Oreo Cookies Turn 100! - Food News - Cooking

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oreo Turns 100!

7 Comments | Written on February 28, 2012 at 1:00 pm, by Lesley Kennedy

Nabisco

Oh, oh, oh, ice cold milk and an Oreo cookie. They forever go together. What a classic combination. So, classic, in fact, that the one and only creamy, crunchy, chocolate, O-R-E-O is turning 100. Happy birthday to us!

The New York Post reports the Oreo was invented March 6, 1912, at the National Biscuit Company (you know it now as Nabisco) headquarters in New York City.

During its delicious century on this planet, the cookie has led to some pretty serious debates on just how the treat should be eaten: down the hatch or twisted apart? Dunked in milk or crushed on top of ice cream? Meanwhile, some 362 billion Oreos have been devoured, the newspaper adds.

“I know of few commercial products that have sold so well for so long,” food historian Andrew F. Smith tells the Post.

And, despite a little controversy over possible copying of the Hydrox sandwich cookie, it’s clear Oreos were an American fave from the get-go, according to the newspaper, when they sold for 30 cents a pound. A pound!

Ever wonder where the name Oreo came from?

“The one that makes the most sense to me from a historical perspective is that the name really came from the sandwich of the cookies,” Becky Tousey, associate director of corporate archives for Kraft, the owner of Nabisco, tells the Post, referencing the O-shaped cookies.

The name may have stayed the same over the past 100 years, but flavors have changed a bit around the globe. There was a lemon-filled version in the 1920s, the Double Stuff came out in 1974, Argentina offers a banana and dulce de leche filling, and in China you can find green-tea-ice-cream flavored Oreos, the Post reports.

Us? We’ll stick with the classic. And an ice cold glass of milk, please. Oh, oh, oh, O-R-E-O. Is it weird for us to want to throw a birthday party for a cookie? Because an Oreo cake sounds pretty awesome, don’t you think?