BOOK THE BAND...You'll Want to Celebrate This National Day of Observance!

In my continuing quest to help you, my faithful readers, keep abreast of the important National Days of Observances (let’s be honest, there are a LOT of them) I hereby notify you there is a really BIG one coming up on Sunday. Mark your calendars. You want to celebrate. Trust me.

“What is it,” you ask? Why, January 16th is the day the world stops, and we celebrate National Fig Newton Day! Whether you like them or not I’m sure you are all familiar with the “Oooey gooey rich and chewy inside/Golden flakey tender cakey outside” treat. Better stock up now before the word gets out.

But it got me to thinking…do you know the cookie’s history? Yeah, me neither until I took a deep dive into the tasty subject.

Raise your hand if you thought the Fig Newton was named after that Apple-to-the-Head guy. You know, Sir Isaac Newton, the brilliant man who first proposed the laws of gravity. I did. But in my research for this food-related topic I learned that I was terrbily wrong.

The Fig Newton was originally called just The Newton, named after a town in Massachusetts (with no connection to Sir Isaac.) That was back in 1891. But the cookie wasn't new then; it was already hundreds of years old by the late 19^th century. So, let’s back the history truck up a few hundred years.

The history of figs can be traced back as far as fifteenth-century Egypt when figs first began being cultivated. Somebody (and nobody knows for sure who, because that was a rather long time ago and records did not survive the ensuing 500+ years…) figured out a way to bake the figs into a light pastry in order to keep them fresher longer.

Good ideas travel fast (well, back then a couple hundred years was considered fast) and the fig-filled-biscuit idea made its way to Sicily, where they were called cucidati. These special treats were prepared two times a year; Christmas and St. Joseph’s Day.

Eventually this good idea made its way to America, where they were considered “medicinal.” While today a doctor might say “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning,” back in the nineteenth century you would have been more likely to be advised to “stick to a diet of biscuits (defined as crisp, dry bread) and fruit,” specifically figs, to cure what ailed you. Hence a combination of dried figs and biscuits was just what the doctor ordered!

An Ohioan by the name of Charles M. Roser, owner of a bakery in Kenton, Ohio, is credited by some sources of baking and promoting the fig biscuit. Research shows that he may have sold the recipe to the Kennedy Biscuit Company for $1,000,000. (In today’s dollars that would equal nineteen million!)

Now enter James Henry Mitchell. He invented a machine that was a funnel inside a funnel that squeezed out the fig jam encased in cookie dough. It came out in one loooongg tube and then was sliced into the cookie size you are familiar with today and then baked. (Ha! I bet you thought Pillsbury had the lock on the slice-and-bake idea). This enabled the Kennedy Biscuit Company to mass-produce the medicinal cookie. 

The Kennedy Biscuit Company, the holder of the recipe, was based in Boston, Massachusetts and had a history of naming their cookies after surrounding towns. So, the fig biscuit was renamed the Newton.

The year of the Fig Newton’s birth is officially recorded as 1891. Fast forward to 1898 when the Kennedy Biscuit Company merged with New York Biscuit Company to become the NAtional BIScuit COmpany (hence the name NABISCO) and Ta-Da, Nabisco Fig Newtons became a household world.

It’s interesting to note that the recipe, shape, size or baking process hasn’t changed in over 120 years.

Fig Newtons have many references in pop culture, perhaps the most memorable the Big Fig Newton and his commercials. Any product of the 1970s Saturday morning cartoons generation certainly remembers it, has the jingle (and possibly dance steps) burned in their memory. You can experience the golden days of that silly commercial by clicking on the video link below. “HIT IT HAL”

Wasn’t that a fun trip down memory lane? Darn Tootin’!

I’m guilty of using them myself to infuse a sense of taste in my first book, The Blond             Leading the Blond, if you’ll indulge me for a moment.

 “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sam asked as we exited the dimness of Flossie’s Pharmacy.

I squinted against the sunlight of a glorious summer’s morn.  The three Fig Newtons I’d stuffed in my mouth prevented me from answering, but I figured it was a rhetorical question, anyway.  I was right. <<Click here to purchase the book if you would like to read more of the adventures of Ellery and Sam.>>  

So now the big question, how should one celebrate National Fig Newton Day? Traditional celebrations suggest you bake your own Fig Newtons from scratch, but I gotta say, the recipes I found make it look messy unless you’ve got access to a double-funnel machine. I do not. So I will have to celebrate by eating the store-bought kind. Heck, I might even really cut loose and have some Apple, Strawberry or Raspberry Newtons!

If you know me, you know that no “celebration” is complete unless accompanied by an appropriate wine. I went to the experts at Crystal Palate, my neighborhood go-to source for wine and wine-related advice. Crystal herself suggests the following:

“A fortified dessert wine like the Quinta Pacheca 10 Year Tawny Port would be an incredible pairing with Fig Newtons. The aromas and flavors of orange peel, dried figs, dates, sultanas, praline and chocolate would pair exceptionally well with the nostalgic treat.”

Oh, yum! This could become my new favorite holiday. 

So how will you be celebrating this year? Me? I think this calls for a real fig-jam jamboree. I'll book a band; stock up on Fig Newtons and wine; hit the party store for balloons, blowers, and confetti; and, of course, practice up my Big Fig dance moves. 

Hope you have an equally wild and crazy time planned. But, as always, I encourage you to celebrate responsibly! Cheers!