Delmarva Drives

On the Road with Fran Severn

Living on the Eastern Shore is usually a culinary delight. When crab cakes, corn on the cob, Smith Island Cake, watermelon, and Evo beer is a routine meal, who needs the Inner Harbor’s restaurant row?

But we are deprived of a few things. With the exception of the Bay Country Bakery in Cambridge, there is no real, independent, step-inside-sniff-and-savor bakery on the Shore. You’ll find real whitefish salad only at Bagels and Buns in O.C.

And there are no Berger’s Cookies. Or so I thought.

          If you aren’t from Baltimore, you’re probably not familiar with these decadent delights. Even many lifelong Bawlmoreans aren’t familiar with them. I’m not sure of the distribution now; when I lived on the Western Shore, they were found in High’s and not many other places.

What are they? Oh, my. A nice chunk of shortbread-style cookie topped with a mound of fudge. Oh. My. Just sniffing one of them puts you over your carb count for a week. Half of one is enough richness to more than satisfy. But then you have to deal with that other half that looks so abandoned that you take pity and finish it. Cold milk or a subtle dunk in coffee is a good accompaniment, and since you are taking in calcium from the milk or cream and the cookies have eggs and unsaturated fats from the real butter and the fudge has endorphins, it’s an experience in healthy eating.

When I moved to The Shore, I kind of forgot about Berger’s Cookies until I was getting gas at the Royal Farms on Snow Hill Rd. one afternoon. There were boxes of Berger’s on the counter. Not only the regular box with about a dozen cookies inside, but also a two-cookie snack pack. Whoa! The cashier allowed as how the Wine Rack in Fruitland carried them, too. The cookies are in the cheese cooler there. The staff wasn’t sure of the details; just that there was some arrangement for cookies to be delivered periodically. The Wine Rack in West O.C. also gets a supply, they said. They thought that the Giant in Salisbury carries them, too. (True.) There wasn’t any real delivery schedule that they knew of. ‘The guy’ just drops them off when he shows up.

I had visions of a deliberately nondescript car pulling into the parking lot with crates of cookies stashed in the trunk, a clandestine underground operation supplying Berger’s junkies with their fix. Devotees know to check in frequently and carry off enough of a supply to last until the next delivery. Cookie rationing sets in when the supply runs low and there’s no word of when the next ‘drop’ will be made. Most of the lifetime Eastern Shore folks have no idea of what they are. Someone definitely realized there was a niche market supplying the ex-pats moving in with one of the lost delicacies of their former lives.

This morning, I was behind a small delivery van on Rt. 50 with the Berger’s logo across the back. Aha! The mysterious ‘guy’ was in town! Oh joy! With luck, I’ll get to the Wine Rack before word gets out that the cookies supply has been replenished! And I can add the Berger’s cookies to the crab cake, corn-on-the-cob, Smith Island Cake, Watermelon, and Evo beer feast!

(Berger’s sells on-line as well as retail. http://www.BergerCookies.com. You can thank me later.)

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Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/24/10 at 10:12 AM

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