Something I like
I complain too much about things that bug me, so in the interest of being described with an adjective other than “cantankerous”, I’m now going to talk about something I like.
Fat-free Fig Newtons! I’ve just discovered I love them. The fig part is nice, but what I really dig is the cake portion, which has just the right chewy, obviously-mass-produced texture.
I’m late to the Fig Newton party because the TV commercials that ran circa 1990, when I was an impressionable youth, were ridiculous. As I recall, they were all variations on the assertion that Fig Newtons are not cookies. And? Broccoli florettes aren’t cookies, either. That’s why I don’t like them.
I’m glad I decided to mention this, too, because in doing my thirty seconds of research I found out that Fig Newtons, like all good things, came from the Boston area. I always assumed there was an Isaac Newton connection, but nope, it’s named after Newton, Massachusetts, where I used to work.
fluffy said,
February 14, 2009 @ 12:43 pm
Yesterday someone left a package of Fig Newtons in the break room at work and I noticed that on the packaging it clearly states that they are “soft chewy cookies.” And all I could think was, “I THOUGHT THEY WERE FRUIT AND CAKE!!!!!!”
So betrayed by marketing
:( 
tubejay said,
May 20, 2009 @ 11:02 pm
i knew those commercials were lying the minute they showed marie antoinette with her head attached.
Andrew Gradman said,
April 4, 2010 @ 11:46 am
OK, so I found this blog post by doing a google search for “fat free fig newtons” and “marie antoinette”
I remember a TV commercial with Marie Antoinette saying something SORT OF like, “Let them eat fat free fig newtons”, but not exactly that (I was really young when I heard it.)
Can you help me track down any descriptive features of this commercial? It’s actually pretty important to me — I’ve been using that phrase as a substitute for “the quick brown fox jumped …” for about as long as I’ve known how to type, and I’d like to know what the real phrase was!
Thanks.