WASHINGTON -- Cookie lovers are still trying to digest the revelation from a retired baker at Nabisco that the popular cream center found in their flagship "Oreos" cookies is nothing more that flavored paste.In his book, Half Baked – My Fifty Years at Nabisco, Noah Swayne describes how he couldn’t get the two halves of the cookie to stick together but solved the problem by remembering something he learned in elementary school.
“I’d be getting hungry, but it wouldn’t be time for lunch. So, I’d nibble on some tablet paper,” Swayne explained, ”That was okay but then I got the idea to add some paste to my snack and -- voila I had myself a meal.”
During his career, Swayne held many positions at the baking company, including cookie taste tester, a job he described as “inhuman.”
“You wouldn’t believe what they made me eat. One time I landed in the hospital,” Swayne said, referring to Nabisco’s infamous anchovy flavored Oreo experiment.
Swayne recalled that he’s been asked many times over the years why Nabisco didn't just make a thicker cookie and skip the creamy glue altogether. “Old man [Himan] Nabisco wanted thick cookies but all we had was a thin cookie mold. He was too damn cheep to buy another one. And you quote me on that, may he rot in hell."
