Be warned: today's episode is on the thin side and is 80% Matthew saying "cookies". We use coins, spackling and Famous Amos to help us get through these tiny morsels as we look for someone to blame. Listen as we grapple for content and crown a new Perfectly Engineered Food Product before things get real heavy.
Molly's Now but Wow: Blood, oil, and the Osage Nation: The battle over headrights from Planet Money
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Molly 0:00
Hi. I'm Molly.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:05
And I'm Matthew.
Molly 0:06
And this is spilled milk, the show where we cook something delicious. Eat it all and you cannot have any.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:11
And today I think this may be the thinnest premise for a show we've ever done. That's right. It's many cookies.
Molly 0:17
You came up with this one. What on earth made you think of mini cookies?
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:22
I wanted to do some kind of packaged cookie because cuz I'm lazy and why did you do something easy? And I was like, but we've already done like chocolate mint cookies. We already did two different Pepperidge Farm cookies episodes. And then, Watson, I were like out wandering around and went into a convenience store. And she was like, What about mini cookies? I'm like, Okay.
Molly 0:44
Love it. So Matthew, you know, I think that the original mini cookie that I had forgotten about, truly until you mentioned it in the agenda for the show, is Teddy Grahams. Yeah, totally came out when we were kids. Yes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 0:58
I remember when they came out. They were like a massive hit. Every kid wanted them. But these are many teddy grands
Molly 1:05
tiny and they were already they're already many. They're already really small. Okay, so let's kind of try to give our listener an approximation. I would say that these are
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:14
what we call scenes last week, I would say each of these is the size of a poppy seed. No.
Molly 1:18
I would say each of these is as like each of the Teddy's is as tall as the diameter of a quarter.
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:24
I think smaller, like a nickel, maybe a quarter.
Molly 1:29
So when we were kids, these guys were already pretty small. But they've, they've shrunk you know, I would say they have gotten what are you doing? Oh, we're gonna measure it against some coins. Huh? Still tastes like Teddy Grahams. My favorite teddy grant. I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:49
going to accidentally eat a nickel.
Molly 1:51
My favorite Teddy Graham used to be the the chocolate ones. Oh, yeah, me
Matthew Amster-Burton 1:54
too. No, you're right. It's a little bigger than a nickel. You're absolutely right. The size. It's the diameter of a quarter. Should I still eat this? Well in that study
Molly 2:02
some money. Okay. You should because that money is probably been in that jar for a long time. And so
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:06
and so it's fine. Yeah. I only only eat old money.
Molly 2:11
Matthew. So you know, I have to say hold on. I want to just talk about Teddy Grahams for a second. Please. As an adult, I still eat a lot of graham crackers and Teddy Grahams do tastes like a little different to me somehow from a graham cracker. But isn't this just a teddy bear shaped graham cracker.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:25
I'm sure there is some like high caliber food engineering that goes into making Teddy Grahams have a slightly just unique enough flavor that kids will will demand them even once they get bored with the shape I'm into these. Also, there's their instructions on the back of the bag for Discover ad is how do you make musical notes? Fill several glass bottles with water with with different levels of water. Have your child blow across the tops of the bottles to create their own music. There's always so much to discover with Teddy.
Molly 2:54
I thought they were gonna say fill several jars with money.
Matthew Amster-Burton 2:58
Send them to this address.
Molly 3:00
Now anyway. Okay, but Matthew, why? Why does the world need many Teddy Grahams? I mean, these were already so
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:07
kind of enjoying them. Like,
Molly 3:08
yeah, why would you? Okay, hold on. I know we're supposed to be on memory lane. But hold on. Why could you choose a mini cookie?
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:15
Oh, it just in general. Why? Why does this exists? Your fun. Let's take these Nutter Butters for example. So like regular Nutter Butters are sort of like, you know, cartoon peanut shape. That's right, but these are just little round sandwiches.
