Berry me not

Not long ago, Mr. Tidbit had occasion to grumble about the dearth of actual strawberries in two "limited edition" items from Pepperidge Farm: Strawberry Swirl breakfast bread and Strawberry Cheesecake cookies. Down in the "2 percent or less" part of the bread's contents were the only fruit ingredients (in decreasing order): cranberries, natural flavors, dehydrated strawberries and elderberry juice concentrate. The only fruit ingredients in the cookies were cranberries and elderberry juice concentrate (and natural flavors). No strawberries at all.

Mr. Tidbit hadn't mentioned that the cookies were from Pepperidge Farm's relatively new "Dessert Shop" line of soft cookies, which debuted early this year with Dark Chocolate Cheesecake (including "drops of real cream cheese") and Carrot Cake (with "cream cheese flavored chunks"). Yes, in one cookie it's real cream cheese and in the other it isn't. Perhaps the Dessert Shop is located in an area where strawberries and cream cheese are difficult to obtain.

So Mr. Tidbit was interested the other day to see two new Pepperidge Farm cookies: Blueberry Cobbler cookies, another "limited edition" from the Dessert Shop (which he now notices carries the legend "desserts reimagined" — perhaps that explains the imaginary strawberries), and Banana Nut cookies from Coffee Shop, a brand-new line, which carries the legend "morning reimagined."

Both have a pleasantly solid but yielding texture — Mr. Tidbit would almost call it "bready" — and both suffered considerable breakage in the bag. The Coffee Shop's Banana Nut cookies contain actual pecans and real banana purée — and each of those ingredients constitutes more than 2 percent of the cookie. The only fruit that makes up more than 2 percent of the Dessert Shop's Blueberry Cobbler cookies is cranberries; there are blueberries, grape juice concentrate and blueberry juice concentrate down in the "2 percent or less" list.

Fiber cookies

Want to increase your fiber intake but prefer, somehow, to get it from a cookie? You need new Fiber One soft baked cookies — Chocolate Chunk, Double Chocolate or Oatmeal Raisin — each with 5 grams of fiber, some 15 percent of the daily value (for men) to 20 percent (for women). No, eating the box of six is not how to get your whole day's fiber.

Al Sicherman