The smell glorious. The taste, a brief trip to oatmeal heaven.
That’s my memory of Dad’s Old-Fashioned Cookies, a one-time Baltimore institution that went away like so many things do. The company was bought out and my world and my waistline grew smaller.
If you are local, then Dad’s cookies conjure up memories of youth. In my family, Dad’s cookies really were dad’s cookies. My father would bring them home as a treat, or on a special day we’d go there together. I remember going to the window and ordering, the inviting odor of baking surrounding me like a welcome hug.
Like the fantastic Otterbein or Bergers cookies, they showed that Baltimore bakers cooked up more than just food — they made memories.
My last memory of Dad’s cookies is decades past. I recall buying a one-pound bag at a High’s store near my parents’ Catonsville home. I was living near D.C. at the time and drove home stuffing my face with cookies.
Then the company was sold and one small slice of Baltimore went away forever.
Or so I thought.
Forever isn’t it as long as it seems, thanks to the Internet. For years, I’ve Googled aimlessly, looking to see if I could find Dad’s cookies. At a recent play featuring my friend Leo, one woman mentioned the cookies were available online.
She was right. Dad’s Original Scotch Oatmeal™ Cookies are sold by a company in St. Louis, of all places. How a great Baltimore treat got to St. Louis is an odd story.
Randy Wehmeyer, Sales & Marketing Manager for Dad’s Cookie Company, explains: “Basically, bakeries throughout the U.S. were sold a recipe and the rights to sell oatmeal cookies in a specific geographic area,” he told me. So while we were enjoying our local cookies, people in 23 other cities in North America were doing the same. You could have found Dad’s cookies anywhere from St. Petersburg, Fla., to St. Paul, Minn. Heck, even Montreal and Toronto had “our” cookies.
And the cookies are exactly as we remember them. I had them delivered to work. Many of my coworkers simply enjoyed the treat. One woman’s face lit up. “These are the cookies we had in kindergarten,” she exclaimed.
According to Wehmeyer, “We are, as far as we can tell, the last remaining Dad’s Cookie Company™ in the U.S., and we still use the original recipe that we have had for decades.” No kidding. A three-pound box, shared with coworkers and family, got lighter very fast.
Unfortunately, the only way to get the cookies is online at www.dadscookies.com. A three-pound box will set you back $25. Five pounds are $34. Sadder still, Dad’s isn’t opening a local bakery here and, “transportation costs to ship product from St. Louis to Baltimore (for a bakery product) is prohibitive,” said Wehmeyer. So don’t expect a local store to carry them.
But just knowing I can have them any time I want brings back a little something special. It seems you can find a little bit of Baltimore — even in St. Louis.
Dan Gainor can be seen each week on Friday afternoons on the new Fox Business Network. He is T. Boone Pickens Fellow at the Media Research Center’s Business & Media Institute, a career journalist and media commentator. He can be reached at [email protected].