Molly 3:29
Hey, they're so cute. Did you already know about that? Hang on. Okay. Oh, God, I haven't had one of these in a while. They're good. Oh, my God. That it tastes like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. Yeah.
Matthew Amster-Burton 3:43
I mean, they taste sort of like a Reese's piece. Also because they don't have chocolate although there are chocolate covered regular sized Nutter Butters, although they're not they're not even. They're like large round ones. They're not peanut shaped. I don't think yeah, I did. I remember when these meaning when I first saw these mini Nutter Nutter Butters. I remember that very day. No, I remember getting them at the store and they were good.
Molly 4:01
We haven't had a perfectly engineered food product in a while. Oh, coming on. Okay. Yes. These little Nutter Butter bites. They're great. Yeah, really good. The texture is really nice. It's a really nice like short cookie texture. Yeah, the peanut butter flavor is so delicious in like almost candy like way i Oh, and they're also really pleasing in terms of their size and their roundness.
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:29
So I agree and yet I almost had go for them to be a little smaller so I could toss a handful of them in my mouth like I could easily do with the Teddy Graham the mini Teddy Grahams. Yeah, so
Molly 4:39
I want to talk about this like Are you the kind of person who when you're eating something like something else that's on the small side like
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:46
popcorn shrimp
Molly 4:51
whatever D Are you like? Toss a handful that kind of person. Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 4:55
will toss a handful back. Oh, okay.
Molly 4:57
Yeah, I'm I am not and so There's a part of me that's like what am I supposed to do with these tiny morsels of food? Like they're just
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:06
a little that's that's just what the birds say when they come to your bird feeder.
Molly 5:10
How like how much of this am I supposed to eat? Is that part of the point? That like if you sell things in like these little packages these like little portions that people will I don't know do people go through it faster? Because when you open one of these little bags, you're like, oh, gotta finish it.
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:27
I think so. I mean yeah, these are these are like you know, the the ones that were like billed as like the portion control format at some point which which Yeah, is is a drag. But there's this bag of Teddy Grahams is pretty substantial. So then we've got like individual bags that yeah, they're definitely supposed to be one serving of Nutter Butter bites, mini Chips Ahoy, and Oreo minis. Okay, one thing I didn't get but kept thinking I wanted to because they're really satisfying is have you had the mini Cool Ranch Doritos that come in a Pringles can?
Unknown Speaker 5:56
No,
Matthew Amster-Burton 5:57
they're they're literally just smaller Doritos that stacked like praying. They are not it's just it's just like a big pile of little chips in a can. But they're really good. Okay, I should have gotten them so tried to convince you that they are a cookie.
Molly 6:11
You know what, hold on before we leave Memory Lane, which we were never really on to start with. Do you remember Famous Amos?
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:17
Yes, I did not get any Famous Amos. But I absolutely do. That was the original mini cookie i
Molly 6:22
think i think so that and I don't know do graham crackers count as a mini crackers animal crack. We've
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:28
had Famous Amos on the show for at least I mean, not as famous himself. Well, we talk because we talked about Amos because he had like a really interesting life story. Like he was like Bob Dylan's manager or something.
Unknown Speaker 6:40
With that episode and misery
Matthew Amster-Burton 6:43
this may have been one of one of my K occasional secret solo episodes. Okay, wait, I'm gonna grab my phone because now I have to know. Like, what, what Weber's Davis did before he became a cookie magnet.
Molly 6:54
Whenever people say magnet. I just I want them to say magnate. Because magnet is just I mean, if you're a cookie magnet, it just means you draw a bunch of cookies to you.
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:05
Like I by that, by that definition. We're Cookie Magnets, right? Yes. Okay, famous. Amos.
