Jared Konstanty, senior vice president and general manager of PF’s snacks division, had explained to me earlier that once the Innovation Center is up and running, PF’s inventors and engineers—who currently work out of a rather cramped, windowless space—will be able to produce new ideas at a more rapid clip than ever before. But soon the hard, crunchy cookie will turn into a pleasing goop that resembles melted ice cream or sweetened condensed milk. Belgian Expat Shop ships worldwide at the lowest shipping rates. The first line of “distinctive” Pepperidge Farm cookies hit stores in 1955. They came in six varieties—Biarritz, Bordeaux, Brussels, Venice, Dresden, and … “Everybody thinks their favorite is the best. That, according to the Pepperidge Farm origin myth, was when Rudkin boarded the Queen Mary and set off on a “tasting trip” of Europe. This is a tough one because it’s never going to look great, bringing a bag of grocery store cookies to someone’s house when your host has put in the effort to cook a real dinner. It might strike you as unremarkable at first. To us, it’s a cookie; for a teddy bear, it’s a pie. It was then that I decided to sample every cookie in the Pepperidge Farm family and figure out what was what. All rights reserved. The human condition is not a new one, right?”. My first move was to separate the new from the old, which required opening my sampler packs, where some vintage cookies (the Lido, the Orleans) that have apparently stopped pulling their weight as stand-alone items are now huddling together for survival. What had begun as a narrow inquiry into my own peculiar inclinations had turned into an occasion to reflect on a company that is a pillar of the American pleasure industry—and to consider how we, as cookie-eaters and human beings, ought to feel about it as it marches into the superabundant future. Pepperidge Farm is really good at making cookies that melt in your mouth, thereby foiling killjoy librarians listening for a crunch coming from the carrels. The goop will get dense but you will be able to swish it around freely—an extraordinary feeling. Most of the chunky cookies are good for dipping too, with the notable exception of the Crispy Double Chocolate Chunk Nantuckets, which are so thoroughly shot through with chunks that they fall to pieces as soon as they touch the milk. Everyone will be so distracted by the sheer force of novelty that they won’t have the wherewithal to imagine you paying for them in change at 7-Eleven an hour ago. One word: Montieris. I turned into the driveway and parked. Putting aside the fact that I don’t quite understand how a Milano Slice is really a Milano—it would seem an open-faced Milano would be a contradiction in terms, seeing as the sandwich structure of the original is its defining feature—I’m afraid the new class, though bold and good and occasionally even thrilling, just didn’t pull me in like my old favorites do. The company has since brought its “exquisite European biscuits” to the American market, and according to Mieke Vansevenant, Delacre’s marketing manager, the Belgian company now considers Pepperidge Farm a competitor. Saint Vindicianus, the Bishop of Cambrai, made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695, when it was still a hamlet. Did you know that you can now have your favorite Belgian cookies shipped to the other side of the globe, for example Canada? They aren’t sold separately anymore, so you’re going to have to assemble this little goodie bag by hand after buying up several sampler packs. And though there is definitely a lot of overlap between varieties, there are nevertheless meaningful distinctions to be made, and I suspect all of us have some taxonomy in mind, however subconsciously, when we’re standing in the cookie aisle and deciding which bag to bring home. A few months ago, a friend said to me, with disconcerting severity, “There’s something perverse about enjoying such a boring cookie.” I was moved to wonder: Is there something perverse about me? According to former PF president Pat Callaghan, the cookies in the chunky line are supposed to match the topography of their eponym (the white chocolate chunks of Tahoes = Sierra Nevada snowcaps). “All of the cookies within our distinctive cookie range—Geneva, Milano, Chessmen, everything in a small white bag—are about ‘mom’s moment,’ ” he said. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. While these stereotypes are well-known around the world, few are familiar with the history of Belgium and the origins of its name. By 1960, the cookies were being sold nationwide, and in 1961, Margaret Rudkin sold her company to the Campbell Soup Company. The reality is that Pepperidge Farm has to keep up with the moment, or else risk turning into a nostalgia act, doomed to die out with the generation to which it has committed itself. I learned that Gingermen are an occasion to “take pleasure in the simplicity of a cookie well baked,” while the Raspberry Milanos channel the “baker’s soul” and implore the consumer to “embrace decadent cravings.” Several of the bags promised “velvety soft hearts.” The Shortbread boasted of its “dreamy, biscuit like-crisp.”. Driving alongside a nondescript shopping complex, I realized I didn’t know what I was looking for. Etymology. Having done so, I felt an arguably unearned sense of accomplishment—as though I’d educated myself somehow and now knew more of the world than I used to. When You Need Something To Smuggle Into the Library. The Pepperidge Farm people have some sense of the dilemmas their products present. This is especially important because there is such a thing as cookie extinction in the world of Pepperidge Farm. The Montieri, for instance, is not trying to fool anyone with its fancy lattice patterning—it just wants you to think it’s pretty. But it’ll be worth it. “Chocolate Chessmen” has quite a nice ring to it, and they would be pretty good, I think. – Coderer Dec 13 '17 at 15:51 3 On a recent Saturday afternoon, after fasting all morning, I spread out the contents of the cardboard box Pepperidge Farm had sent me on the floor, arranging the bags Periodic Table-style, in hopes of being somewhat systematic about my consumption. He showed me a set of metal rolling pins that are used to engrave Chessmen. This is not a trivial accomplishment. But most homemade holiday cookies were simple rounds or squares, according to "The Christmas Cook: Three Centuries of American Yuletide Sweets," until American … Updated 12:50 AM ET, Sun August 4, 2019 . One day this summer, I received a package from Pepperidge Farm the size of a laundry basket. By Jeremy Roth and Jamie K. White, CNN. “It was different than all the cookies in boxes and cellophane, to put them in those bags,” said Callaghan. In my experience, Veronas yield the highest bite-to-words-written ratio. It was also undergoing a transition that would see its longtime president, who has been with the company for more than 30 years, succeeded by a young new leader. But when the company’s operation expanded into the South, it quickly discovered that the Naples wasn’t built to withstand heat. They’re right.”. They came in six varieties—Biarritz, Bordeaux, Brussels, Venice, Dresden, and a brownie crème sandwich cookie called the Capri—and they resembled with deliberate precision the Delacres that inspired them.