Mallomar memories

Biting into one is all about love and loss and family and ... Oh, who are we kidding: They just taste so good!

By King Kaufman

Feb 27, 2001 | I found Mallomars here the other day.

Mallomars.

I was in the E-Z Stop Market, which looks exactly like it sounds. It's across Shattuck Avenue from the two biggest movie theaters in town, and the wife and I had stopped in, as we often do, to load up on movie snacks. She was digging around the candy shelves when a flash of yellow caught my eye. The yellow of a cellophane Mallomars wrapper. The yellow of the greatest cookie in the history of the world.

Mallomars.

Say it with me: Mallomars. They sound exactly like they taste. Sweet, soft in the middle Mallomars, rolling on the Mallomars tongue Mallomars. All rounded corners and smooth glass brown chocolate Mallomars. Yes I said yes I will Yes Mallomars. Mmmm. Allomars.

I hadn't seen them since I was a little kid. I thought they'd stopped making them. I became an atheist.

They were my grandfather's favorite cookies. We called him Papa, so Mallomars were Papa cookies. (Vienna Fingers, their grandmotherly counterpart, were Mama cookies.) I remember three things about my father's father: He let my brother and me blow out the match after he lit his pipe; he loved Mallomars; and, because he was kind of gruff and grumpy toward the end, and I only knew him toward the end, he scared the hell out of me. He died when I was 4.

Not much to go on. Mallomars -- Papa cookies -- were pretty much the only connection I had to my grandpa. Here's where I should tell you that that's why I loved them. But that would be a lie. I loved them because they were insanely fabulous cookies.

They're s'mores, is all they are. A little circle of graham cracker with marshmallow on it, surrounded, smothered -- no, embraced -- by a slightly brittle shell of dark, luscious chocolate. Enrobed. That's the word. The chocolate is poured over the cookie, you see. The cookie isn't dipped into the chocolate like some common thing. Therefore, says Nabisco, "Mallomars are an enrobed product." They're just s'mores, like you make at cookouts. And a Rembrandt's just a painting, like you make in kindergarten.

There are many ways to eat a Mallomar, but only three are officially sanctioned for international competition: biting off the marshmallow part and saving the graham cracker for last (superior method); biting off the graham cracker and saving the marshmallow part for last (dorsal method); and biting into the cookie like regular food (lateral, or "standard," method). I am something of a Mallomar dullard. I use the standard method. But I should add that I employ wilder scenarios for both Oreos and Vienna Fingers (breaking them open, eating the half with no delicious cream, then either scraping off the delicious cream with my front teeth or, if rushed, simply eating the other half), so you can still invite me to your party without fear that I'll kill the fun.

Here's what I didn't know about Mallomars: They're a New York thing. Seventy percent of all Mallomars sold are sold in metropolitan New York. And they're seasonal, available only from October to mid-March, because they are such delicate flowers they would melt in the harsh spring and summer months. News of the wonders of refrigeration and climate control has apparently not reached Nabisco's New Jersey headquarters.

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