Molly 7:12
I'm opening the mini Oreos. I'm very curious about these. Okay, first
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:16
of all, Wally Amos Famous Amos is still with us. pretty old. 86. And now I want some of those cookies. Okay, so he signed Simon and Garfunkel and it headed to the William Morris agency's rock and roll department what he represented musicians such as the temptation Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye. Oh my gosh sign to Simon and Garfunkel
Molly 7:40
oh my god Famous Amos is a legit famous but yes
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:44
actually actually famous did not need to start a cookie company probably but did it anyway,
Molly 7:49
Matthew Hold on. i Oh, I opened the mini Oreo. How
Matthew Amster-Burton 7:52
dare you?
Molly 7:53
I'm sorry. So when I opened to them, I was a little bit dismayed to see that the vanilla frosting doesn't go all the way to the edge of the cookies. That
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:01
said does it with regular Oreos?
Molly 8:04
No but it there's it covers a higher portion of the cookie than it does on these mini ones. That said what I really like about these Oreo minis is as everyone knows the best part of the Oreo is the chocolate cookie.
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:18
I don't think everyone agrees with that. But yeah, everyone knows
Molly 8:21
the best part of the Oreo is the chocolate cookie which doesn't taste like chocolate. It tastes like brown but it's delicious. And I feel like somehow the ratio of cookie to spackling together is better in the Oreo mini than in the Oreo regular
Matthew Amster-Burton 8:43
I think I agree. Yeah, I think my favorite Oreo format is still Oreo thins but yeah, I'm with you. Okay. Yeah, are we are we finding that like little cookies are better than big cookies?
Molly 8:55
I love the way you say cookies there's just something about it that so can you do it again say cookies cookies. Abby, could you like I don't know isolate that and set it to a beat I want to hear it again Matthew.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:15
Producer, producer Abby because she's like a major producer of of beats Drum and Bass she she didn't she didn't sign Simon and Garfunkel but she signed. Let's see who's a duo like a current duo of like cool people don't me and JD back. Okay, we'll say that sushi side
Molly 9:35
hold on. Matthew say cookies. Cookies. Say it again.
Matthew Amster-Burton 9:39
Cookies. Cookies. One more time. You know what I have cookies. You know what I have here? I have a jar and it is not a cookie jar. So as you know I was just using us us coins. To to measure Teddy grant. I've got this this, this coin jar that we use to went back when cash existed. We used to fill this with our leftover change and occasionally occasionally take it to the Coinstar machine. And and this would this would hold like 60 $70 worth of change. And we never use cash anymore. So we're stuck with like, a like 1/10 Full jar of coins that will never be filled. It's kind of sad. I don't even know if there's still a Coinstar machine. Yeah, chips. Oh, boy. Never been good. Probably still it still
Molly 10:27
not good. That cookie is useless. In fact, that is a pointless, pointless piece of food.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:35
I think that is kind of like a famous Amish but crappy.
Molly 10:39
It's horrible. It's so dumb.
Matthew Amster-Burton 10:41
You know, Amos would not have signed this cookie. Yeah.
Molly 10:45
I do like regular sized Chips Ahoy. There was a moment there when I could have enjoyed it. Like as a kid. I think that I you know, I would say that they were good. Not great. But good. Yeah. Now, no, that's garbage. No, it's not good. Yes. Which makes me sad. Like it should be good. Okay, but hold on. Let's talk about animal crackers. Because yeah, I think that that is up there with Famous Amos as being one of the original Mini cookies.
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:09
Yeah, I think we did a whole animal crackers episode, but it was so long ago. And I don't remember anything.
Molly 11:15
When I was thinking about animal crackers. Prior to our taping today, I found myself thinking about like, you know, the original like Barnum and Bailey animal crackers. Like what is that box? Did
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:27
you know that? Amos signed Barnum and Bailey
Molly 11:31
is it like a train car? Is this like a portable prison? Like what is that? I
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:36
mean, honestly, I think it's both because I think it's like the cars that like the animals would would be like towed along in traveling. Maybe? I'm not sure.
Molly 11:48
I gotta pull up a picture because I know I mean, I know what you're talking about. Animal crap. And why are they called crackers?
