez.
They sent me a statement, part of which said, As we have stated numerous times in the past and in numerous forums when Hydrox raises these allegations, our shelf placement in stores stems from the fact that Oreo is the number one cookie in the U .S., loved by consumers and retailers.
Does Elliott have any proof?
He has anecdotes from customers saying they saw Hydrox shoved behind other cookies on shelves or way on the top where you can't see them.
Yeah, I mean, I can tell you that the world of supermarket shelf space is very competitive and big companies do use their power to protect their territory and try to keep out rivals, but there are ways for them to do that without breaking the law.
Elliott says he's still planning an antitrust lawsuit suit against Mondelez.
But in the meantime, Hydrox are barely sold anywhere these days.
Their number one distributor is Amazon, but they're always going out of stock because of some manufacturing snags that Elia keeps hitting.
And so last year, I'd never had one, and I really wanted to have one.
And I had heard that Cracker Barrel is the place where you can get them.
So I stopped by. Wow.
So wait, what were your expectations going in?
I mean, they were extremely high.
You know, I was nervous, but I was also very excited because I've been hearing so much about them from people and how they're so much better than Oreos.
All right. So you get to Cracker Barrel.
I get there and there are only three boxes left. Are you a Rewards member?
I'm not. Because an employee named Ginny Neal told me people regularly come to Cracker Barrel explicitly to get Hydrox.
We have a hard time keeping him in stock.
I actually have some at home right now.
I like to crumble them on vanilla ice cream and make it like cookies and cream.
Do you ever buy Oreos?
I don't buy Oreos, but I get the Hydrox, yeah.
What's behind your loyalty?
I guess for being a kid and liking them so much, and I like to see things come back.
For a lot of people, eating these cookies really is this tangible connection to their childhood.
You know, it's like a safety blanket almost when everything around you has changed.
I came from a family of six children, so whenever we got treats, it was special.
So when Dad would go buy cookies, it was because he had the little extra money to get them.
I heard a similar sentiment from Mary Elizabeth Lewis.
She grew up in Kansas City, and she's been a fan of Hydrox ever since her mom would buy them for her as a kid.
She didn't have any money.
I think she made $40 a week.
I kept asking Mary Elizabeth what she thought of the taste of Hydrox cookies, cookies and eventually she was basically like Mackenzie it's not about the taste maybe I'm being far too serious but a lot of times it's not just the Hydrox cookie it's the story around it it's the feeling you get that's where the story lies well and now that we're really getting into Hydrox fandom here I just have to say it really does run deep the most fun part of reporting the story by far has been talking to people in Kansas City who remember Hydrox disappearing disappearing and then surprising them with one.
Because while they've been back for 10 years now, a lot of people miss the memo and haven't had a Hydrox in like decades.
I feel like Hydrox is the underdog sandwich cookie.
I like that. And do you know who conceived of it?
It was Jacob Luce of Luce Park.
You're kidding me. Yeah, Kansas City.
It started in Kansas City?
No, I did not learn that they were started here.
Kansas City Mo, I'm shocked.
This is a beautiful thing.
And so, is there any way to buy Hydrox cookies?
Because I really want to get some for this weekend.
Okay, what if I told you that in this bag I had a Hydrox cookie?
Are you kidding me?
Are they legit? Oh, my God.
That's what I remember.
This is such an exciting moment.
Oh, my God, that's so good.
I think they are less sweet.
But maybe it's because they're not.
exploding with the cream stuff because they've gotten out of hand.
The mega triple stuff, that's a mess.
So to me, they taste stale.
Now maybe they are stale.
Have they expired? No, these are brand new.
Now remember, the Hydrox being a little bit stale and brittle like this.
Yeah, that's where you get into your Hydrox.
Look at the design on a Hydrox cookie.
It's much more intricate.
kid, it's much more like you are eating something amazing.
So Mackenzie, you have your Hydrox?
I have my Hydrox. I have mine.
