Oreo
Oreo is a trademark for a popular sandwich cookie manufactured by the Nabisco Corporation. The current design consists of a sweet, white filling commonly referred to as 'cream' or 'creme', sandwiched between two circular chocolate wafers.
Over 490 billion Oreo cookies have been sold since they were first introduced, making them the best selling cookie of the 20th century.[1]
History
Oreos were introduced by Nabisco Corporation in February 1912 to mainly target the British market, whose biscuits were seen by Nabisco to be too 'ordinary'. [2] Originally, Oreos were mound-shaped and available in two flavours; lemon meringue and cream. They were sold for 30 cents a pound in novel tin cans with glass tops, which allowed customers to see the cookies.
A newer design was introduced in 1916, and as the cream filling was by far the more popular of the two available flavors, Nabisco discontinued production of the lemon meringue filling during the 1920s. The modern-day Oreo was developed in 1952 by William A Turnier, [3] to include the Nabisco logo.
There are many theories pointing to the origin of the name 'Oreo', including derivations from the French word 'Or', meaning gold (as early packaging was gold), or the Greek word 'Oreo', meaning mountain or hill (as the original Oreo was mound shaped). Other theories are that the 're' from cream was 'sandwiched' between the two Os from chocolate, or the word 'just seemed like a nice, melodic combination of sounds'.
Oreos are very similar to the Hydrox cookie manufactured by Sunshine, which was introduced in 1908, leading to speculation that Oreo obtained the idea from Sunshine. Having lost market share to Oreo for years, Hydrox cookies were withdrawn in 1996[4] (and subsequently reintroduced under the Droxies name three years later).
Production
According to a statement from Kim McMiller, an Associate Director of Consumer Relations, a two-stage process is used to make Oreo cookies. The base cake dough is formed into the familiar round cookies by a rotary mold at the entrance of a 300-foot-long oven. Key ingredients include sugar (later replaced with high fructose corn syrup), Dutch cocoa, and pure chocolate liquor purchased from outside suppliers in addition to flour which is milled at Nabisco's flour mill.[citation needed]
Consumption
As the modern design of the Oreo cookie allows it to be eaten in several ways, there is differing opinion on how to consume an Oreo. While some people eat the cookie without taking it apart, others like to 'disassemble' the Oreo into its constituent parts of wafers and filling. The Oreo may then be 'dunked' in milk. The official Oreo website recommends twisting the Oreo apart, licking out the cream and dunking the remaining biscuits in milk.
Varieties
In addition to their traditional design of two chocolate wafers separated by a cream filling, Oreos have been produced in many different varieties since they were first introduced, and this list is only a guide to some of the more notable and recent types. [5]
- Oreo WaferSticks are long wafer sticks that have a creamy filling and are covered by chocolate. They do not taste as creamy as other varieties.
- Uh-Oh Oreos are 'reverse' Oreos in that they comprise vanilla wafers and a chocolate cream filling.
- Golden Oreos comprise vanilla cookies with a vanilla cream filling.
- Mini Oreos are bite-sized versions of ordinary Oreos.
- Double Delight Oreos (introduced in 1987) have chocolate cookies with two fillings, notably peanut butter 'n chocolate, mint 'n cream, and coffee 'n cream flavours.
- Flavored Oreos contain a sole filling in a variety of cream flavors, including peanut butter, chocolate, mint, caramel and strawberry milkshake.
- Double Stuf Oreos (introduced in 1975) have twice the normal amount of white cream filling.
- Big Stuf Oreos (introduced in 1989) were several times the size of a normal Oreo.[6][7] Sold individually, each Big Stuf contained 316 calories and 13 grams of fat.[8] They were discontinued in 1991.
- White Fudge Oreos and Milk Chocolate Oreos are covered in either a layer of white fudge or chocolate respectively.
- 100 Calorie Pack Oreos (Oreo Thinsations in Canada) are miniature, thin, octagonal versions of oreos that do not contain cream-filling and come individually-portioned into 100 calorie pouches.
- During springtime, around Halloween, and Christmas, special edition Double Stuf Oreos are produced with coloured frosting depicting the current holiday (yellow, orange, and red respectively).
Many of these varieties are combined, producing, for example, "Chocolate Fudge Mint Covered", "Double Stuf Chocolate Creme", and so forth.