Matthew Amster-Burton 11:56
You're just trying to get me to say cookies.
Molly 11:58
Oh, you know, they've changed the packaging. Probably because they they didn't want to give the impression that they bring their animals around in jail. Now the packaging just looks like this. It just shows like illustrations of animals. But if you look at the vintage 1987 packaging Sure, which is my era. Yep. Oh, this one. This one is a tin. But see that's it was like a little animal prison.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:26
Yeah, that's that's really exactly what it was. Like, I mean, I definitely have like a mental image probably from like Dumbo or something of like animals like traveling in like, open open air rail cars with bars.
Molly 12:39
Here's one where where they tried to get rid of the bars. The animals just stay in their boxes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:45
Oh, no, the lion, the lion escaped and like ate a bunch of children.
Molly 12:50
Okay, the gorilla looks like it's possibly maiming its child or giving it a high five. Hard to say. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 12:57
nature is scary
Molly 13:06
so Matthew, you know, what do we think about these as as like a thing? When would you ever buy these? I can't, you've probably bought them before. I think I'm
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:14
gonna buy them again. Like, I want what I want is like a tub. I want a tub of a Nutter Butter bite that I can that I can like, go to the root cellar, reach my arm into guerilla style. And like, you know, snarf up, like I said, guerilla style, but now I'm picking myself more like a front end loader. And like just load load a big pay load of them into my mouth. So you
Molly 13:39
want you know, like at Costco, you can get those like cheese puffs or like cheese balls in like a big canister. You want that kind of thing?
Matthew Amster-Burton 13:47
Yeah, I mean, I guess they would go stale pretty quickly, but maybe I'm not sure how to fix that problem.
Molly 13:53
No, don't worry about fixing that problem. Just eat faster. Okay, so um, you know, I actually now that I've encountered these I can imagine if I were like driving somewhere and going to be in the car for many hours and I like stopped and got something from a fast food place for lunch or something. I can imagine picking up a little bag of these at a convenience Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:15
we were on a road trip and we were stopping for gas and like they had Nutter Butter baits like in a yeah especially if they were in like a bigger like like you know a hanging in the on the rack and the drugstore kind of size of candy or cookies. Like we would enjoy that. On our road trip. We would we where are we going on this road trip? To see the circus I guess.
Molly 14:36
Probably you know, we haven't been to Portland in a long time. I haven't. Yeah, have you know not in a long time? I haven't been to Portland since before the pandemic. No, me neither. Wow, we should. We could go to Portland and on the way we'll eat some Nutter Butter bites. Okay, and then
Matthew Amster-Burton 14:51
yeah, when we get to Portland, we can like go to a food truck. And then go home.
Molly 14:55
Come on guy maybe? Yeah, sure. Oh, that sounds good. Okay, wait, but hold on anything. And there's cookies
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:00
in my throat cookies
cookies
Unknown Speaker 15:15
Okay, anyway, Matthew
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:17
I don't think I could do the Cookie Monster voice right now I wanted to but I can just feel like it's not going to come out right
Molly 15:22
okay don't do it okay Matthew Do we have anything else to say about mini cookies this was
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:31
like your Weren't you
Molly 15:32
researching this episode what's the history of mini cookies asked me to research the episode A refused I read supposed I was like I'm sorry. I know
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:42
I think I think I what I said was you can research many cookies question mark.
Molly 15:48
Thank you. Well thanks for coming up with this episode though Matthew because you're so welcome. Well this episode has yielded a new perfectly engineered food product bites Nutter Butter bite Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 15:59
so wait, I do have one more thing because like, you know, of course one of one popular way to eat an Oreo, which you may or may not know is to is to like, Screw it. Yeah, unscrew it and oh, it works well with Nutter Butter bites also.
Molly 16:12
Have you tried it with the the mini Oreo?
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:14
I haven't tried it with the mini Oreo. Now I'm wondering whether the cookie is peanut butter flavored or just the filler.
