Fig Newton

Fig Newtons are a brand of fruit-flavored cookies produced by Kraft Foods Inc., a subsidiary of Nabisco. Kraft's advertisements assert that they are not actually a cookie, but rather a combination of fruit and cake. A fig newton consists of a small quantity of crushed fig wrapped in a soft buttery crust.

Despite their modern affectations, Fig Newtons are actually a traditional English snack food, better known as "figgy biscuits".^[1] The figgy biscuit was invented in the 1600s, as an innovative recipe making use of the figs brought back from the Holy Land by the Crusaders. Somewhere along the line, the name of contemporary physicist Isaac Newton got attached to the cookie. By the time Kraft got wind of the recipe, in 1926, the "Newton" moniker had been attached to the recipe for decades. Nevertheless, since Nabisco was the first to manufacture Fig Newton cookies for sale, Nabisco was able to claim a trademark on the name "Fig Newtons" for their particular brand of fig desserts.

Liberal Hollywood activist Paul Newman has copied Fig Newtons' success with a brand of figgy biscuits he calls "Fig Newmans".^[2]

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