January 16, 2024 – Fig Newtons

Happy Fig Newton Day to all who celebrate!  Did you know they were one of the first commercially-produced baked goods in the U.S.?
There was a time when many doctors thought that most illnesses were related to digestion issues, and they recommended a daily intake of biscuits and fruit. Fig rolls were the perfect solution to this advice since figs are an excellent source of fiber. Figs were highly traded and fought over during the development of trade routes during the 15th to the 17th centuries. Christopher Columbus and Marco Polo both mentioned the fruit in their writings. Figs first reached America when the Spanish reached Hispaniola in 1520. Fig rolls were brought to the U.S. by British immigrants.
In 1892, an engineer and inventor named James Henry Mitchell patented a machine that could produce a hollow cookie dough tube while filling it with jam. At the same time, Philadelphia baker and fig lover Charles Roser was working on a recipe based on homemade fig rolls. Roser approached the Kennedy Biscuit Company in Massachusetts, who agreed to take on production and sales, using Mitchell’s new machine. The first Fig Newtons were baked at the F.A. Kennedy Steam Bakery in 1891. They were named not after Isaac Newton but after the city of Newton, Massachusetts. The company had a tradition of naming its products after local towns and already had cookies named for Beacon Hill, Harvard, and Shrewsbury.
Eventually, the Kennedy Biscuit Company merged with the New York Biscuit Company to form Nabisco. Fig Newtons were for sale for over 100 years before they were known as cookies – their original packaging called the snacks “cakes”. In 2012, Nabsico dropped “fig” from the name, adding additional fruits to the Newton roster including apple, strawberry, raspberry, and cherry. The original Fig Newton is the company’s 3rd-best-selling product, with more than 700 million sold every year.
To celebrate the cookie’s 100th anniversary in 1991, Newton, Massachusetts and Nabisco celebrated with a 100-inch Fig Newton and a performance by Juice Newton. Learn more here.