Trans-Saturated fat
On May 13, 2003, attorney Stephen Joseph filed a lawsuit charging Nabisco with using hydrogenated (or partially hydrogenated) oils (trans fats) to make the cookies. The suit was dropped as Nabisco considered replacing the hydrogenated oils with alternative oils.. Joseph admitted he filed the lawsuit to call attention to the matter, and he considered his motion successful. As of January 2006, classic Oreo cookies are no longer manufactured with hydrogenated oils. [9] Other varieties may not have eliminated hydrogenated oils completely.
Variations and adaptations
- Jell-O Oreo Pudding - Jell-O brand chocolate pudding at the bottom and on top, with vanilla in the middle
- Jell-O Oreo Instant Pudding - also named cookies n' cream. the box contains instant vanilla pudding with real cookie pieces
- An Oreo variety with lemon-flavored filling was available until the 1920s. Some generic brand cookies still have such varieties.
- There is a cereal called Oreo Os, with a little cream man wearing sunglasses on the box.
- In Italy, a similar cookie to Oreo called "Ringo" is manufactured by Pavesi
- In Brazil, a very similar cookie to Oreo called "Negresco" is manufactured by Nestlé (picture, description).
- Oreo Ice Cream. This is licensed by Breyers, Good Humor, and Klondike in the US, and Nestlé in Canada. Flavours are:
- Oreo ice Cream (Blended Oreo cookies in Vanilla Ice Cream)
- Oreo Ice Cream Sandwich (Extra Large Oreo wafers with the above mentioned ice cream in the middle)
- Oreo Ice Cream Bar (Chocolate Ice Cream bar with the above mentioned Ice Cream)
- Mint Oreo Ice Cream (Blended Oreo Cookies with Mint Ice Cream)
- Easy-Bake Oreo Mix - two easy-bake chocolate cakes with a marshmallow filling topped off with an oreo cookie topping
As an ingredient
 | This section needs additional citations for verification. |
The Oreo cookie is commonly used as an ingredient or adornment for other foods. Milkshakes containing Oreo cookies are popular, and deep-fried Oreo cookies, which are batter-dipped Oreos fried like funnel cakes, are sometimes sold at carnivals and fairs. Also, the development of premium ice creams has produced "cookies and cream" flavors, a vanilla ice cream with chunks of chocolate sandwich cookies included. Cookies 'n' Cream may or may not contain actual Nabisco Oreo cookies, however, and may instead have non-Nabisco brand chocolate sandwich cookies that are functionally identical, such as Droxies and an endless stream of "generic" brands. Many cookies similar to Oreo cookies are commonly referred to as "Oreo" despite not having an actual connection to Nabisco.
- Cup o' dirt or Dirt pudding - This is a pudding dessert which has Oreos as an ingredient and includes crumbled Oreo cookies on top to resemble dirt. It sometimes contains gummy worms to continue with the 'dirt' image. May alternatively be called "worms 'n' dirt."
- Deep Fried hot Oreo- only in fairs. Oreos are coated with a sweet batter then deep fried and dusted with powdered sugar.
In popular culture
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "The White Stuff" is about the cream "in the middle of an Oreo." It was a spoof of "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" by New Kids on the Block.
- In the 1976 remake of the film A Star Is Born the Caucasian singer played by Barbra Streisand is flanked by two African-American backing vocalists known as "The Oreos" (played by Venetta Fields and Clydie King).
- Popular Science website has an article about an oreo fueled rocket. [10]
- In the Matt Groening cartoon, Futurama, Oreos are used many times;
- "Insane in the Mainframe": Fry says while in the robot mental hospital that he can't stand having disks shoved into him unless they're Oreos and if that's the case, then they should only be shoved in his mouth.
- "Birdbot of Ice-Catraz": Fry buys a box filled with the round chocolate wafers and creamy centers that Oreos are made of so he can build them in an Oreo making machine (only to end up licking the creamy center and discarding the round chocolate wafers).
- In The Simpsons episode, Helter Shelter, while the family is on the Victorian-era reality show and Marge is buying products that were made before 1895, one of the products she tries to buy is a pack of Oreos, which Apu refuses to let her buy because Oreos were invented in 1896 (although Oreos were not released to the public until 1912).
- In The Simpsons episode, The Cartridge Family, Moe drops by the Simpsons household with a "big bag of irregular Oreos".
- On the Family Guy episode Fore Father, Peter tries to teach Chris how to eat an Oreo by twisting the cookie apart and licking the creamy center, but Chris only succeeds in smashing the cookie against his head and falling out of his chair.
- On a MADtv Spishak commercial sketch from season nine, a dad (Aries Spears) tries to attach his son's toy car to his car while eating a plate of Oreos.