Shout out to managing producer Emma Morgenstern's mom, who went to a cracker barrel in Massachusetts to get these Hydrox and sent them to me.
Thanks, Mrs. Morgenstern.
Now, wait, have you ever had, is this the bag you just got?
Have you ever had them?
I have had them, but I have not had one now in a year.
Okay. Here we go. As far as I know, I've never had a Hydrox.
I'm really excited to hear what you think.
I think you're going to have a lot of strong thoughts knowing you.
First, the aroma. Oh, it smells very different.
It smells very sweet.
And right off the bat, I feel like the frosting, the vanilla cream layer looks thicker, but it doesn't go as far to the edges.
I would agree with that.
Normally when I eat Oreos, I separate them and I take one one cookie and put it on top of the other and then eat it frosting side down so the frosting lands directly on my tongue.
But just for research purposes, I'm going to start off with just an unadulterated.
I'm not going to alter it.
Just straight up bite of Hydrox.
That's really good.
And I got to tell you, Mackenzie, I don't love Oreos because I find them to be very brittle and not enough frosting.
And this solves for both of those things.
The cookies are still, they're still crisp.
And the frosting has so much more flavor.
There's more of everything.
I think they're amazing.
Like, truly, I wasn't expecting this going in, but I've been preaching about how good Hydrox cookies are for the last year since I first had one.
It's really good. And I'm extremely proud that they come from Kansas City.
You should be. That's producer -reporter Mackenzie Martin.
She hosts her own podcast, A People's History of Kansas City from KCUR Studios.
On that show, she digs into the backstory of things like movie popcorn.
Did you know popcorn used to be banned from theaters?
And topics like Henry Perry, the father of Kansas City's iconic barbecue.
We'll link to her podcast in our show notes.
Gabe Rosenberg and Suzanne Hogan edited the version of this episode that appeared on their feed.
And huge thanks this episode to Mackenzie's co -workers at KCUR, who spoke to her so enthusiastically about Hydrox cookies.
David Folk, Michael Byers, Martha Atlas, Allison Lawson, Sarah Reinhardt, and Frank Morris.
You heard archival audio in this episode from Nabisco, Sunshine Biscuits, and Spangler Candy in addition to NBC, ABC, AMC, NPR, and KCAL.
Music in this episode from Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra and courtesy of Black Label Music.
If you're hungry for even more on this story, there's a great episode about this from our friends at Planet Money called The Hydrox Resurrection.
Mackenzie also highly recommends Stella Parks' cookbook Brave Tarp, which features an incredible recipe for making homemade Oreos many home cooks swear by.
Will they be as good as Hydrox?
You be the judge. Remember to follow me on Instagram for your chance to win tickets to our intimate live taping in New York City at Sirius XM headquarters next week.
On Instagram, I'm at thesporkful.
Next week here on the podcast, we have another story of a beloved product and business rivalry, but on a whole other level.
This is the story of Jose Cuervo, who created a tequila empire and kept it going during a bloody revolution.
His name is iconic around the world, and yet little has been written about this guy.
We'll talk to an author who spent more than a decade uncovering the Cuervo story and got access to the family's secret archives.
That's next week. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app?
Yes, the SiriusXM app.
It has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad -free music channels curated by genre and era, plus live sports coverage.
Does your podcasting app have that?
Then there's interviews with A -list stars and so much more.
It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app all rolled into one.
And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to SiriusXM .com slash Sporkful.
This episode was produced by me along with Mackenzie Martin, managing producer Emma Morgenstern, and senior producer Andres O 'Hara.
Our engineer is Jared O 'Connell, and our intern is Julia Liu.
Music help from Black Label Music.
The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios, our executive producer is Camille Stanley.
Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
And I'm Shane from St. Louis, Missouri, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat more better.
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Hey, everybody. Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co -host Woody Harrelson.
It's called Where Everybody Knows Your Name, and we're back for another season.
I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more.
You don't want to miss it.
Listen to Where Everybody Knows Your Name with me, Ted Danson, and Woody Harrelson sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts.
