American Cultural Observation 112 : Some More Girl Scout Cookies

Do-Si-Dos Cookies
Crisp and crunchy oatmeal cookies with creamy peanut butter filling. Claims not to contain any artificial colour or flavour. Yeah, more peanut butter. NOT a fan! Oh and according to Deb in Information Services, this is the cookie to dip in coffee. I stand corrected Deb. So, the experimentation for this round of cookies was done while in a meeting. I kept finding myself reaching for the Do-Si-Does and then Shannon, a colleague of mine, would shout frustrated across the table “Don’t take that – its peanut butter” time after time. Annoying at the time but funny now. Oh, some more feedback on peanut butter conundrum... btw, I'm an American who now hates peanut butter - working on the AFM dining room staff has caused me to hate peanut butter because I have to wash the dishes that people seem to get PB from the jar and paint (or dip) every dish in PB - then we have to get the sticky stuff off. March 15th - that is the date I stop washing dishes! :) I feel with you Marty! I washed dishes on the Anastasis too for many a long month... Worse is trying to get Marmite off the plates!

Trefoils Cookies
A simple yet delicate-tasting old fashioned shortbread. Quite a satisfying and unassuming cookie that is quite filling and lovely with a cup of tea I am sure. Staple cookie you can trust. The cookie to keep in a tornado shelter. Did you know that Scottish shortbread evolved from medieval biscuit bread, which was a twice-baked, enriched bread roll dusted with sugar and spices and hardened into a Rusk (soft, sweetened biscuit). Eventually butter was substituted for yeast, and shortbread was born. Since butter was such an important ingredient, the word "shortbread" derived from shortening. Shortbread may have been made as early as the 12th Century, however its invention is often attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots in the 16th Century. Now tell me your noggin does not feel enriched!

Cookie Fun Facts!

• Little Brownie bakes over 4,500,000 Thin Mints Girl Scout Cookies per day during peak baking times.
• Little Brownie makes their own caramel for Samoas®. It‘s cooked the old fashion way in copper kettles to 234 degrees.
• Do-si-dos® and Tagalongs® take 230,000 lbs. of peanut butter per week.
• Peanut butter crème is deposited onto Do-si-do® cookies at the rate of 2800 per minute.
• After exiting the oven, Thin Mints travel 300 feet on a conveyer belt to cool before being coated in the chocolate.
• A rotary die shapes Trefoils. There are 300 identical Trefoil shapes engraved in one rotary die. The die rotates 17 times a minute equaling 5100 cookies a minute.
• Samoas® go through a cooling tunnel at 40-50 degrees before chocolate is applied.
• Do-si-dos® are wrapped at 64 packages per minute!