Comebacks we'd like to see: #4 -- Hydrox cookies
This post is part of our series ranking the top 25 bygone products and trends we'd like to see return.
Back when I thought wine only came in two flavors -- red and white -- and cheese was either white or yellow, I still managed to consider myself something of a connoisseur. That's because -- despite all the hype and hegemony of Oreos -- I knew that Hydrox cookies were better.
Oh sure, you may be one of those people who thought of Hydrox as the cheap knock-off that your mom bought to save money. I once believed that too. But then the taste of the little off-brand cookies converted me. In my eight- or nine-year-old mind, I became a cookie expert. I was happy to share my sandwich cookie wisdom with anyone who asked. I'm sure no one ever asked, but I was eager to spread the news anyway.
It's been years since I tasted a Hydrox, so I can't quite describe what I liked so much about them. Some have described it as less tangy than the Oreo. I suspect that some of the pleasure was just in having a taste that was different than most people's.
By the 1970s, everybody just loved Oreos and thought of them as the all-American cookie. It was years later that I learned that Hydrox wasn't just a knock-off. It was the original, started in 1908, back when combining two chemicals to form a name -- hydrogen and oxygen -- seemed like a nifty idea. Oreos didn't jump on the bandwagon till 1912.
By the 1990s, Hydrox fell victim to corporate scheming. Keebler bought its maker, Sunshine Biscuits, then changed the name to Droxies. Then Kellogg's bought Keebler and In 2003 they quietly killed off Hydrox cookies. Loyal fans only learned the news when they realized the always difficult-to-find cookies had became impossible-to-find. Some complained; others petitioned; no one listened. Some claim to see a ghost of the Hydrox cookie recipe in Famous Amos cookies or in certain store brands.
What's odd about the disappearance of Hydrox cookies is that it happened just at the time when consumers everywhere are reveling in their obscure tastes. My eight-year-old attitude has caught on. We now have people who claim to have a preference for a certain kind of salt. The experts in olive oil are legion. Why can't we have our old, beloved sandwich cookie back?
What discontinued childhood treats do you still have a taste for?



Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
5-16-2008 @ 10:37AM
Jo M Nicholas said...
Oh, I am so shocked to find those cookies have disappeared entirely; I keep looking for them. I was hooked on them long before Oreo's which I consider a poor substitue. Well Duhhh! They were a tad harder and thinner as I recall but the filling was tastier and also stiffer. They made a great dunking cookie that I grew up on in the 40's and still was buying when I could find them decades later. Darn. Now I will never buy another Oreo so thhhttttttttt!
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5-16-2008 @ 10:34AM
julie said...
I was so glad when I discovered Hydrox cookies; growing up, oreo's was the favorite among friends but it always seem to be a little bitter to me with a bad after taste. I was born in '75 and always rejected chocolate cream cookies until I had my first Hydrox. It was delicious with or without milk and no bitter after taste. I wondered where they went, I just assumed Oreo lovers finally won.
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5-16-2008 @ 10:44AM
michelle said...
We had Hydrox when I was growing up because Oreos had lard, but Hydrox were kosher. Even after Oreos gave up lard, my mom stayed loyal to Hydrox!
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5-16-2008 @ 11:09AM
Eileen said...
Michelle, I also grew up in a kosher home, hence our love for Hydrox cookies rather than Oreos. Also the filling in Hydrox was more like icing rather than cream - yum!
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5-16-2008 @ 11:35AM
Jspeedy123 said...
I always loved Hydrox when I was a kid. I loved the crisp clean taste. I thought the cookie part was too moist in Oreos. And Yes Hyrox was a much better cookie to dip in milk. Why won't Kellogs listen to us and bring my favorite cookie back. No cheap knock off either I want the originaL reciepe and taste.
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5-16-2008 @ 11:46AM
Mai Tai said...
Does any one else remember the Nabisco's Brown-edge cookie? I think that's what they were called. Like a nilla wafer, but larger and more delicate . Yellow in the middle and brown around the edge. It was always a treat at Grandma's and now they've disappeared of store shelves. sigh.
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7-15-2008 @ 11:04PM
Joy said...