Molly 16:18
You're about to find out.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:20
I think the cookie is too. Oh, yeah, it is. Good cookie.
Molly 16:24
Good cookie. Matthew. What just snacking?
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:27
Hey, watch your snacking. Gotta tell me what you snack in. Or I'll release the Kraken. So what's your snack in cheese?
Molly 16:39
Better better bites.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:40
Yeah, just Nutter Butter bites. I don't have anything new since since last week.
Molly 16:43
Okay, I've been snacking on a Tulfo mangoes.
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:47
Oh, those are the bad yeah, tis
Molly 16:49
the season. Okay. Yeah, I
Matthew Amster-Burton 16:50
gotta get something. Yeah.
Molly 16:51
So good. So, so good. And also I find that they are. So as opposed to the Tommy Atkins. Is it Tommy Atkins or Aikens? Atkins. I think as opposed to that mango, which I think is the one that has been around in the US market for a longer and still
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:08
recall. We did a mango episode. I think we tried both of those varieties. The Ataulfo slash champagne mango. Yeah, slash Manila mango. I think maybe also,
Molly 17:17
they often call it a honey mango. Honey
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:19
mango. Yeah, that we both liked that one very much. I think you liked the Tommy Atkins more than I did.
Molly 17:24
Yeah, yeah. But anyway, I feel like it's a rare experience to get an A Tulfo mango that is not very tasty. Whereas a Tommy Atkins it is a frequent occurrence. Yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:37
they've always got the sweetness and the and the gift that you're looking for.
Molly 17:40
That's right. Yes, you should go listen to our mangoes episode. Yeah, the way episode
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:44
number. Do you know it off the top of your head? No, I'm gonna say 380 Oh, no,
Molly 17:50
I think it's up in the four hundreds. All right,
Matthew Amster-Burton 17:53
well got to stop it like this app. We got we got plenty of time because this episode is coming to really short. Spilled Milk mangoes. Okay, so I accidentally wrote spilled milk. So we'll see if, if Google can figure out what I meant. Yeah, you're right. 541
Molly 18:11
Oh, no, I said it was in the four hundreds. It's in the five hundreds.
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:15
Okay, yeah. There's also a candy milkshake called spilled milk with mango from one way brewing. And it is an IPA milkshake that this sounds terrible. Why are you talking about it? I just again, because we spent 10 minutes talking about many cookies that were like, well, anything else to say about mini cookies? Okay,
Molly 18:40
well, yeah,
Matthew Amster-Burton 18:41
let's I mean, let's rank artists managed by Wally Amos from like, favorite to least favorite. I'm gonna say Marvin Gaye is at the top for me. Okay. Who else was there? There was Simon and Garfunkel and Garfunkel, Sam Cooke. And the temptations? Oh, yeah, this is tough.
Molly 18:59
This is tough. I'm gonna go with Marvin Gaye, too. I mean, I like Simon and Garfunkel, but not I like the hits of Simon and Garfunkel, Sam Cooke. I feel like one Sam Cooke song for me is worth like three Marvin Gaye, I mean, when Sam Cooke hits he hits.
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:15
Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, this I yeah, I don't think I don't think I actually want to rank rank these because like, they're all They're all really their own way.
Unknown Speaker 19:24
Let's not do that. You
Matthew Amster-Burton 19:24
know what all those artists we did pretty good. Yeah.
Molly 19:27
All right, Matthew, I have a little bit of an album while.
