Oreo Sour Patch Kids Cookies

Hello children, gather ‘round the yarn spinning stump.  Today, I, Martin Peyruc, reporter for Life News Today, shall tell you of the treats I’ve found on my wanderings. Am I being especially weird and patronizing? Why yes, thank you for noticing, but I felt it appropriate since today I am reviewing Oreo Sour Patch Kids cookies. The amount of sheer horror that people have expressed when I’ve mentioned that I was reviewing these is a bit surprising. They are cookies flavored with bits of candy. So why are people so shocked? While it feels weird, that chocolate chip cookies weren’t invented until 1938 (somehow people mastered heavier than air flight first), it’s been more than eighty years, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Is it the mixture of sour and sweet? Citrus fruits are both sour and sweet. Not to mention sweet and sour pork, which is popular in both its traditional and Westernized versions. Could it be that it has “kids” in the name? Ok, you got me there, you shouldn’t eat children, even if the baby Jesus is referred to in song as both “tender and mild”, just don’t do it. Perhaps people are close minded cowards that can’t imagine stepping out of their comfort zones. Nah, that couldn’t be it.

I thought about doing a bit of history on Oreo cookies and how they supplanted the original Hydrox cookies in a Transformers versus GoBots type situation (yes, GoBots came first, but Transformers did it better), but instead let’s do a brief history on Sour Patch Kids (yes, I’ve noticed my articles are getting too long). Despite sour candy always somehow feeling like something only modern kids like, Sour Patch Kids were invented in the 1970’s. (Strangely enough, everywhere I searched only listed the date as the late 1970’s like they could only narrow down the decade. This isn’t the invention of agriculture; somebody has to have more information.) They weren’t called Sour Patch Kids at that time though, they were called Mars Men, which explains their homunculus appearance.

It wasn’t until the 1985 that they were renamed to capitalize on the Cabbage Patch Kids trend. That or it was their far less socially acceptable cousins the Garbage Pail Kids. As someone who saw 1987’s Garbage Pail Kids movie in the theatre I don’t place too much stock in that theory. Honestly, I’m only mentioning this movie in the cruel hope that someone else will be foolish enough to check it out and share in my trauma.

With so many people having an outsized reaction to just the existence of these cookies, I picked up a few packages and decided to do some public torturing testing. It was all very scientific. (I’m lying, I would have no idea how to do scientific testing even if you beat me about the head and shoulders with a graduated cylinder.) Amongst my peers, reactions were mostly positive (once they made a production of how it offended their delicate sensibilities.) I also interviewed their children. Fear not gentle reader, I took full precautions and stayed safely behind a lead lined glass, lest their youthful energies corroded my crusty gruffness. I found a couple “back in my days” and “get off my lawns” (even though we were nowhere near my yard) helped keep me balanced. The kids went nuts! They were over the moon with excitement, they ransacked my supply and I’m certain they’ll be pestering their parents for more. (You are welcome, parents.) My niece was particularly adorable with a huge smile and an emphatic thumbs up. (I may need to invest in a thicker safety glass, I feel my powers weakening.) There was one outlier though, in the youth contingent, a surly teen immediately spat the cookie out and shot me the most venomous glare I’ve ever received. Teens are scary.

As for my personal opinion, I wish these were worse. If they were more dramatic, then the fear and disgust people have shown would make sense.  There is a bit of sour then sweet (it was their slogan a while back) taste caused by the same combination of citric acid, tartaric acid and invert sugar that the regular candies have. Science! (Ooh, I’m getting a Thomas Dolby flashback.) There is a small degree of fruit flavor in the way that Fruity Pebbles are fruity. As in it reminds one of fruit, but not so much that you can distinguish which fruits are actually participating versus just signing their name on the group project. To continue my tortured metaphor (my favorite kind), I’d say that lemon (likely because of the citric acid) did about 90 percent of the project while the rest just mumbled during the presentation. Ultimately, they taste like regular lemon cookies, good, but nothing too extreme. I do want to add a big caveat here though, if you eat the crème by itself (or in my case harvest it from several cookies making a huge lump of off white with multicolored sprinkles crème, that is surely an affront to several major religions) then you will have a vastly different experience. Where the complete cookie is relatively mild, the crème itself is intense. Not as strong as just eating the candy, but it instead coats your mouth making the sour last longer than it would otherwise. The sprinkles themselves add to the texture and give a sugary crunch. The cookies by themselves are almost bland in comparison, even if they also have sprinkles embedded.

My fellow adults, there are times that we are going to see things that just don’t make sense to us. It doesn’t mean they are bad or wrong (tasting), but rather we aren’t the target audience. By being adults, we shouldn’t cast doubts on things or start acting disgusted without trying it for ourselves. (Again, because we are adults.) Let the kids have some fun. They should still stay off my lawn though.

By Martin Peyruc 

Found at Giant