Loved the Brown Edge cookies too. Nabisco discontinued them several years ago. Apparently there isn't enough interest to bring them back. I wish they would
5-16-2008 @ 11:47AM
Valerie said...
Hydrox cookies were so far superior to Oreos that it makes me want to puke, in childish vernacular, that Oreos survived and Hydrox didn't. The icing in the center wasn't slimy and squishy like Oreos. It had oomph. The chocolate was chocolatier. Oreos . . . go home. Hydrox . . . come home.
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5-16-2008 @ 11:45AM
marty hartman said...
I wondered why I couldn't find Hydrox. I always liked it much better that oreos.
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5-16-2008 @ 12:00PM
ellie said...
Hydrox is my all time favorite cookie. Does anyone remember Parlay's,chocolate covered nugget and peanut logs ,from LOFT's? That was my favorite candy! What even comes close?
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5-16-2008 @ 12:22PM
JJ said...
Hydrogen and oxygen are NOT chemicals - they're elements.
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5-16-2008 @ 12:33PM
nancy said...
Hydrox would be my #1 choice of things to bring back. Oreo cookies do NOT compare!
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5-16-2008 @ 1:19PM
janie said...
WHEN I WAS YOUNG, MY MOTHER WORKED AT SUNSHINE BISCUIT IN DAYTON, OH. EVERY NOW AND THEN SHE WOULD BRING MY SISTER & I SOME OF THOSE YUMMY COOKIES. THOSE WERE THE DAYS.
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5-17-2008 @ 2:24PM
Pat said...
I always loved Hydrox. Never thought Oreos compared and am so sorry I can have them any more. What do we have to do to get them back
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5-16-2008 @ 6:10PM
Bob Banks said...
Hydrox was a cookie that Sunshine mad better than Nabisco's Oreos.
Too bad when Keebler bought it and came out as Hydroxees, it was shortly discontinued.
Why? I don't know. But I wrote them throu every means possible. I never received a reply.
Keebler, Bring 'em back!
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5-16-2008 @ 1:53PM
Robert said...
My father recently passed away and would have been 96 years old in 2008.
He was a little boy when OREO cookies had just started and were made from actual real milk and cream ingredients instead of what we're used to today.
Dad used to tell me how OREOs tasted so different from when he grew up until the the country became absorbed with food additives somewhere in the 1950s. Then OREOs changed forever and my father stopped eating them.
Any other similar stories?
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5-16-2008 @ 2:29PM
Cheri said...
Hydrox Cookies are totally GONE from all shelves? What a shock!
My ultimate all time favorite sweet disappeared many years ago, thus most of you probabaly won't remember them. It was a candy bar called "7 UP" (I don't recall if it was spelled out seven or just 7). Oh gosh, what a treat it was for Mother to get me one at the market!
Seven individual fillings all covered in chocolate. What was there...Coconut, Caramel, Chocolate, Marshmellow (?), a nut in the center & my favorite, a sweet Green Jell Filling.
I've asked every antique store I come across if they have any of the old wrappers, just to have a bit of that childhood memory to frame, but no luck so far though many people remember them with fondness.
We did come across something similar in one of the candy stores that carry nothing but the old time stuff (aren't those shops great!?) & it's by Necco called Sky Bar w/4 fillings that include Caramel, Vanilla, Peanut & Fudge.
The 4 in 1 is pretty good but just not the same as the 7-Up bar.
To think someone in a think tank comes up with taking away these wonderfully delightful treats is pretty sad.
I keep a journel for my grandhchildren to at least know about some of the old time wonders that progress took away ("What's a record player do Grandma?") :-)
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5-16-2008 @ 3:03PM
MarjAZ said...
Say what? Just discovered a webstore that sells ice cream toppings, etc., and they have bags of crushed Hydrox cookies? How can that be?
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5-18-2008 @ 3:44PM
gretch7596 said...
If your lucky enough to live in Indiana and near a Kroger
grocery store, they have a cookie called Kid-O s that is very close to the old Hydrox. In my opinion,of course.
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5-17-2008 @ 12:51AM
E said...
There was a Sunshine bakery quite near my house. sigh. Well, at least there are Trader Joe's' "Joe Joes", which are the closest things to Hydrox I've tasted.
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