I don’t usually go in for Oreos.  I don’t blog about them because there are other sites that have seemingly catalogued and reviewed every Oreo variation since ancient cookie times.  And, mind you,  that was back when Oreos were hand-fired and made of mutton tallow sandwiched between two roughly hewn, crusty pumpernickel discs.  One of my ancestors apprenticed to an Oreosmith in Nottingham, so I’m familiar with the stories.  And Oreo bellows used to be part of our coat of arms.

Despite my rich family heritage, I don’t eat a lot of Oreos these days.  And here’s why.  Have you ever eaten something and thought that the only way it could taste that good was that if it was killing you from the inside at that very moment?  Like it was taking days off your life while you were dabbing crumbs off the corners of your mouth?  That’s how I feel about Oreos.  And they are one of the extremely rare cases where they taste so bad for me that I avoid them completely.  Other foods taste good, like Ritz Crackers and Kandy Cakes, but few taste so good that they remind me of dying.

And I’ve had my run-ins with these decadent bastards.  When I was a kid, I had no Oreo self-control.  I would dunk and eat at least ten at a sitting.  It started at four, then the next week it was five.  Then seven.  And so on.  It’s surprising that one of my twelfth birthday gifts wasn’t a rag on a stick to be used for bathing purposes.  Oh that I had that metabolism again!

But these Oreos, I couldn’t resist.

When I first found out about them through @junkfoodguy’s Twitter feed, I could not believe they weren’t Japanese.   Watermelon Oreos?  Um…what?  Usually that reaction only follows the discovery of a Japanese snack.  A juicy summer fruit and a beloved sandwich cookie?  Combined?  Surely the Americans didn’t have the Keeblers to pull that off.

It’s a weird combination to be sure.  I don’t remember watermelon and vanilla being paired up anywhere else.  I didn’t research that or anything, but it’s not a common combination, certainly.  So many fruits and vanilla!  But not watermelon.  Never watermelon.

The nosegrope is all Golden Oreo cookie.  The watermelon filling isn’t packing enough power to overcome the milky, vanilla goodness.

Upon disassembling, the bright two-toned cream filling seems like a missed opportunity.  I would have preferred a thin sliver of green with a lot of red.  You know, like a watermelon slice.  Certainly someone could’ve reconfigured the automated cream guns to make that happen.  It’s the details, snacklings.

The cream tastes like the watermelon flavoring found in Jolly Ranchers and Bubblicious Gum.  On its own it’s fairly pronounced, but when combined with the dual cookie wafers, it comes off as subtle and understated.  The vanilla cookies take up most of the space on the flavor profile pie chart.  Seventy-five percent or so.  But it’s the subtlety of the cream that makes the cookie work as a whole.  Too much watermelon, and the effort would be a mess.  You want the vanilla with the watermelon notes, not the other way around.

The flavor that remains in the mouth, though, is the watermelon.  After the Oreo was inside me and beginning its work on shortening my life span, the watermelon hung around, happily fooling my mouth into thinking it had just finished some chew-work on a wad of Hubba Bubba.  Interesting.

I can’t believe it, but overall, Watermelon Oreos work.  Nabisco did a good job with what should’ve been a difficult balancing act.  Well played Nabisco.

You have to pick these up.  They’re a limited edition, so you have to.  At the very least, they’ll be a talking point at your next cookout.  You could put out some Golden Oreos next to some watermelon slices, and next to those, a plate of Watermelon Oreos.  Indeed.  But whatever, that’s just an idea I had.  An idea THAT WOULD BLOW PEOPLE’S MINDS!

You’re welcome.  Food Junk, out.

Advertisement

Cookies

,

June 14, 2013

63 Comments