The Vine: December 26, 2008
This one is for you and the readers. Last summer I was studying abroad in Italy for a month and discovered these awesome little cookies in the grocery stores there. It’s pretty much my favorite snack now. I smuggled a bunch back into the States, but even after careful hoarding my stash is now empty.
The silliest thing is, I opened the last package (which I then threw away) and stored the cookies in a more reliable package months ago.Now I cannot remember what the name cookies are and I’ve been searching everywhere online for them. The brand had a few varieties (all digestive cookies) but I’m pretty sure that my cookies were in a green package, and the cookies themselves were little grain balls somehow cemented together into cookie shape. They are not the McVities cookies.
A friend who goes to NYU says that there is an international food store near her campus that sells these cookies for around $10 a pop. The grocery store in Italy I bought them from is Esse Lunga, but they probably have them in most stores there (probably Coop also). If anyone can help, please let me know! Thanks.
Jonesing for Fiber
Dear Jones,
I’m a Danish butter-cookie girl myself these days, so I’m no help — but I’m pretty sure one of the readers will know what you mean, especially at this cookie-centric time of year.
Readers?
Tags: Ask The Readers hellooooo cookies NYC retail
Was it one of the Peek Freans Family Digestive Cookies? A Siro Digestive Cookie? “Roscos” cookies by Santiveri?
(And how do they sell something called “Bowel Buddies” anyway? EWWW! I know that’s where my food ends up but I don’t want to think about that while I’m putting a cracker in my mouth!)
Have you tried Esselunga’s online shop? http://www.esselungaacasa.it/ecommerce/superstore.do
Look under “prodotti alimentari”, “biscotti e merendine” and, I would say, “biscotti frollini”. Any luck?
p.s. Could the brand be Galbusera?
P’haps from LU or from Lyons?
Were they Grancereale biscuits? Those are round grain biscuits, not too sweet, very delicious. There is a brand called Molina Bianco.
They’re not the Mulino Bianco Grancereale Croccante, are they?
http://www.volendo.com/servlet/DW/servlet/icity.servlet.ICWebPage
Could you describe the cookie in better detail? These are the only ones I can think of (they’re like little ball-bearing size pellets of grains shaped into digestive-size cookies), but if you could say more about size/taste/texture of the cookie and the look of the packaging I might be able to help out more.
Good luck!
“grain balls somehow cemented together into cookie shape” points me toward Amaranth cookies. They are called a couple different things: alegrias, amarantos, luddos, …
We have a bunch of them that my organic store owning cousin sends up from Mexico annually because my mom likes them, but they are pretty simple to make (if you don’t find the specific brand you’re looking for) if they are the same bars I’m thinking of: puffed amaranth, maple syrup, maybe cocoa powder.
http://www.massrecipes.com/recipes/97/12/alegriaamaranthbars142932.html
Best wishes!
http://www.entertonement.com/clips?keywords=cookiepuss
“Bowel Buddies”…for some reason I just flashed on that scene from L.A. Story where Sarah Jessica Parker and Steve Martin come out the High Colonic parlor. Yummy.
Are they Mulino Biano GranCereali in the croccante version? Mulino Bianco makes a bazillion kinds of cookies but they make three kinds of “digestive” high fibre cookies — the regular which are good, the croccante which are amazing (and fit your little balls stuck together description) and fake chocolate which are disgusting.
The croccante also come in a green package, while the regular is in yellow. Chocolate I don’t remember because I only bought them once.
Hey everybody. Yes they are the Mulino Bianco GranCereale Croccante. I completely forgot about the question after I looked the first time and none of the answers were right.