One thing that amuses me now is the look of the classic Nabisco Animal Crackers box. It's made to look like a cage wagon housing a tiger, a lion, a bison, and a polar bear. This is not an arrangement I'd count on to last. As the only herbivore of the bunch, the bison would be on everyone's menu, but it won't go down without a fight.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Munchable menagerie
Animal Crackers are ubiquitous. They're the classic snack if you want to keep toddlers occupied. And it feels like Animal Crackers have been around forever. Which, it turns out, isn't that far from the truth. Nabisco started marketing them in 1902, but Stauffer's had beaten them to the punch by about thirty years. And the idea goes back a good deal of time before that. It's interesting that they may be derived from Springerle, which are frequently gorgeous.
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The article from the 'snack stack' was very interesting, particularly when he delved into the deep history about the origins of animal crackers. It made sense that they originated in medieval Europe where they substituted for sacrificial animals until he brought up the fact that not only were the animals too precious to lose but also that sugar and honey were also extremely rare.
The much more recent Barnum Animals (wiki animal cracker) have been produced in 53 different species af animal). The most recent being a koala beating out a cobra. (!?)
I'd never really thought about Springerle either, always having figured they came from modern factories and bakeries that use huge stamping machines on cookie dough. Now it turns out one can actually purchase the rollers and moulds from amazon of all places. Well, they do sell just about everything, don't they? I do have a nice shortbread recipe in case you feel like setting up a little biscuit cart on Thayer St.
https://www.amazon.com/springerle-rolling-pin/s?k=springerle+rolling+pin
It's only natural that humans have been the inventors of unusual sweets ever since we first learned about trousers. He ended the post by saying that Springerle (I may just order myself one of those rolling pins) lead to all the other fancy confections, especially the Christmas ones. Do you remember peppar cookies? Inger and I would bake dozens of them and then we'd have a decorating party where everyone would fancify their own.
https://www.nordickitchenstories.co.uk/2017/11/30/pepparkakor-swedish-ginger-thins-recipe/
Jer's animal biscuit of choice is the humble Goldfish.
Interesting point about the cookies substituting for sacrificial animals. If the ingredients to make them were rare then that would discourage this practice. Of course it could have happened on a rare, irregular basis and still found its way into the lore.
The koala's a fair choice. With those big round ears it would certainly be easy to recognize. Better luck next time, cobra. Another funny thing about the packaging is that in 2018 Mondelez International redesigned the boxes to get rid of the cages. This was after consultation with PETA. The new boxes showed a bunch of animals on an African plain. And they were all African animals, but they make animal crackers of creatures from all over the world. If you ever see a lion and a kangaroo on the same patch of grass some crazy rich person wants to see them fight.
It looks like you can order those rollers from Etsy, Macy's, some Scandinavian specialty distributors, and a few other places. In addition to Amazon. Of course America's such a big market that you can guarantee there being a demand for just about anything.
I wonder if Thayer Street would be the best place to sell. Hope Street in the general area of the library might be more suitable.
Oh yeah, I think the fancy Swedish name for those is pepparkakor. Not sure I would have gotten it if Inger had used that word when I was 4-5. But cookie decorating parties are always good fun.
That humble Goldfish is about the same size as an elephant animal cracker. It's almost biblical.
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