I think that it may be a little bit dated. By the time this episode comes out. That's fine. But there was a planet money episode in late March, I think March 24. And it is about Osage head writes. So it basically part of the reason that I was drawn to listen to it is because the Osage, the Osage tribe, the Osage people are are based in Oklahoma. Yeah. In fact, I remember learning in Oklahoma State history in fourth grade, that Osage County I think is the biggest County, either the biggest or the smallest in Oklahoma. Okay. Anyway, so there is this planet money episode about this man who, who basically was kind of abandoned by his birth mother, who was a member of the Ponca Tribe in Oklahoma. And he grew up with an adopted family in Texas, as an adult, went in search of his his birth family, and basically came to learn that his mother through I think her late husband or something had what's called Osage head rights. So this, this would be connected to the Osage people of Oklahoma. And basically what it is, is when like, white people came in to Oklahoma, and we're like, ooh, this land is very valuable, because there are a lot of minerals in it and expensive things that we can sell for money. That's a good,
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:04
that's a good impression of what white people sell. That
Molly 21:06
is exactly what white people sound like. I say that is one of them. Yeah, I know it. Well. They basically Matthew helped me out what the history here. What happened was the Osage people were very wealthy because of this land that they had mineral
Matthew Amster-Burton 21:19
rights. And of course, white people looked at that and said, We can we can take that away, right?
Molly 21:25
And so basically, what they did was they found a way to basically be like, Hey, we're gonna take the rights for this thing, but we'll give you a little bit of money each time we take some of your stuff, right. So Osage head rights is basically for each person who was in the Osage Nation at the time that this treaty or whatever was created, you would get a certain percentage of the money that was brought in by selling the resources on this land. It's called Osage had rights. One had right per person. Yeah. So anyway, but it is a fascinating and extremely complex, of course, story of ways in which native groups in the US were swindled out of money. Yeah. And everything. Yeah. And it's told really well, of course, by the producers of planet money, who, who are so good at taking some complex historical ideas and making a narrative out of it. I think it
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:23
may have been like, like produced or in collaboration with it with a different NPR podcast. Is that sound possible?
Molly 22:29
I'm not sure about that, by the way. Thanks, listeners for hanging in there. Well, it took me like 25 minutes to explain. Osage head writes,
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:36
I think I think you did a good job.
Molly 22:38
Let's see here. It was produced with Oh, with help from Osage news.
Matthew Amster-Burton 22:45
All right, now that I've said, you know, it's yeah, it's a planet. Money production with help from Shannon Shaw, duty of Osage news. Okay, that was our longest now, but well ever, but it's a good one. You should definitely go listen to that episode. It's great. It's a really
Molly 22:56
good one and really interesting to think about my god the like, cunning and horrible ways in which
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:05
Oh, yeah, no, that that is what like, one of my favorite quotes from from Malcolm X is Malcolm X once said that racism is like a Cadillac. There's a new bottle every year, and there is no limit to to the ingenuity of what white people will do to deprive non white people of life, liberty and property.
Molly 23:25
Anyway, so yeah, I will link to it in the head notes. It is the battle over Osage had rights from Planet money. All right,
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:33
that got serious that did get serious. All right. Our producer is Abby sercotel. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts.
Molly 23:39
I really love that this particular episode went from many cookies to the many forms of racism. Yeah, we might encounter over history.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:48
Yeah, I mean, not you, you and I will encounter them from the wrong side. That's
Molly 23:52
correct. But anyway, hey, we are a show that brings you a little bit of everything, including mini cookies.
Matthew Amster-Burton 23:58
Yes. And you can talk about those things with other listeners at everything spilled. milk.reddit.com That's right. And send us some spilled mail contact at spilled milk podcast.com Yeah,
Molly 24:09
we love your question. Thanks.
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:10
Thank you to the listener whose name I don't remember off the top of my head but who wrote in to share some some indie rock pics with me and and kindly allowed me to share some pics with some pics with her as well. Pick six meaning kind of pick, meaning select musical selections done on photos.
Molly 24:28
All right. Well, thank you for listening to spilled milk.
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:31
I'm not the show that oh, this show that God tosses your cookies I bet you would want me to say cookies again. But then You seem disappointed but
Molly 24:47
it's only because I'm so tired right now. I it took me a minute to remember what tossing your cookies means. Okay. I'm Molly Weissenberg. And
Matthew Amster-Burton 24:57
I'm Matthew Amster-Burton. Hi