Local Cookies

[skchai]

I don't know about anybody else, but everytime I walk into Shirokiya, R. Field's, Star Market, Daiei, or even Long's Drugs, it seems that there's a another new brand of locally-made cookies appearing on the shelves. Another brand of small locally-made cookies - both in terms of the size of the producer and the size of the cookie. Seeming to go against the national trend towards pie-size monsters, most locally-produced cookies are no bigger than 1" in diameter, and packaged in a tiny boxes or bag to match. The new brands all seem to have similar names e.g. "Aloha Aunty's Hilo Hula Cookies" and feature tropical flavors like macadamia nut, coconut, etc.

If you go back to the real early days, there really weren't that many cookies produced locally, except for those from Diamond Bakery, maker of "Ruff n' Readys" starting from the 1960s. These are caramel cookies with ridges - pretty small, but rectangular!

Currently, the biggest local cookie guys are Kauai Kookie, which as a lot people have mentioned make a pretty ordinary product. Not only is their scale of production relatively large; their cookies are massive by local standards at about 2" diameter. They come in the following flavors: Kona Coffee, Macadamia, Almond, Guava Macadamia, Macadamia Nut Shortbread, Coconut Krispies, Chocolate Chip Macadamia, Peanut Butter, and Cornflake Krunch.

A recent contender that's getting a lot of distribution is Bits of Aloha cookies in the following flavors: Chocolate Chip BANANABits, Pineapple COCOBits, Passion COCOBits, Mango COCOBits, and Cocoa COCOBits. The "COCOBits" are a mix of coconut, sugar, and artificial flavorings.

One local cookie that I really like is School Kine Cookies, which dispense with most of the tropical flavorings but unlike the others use all butter, no hydro shortening or margarine. Their secret ingredient is the malted barley flour that they add to the mix - gives it a special toasty sweetness. Can't get them in the stores; they're for fund-raisers only. Their flavors: Shortbread, Macadamia Nut Chocolate Chip, Macadamia Nut, Peanut Butter, and Cornflake.

Of course there are dozens more mini-producers making mini-cookies in Hawai`i that I haven't mentioned. . .

My questions are:

(1) How did this small cookie trend start?

(2) Can Hawai`i sustain so many small (production scale) cookie producers?

and, most importantly,

(3) What differentiates brands from each another, and what's your favorite?

[rlivings]

ah school kine cookies are the best, 1/4 the original size but still ono.

[Gary Tanigawa]

Rita Ariyoshi in the March 2004 issue of "Islands" magazine mentions Big Island Candies (Hilo) and Popo's Cookies (Kauai).

Sorry Sun-Ki, but I don't have any answers to your questions.

[ryanozawa]

This is only tangentially related, but on a flight this past weekend on Aloha Airlines, they had an article in their in-flight magazine that proudly boasted, "Now With Bigger Cookies!" They've always made a big deal about the fresh-baked cookies served on their flights, and apparently the number one comment they received was, "They're too small!" The new cookies are 25 percent larger... but I suspect that's still not a big cookie by anyone's standards!

[skchai]

The post that started this thread has now turned into a brief article in the Honolulu Weekly food section.. Err. . . just happened to appear on the week when they put the section on line. No archives at this point for the restaurant section yet, so it won't be up more than a week!

Note: the link above is now outdated, but here is a link to (a somewhat longer version of) the cookie article on my personal site. Hope you don't mind, Lesa!

I think I've more or less answered my original question, though the answer wasn't as simple as I thought. Basically there are the following factors:

• small cookies were originally sold out of jars in the old general stores
  
• small cookies were easy for portion control in small startup companies, both weighing and cutting out
  
• small shortbread cookies were what they sold in the old public school cafeteria system
  
• sturdy, small cookies were more suitable for the omiyage trade since they held up and were easy to carry
  
• sheer personal idiosyncraticity (everything else I haven't figured out yet)
  

Oh well.

[Mayhaw Man]

You're supposed to come here to get answers and ideas. Not answer your own questions. Get with the program.

Nice piece. Would the cost of raw ingredients be a factor? Macadamias cost a ton here on the Mainland and although I am sure that they are cheaper there, virtually all of the other ingredients would have t be shipped in (although I suppose that there is a local dairy industry, as I know that you have a beef industry-but I could be wrong about the dairy).

[skchai]

That's probably true - a big cookie is an expensive thing. On the other hand, macadamia nuts and other "luxury" add-ins that are made locally are, at least relatively speaking, cheap.

But hey, we have to ship almost all our beer from the mainland and people still drink it!

BTW, we do have a local dairy industry, but somehow the milk that's produced locally costs more than the milk that's brought over from California. Go figure - it probably has something to do with the land prices.