It's been all of three months since the most recent new version of Oreos, and Mr. Tidbit had been getting a little concerned about the extended silence. He needn't have worried: There's a new Oreo, and it's a doozy.

The new Triple Double Oreo takes the idea of Double Stuf Oreos (two chocolate cookies, with a double layer of white filling between them) and goes out the window with it: One chocolate cookie is topped with chocolate Oreo filling, then there's a second chocolate cookie, then a layer of regular white Oreo filling, then a third chocolate cookie!

Besides the fact that each Triple Double Oreo is kind of a mouthful, if it were combined with the concept of the Golden Oreo (in which the Oreo filling is between two vanilla cookies) it opens a giant array of possible new Triple Double Oreos. For brevity let's call the white filling W, the chocolate filling C, the regular Oreo cookie O and the vanilla cookie V. So one version, three chocolate cookies and two white fillings would be OWOWO. Then there's three vanilla cookies and two white fillings -- that'd be VWVWV -- and then VCVCV, OCOCO, OCVCO, VWOCV, OWVCO. ... For extra credit, students should be able to list more than 15 possible arrangements

In any case, the 13.1-ounce package of what will surely soon be called "original" Triple Double Oreos (18 cookies) sells for the same price as the 16.6-ounce packages of regular Oreos (42 cookies) and Double Stuf Oreos (36 cookies), so the new ones cost 27 percent more per ounce.

 

And so it goes

FYI, those 16.6-ounce bags just might be on their way out. Mr. Tidbit warned readers last fall to pick up 18-ounce bags of Oreos, because they were disappearing from shelves and being replaced by the 16.6-ouncers (for the same price). When checking something else at an online supermarket in the Chicago area last week, he noted that the regular Oreos there are in 15.5-ounce bags, and Double Stufs are in 15.3-ounce bags.

AL SICHERMAN