- In DC Comics' 1980s comic book series Justice League International, Keith Giffen gave the Martian Manhunter a fondness for Oreos, which was later picked up on by other writers. In Martian Manhunter #24 (November 2000), which shows this as a dangerous addiction, the name of the cookies are changed to "Chocos". Martian Manhunter's appearance in Smallville is foreshadowed by the discovery of a half-eaten Oreo.
- Near the end of the 10th season of the WB's 7th Heaven, the twins open an 'Oreo Bar' with a mini fridge in their room, and tempt their relatives to share their secrets.
- On the season eight episode of South Park called Cartman's Incredible Gift, one of Cartman's psychic visions is someone disassembling a Double Stuff Oreo so the cream is still stuck to one of the wafers, then taking another wafer with the cream on it and making a Quadruple Stuff Oreo.
- In the movie Rounders, Matt Damon's opponent at the poker table 'Teddy KGB' has a tell involving the way he takes apart his Oreos.
- In the movie Lethal Weapon, Mel Gibson brings Patsy Kensit to his trailer, and asks whether she likes her Chili with or without crushed Oreos.
- A one-off sketch from the 1990-1991 season (season 16) of Saturday Night Live where a woman (Julia Sweeney) in a confession booth in church develops a crush on the handsome priest to whom she's confessing her sins (played by frequent host Alec Baldwin) has a part where the woman confesses that she ate a box of Oreos while on a diet (even though the priest points out that it wasn't a sin). The two then confess that they both like Oreos, with the woman admitting that she likes to dunk hers in milk while the priest admits, in a low, seductive voice, that he likes to "spread the cookie open and lick the creamy center" (causing the woman to sigh orgasmically) [11]
- In a scene in the movie Big, Tom Hanks can be seen splitting apart Oreos to eat the fondant filling, before discarding the rest. [12]
- In the movie Every Which Way But Loose, Clint Eastwood's orang-utan Clyde was a fan of Oreos. [13]
- In the 1998 remake of the movie The Parent Trap, Hallie and Annie both love to eat Oreos with peanut butter.
- On the Friends episode, The One with the Girl from Poughkeepsie, Joey stuffs 15 Oreos in his mouth.
Trivia
 | This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (May 2007) |
- Oreos are produced in batch production, where each batch uses 18 million pounds of cocoa, and 47 million pounds of crème filling, therefore making an Oreo 71% biscuit and 29% crème. [14]
- If every Oreo cookie ever made were stacked on top of each other (over 490 billion), the pile would reach to the Moon and back more than six times.
- The Nabisco facility in Chicago, is the largest cookie-producing factory in the world; over 4.6 billion Oreos were made in one year alone. [15]
- Nabisco was insistent that the mini cookies, measuring an inch in diameter and weighing just one ounce, were exact replicas of regularly-sized Oreos, including their ability to be twisted apart [16].
- Oreo has been a long time partner of NASCAR and has sponsored NASCAR drivers Dale Earnhardt, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Martin Truex Jr., Michel Jourdain, Jr., and Greg Biffle.
- Depending on the area of manufacture, Oreo cookies may or may not be vegan.
- Each cookie has 12 flower shaped designs on them. Each flower has 4 petals.
References
- ^ Toops, Diane: Top 10 power brands, Retrieved on June 07, 2007
- ^ http://www.inventhelp.com/Newsletter/2006_10/cookie_month.asp
- ^ http://www.inventhelp.com/Newsletter/2006_10/cookie_month.asp
- ^ Lukas, Paul. "Oreos to Hydrox: Resistance Is Futile." Business 2.0 March 1999
- ^ http://www.kraft.com/100/innovations/oreoprod.html
- ^ "Oreo Madness".
- ^ Friedman, Marty (November 1989). "Sizing up - and down - new product opportunities". Prepared Foods.
- ^ "Oreo Sandwiches Big Stuf".
- ^ http://www.bantransfats.com/theoreocase.html
- ^ http://www.popsci.com/popsci/how20/600152d7d441b010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
- ^ http://snltranscripts.jt.org/90/90npriest.phtml
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/bigpg13hinson_a0c8e9.htm
- ^ http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/dvd/reviews/df/20020514/102138120006.html?id=1800028206
- ^ http://www.amusingfacts.com/facts/Detail/oreo-factory.html
- ^ http://www.amusingfacts.com/facts/Detail/oreo-factory.html
- ^ http://www.kraft.com/100/innovations/oreoprod.html