1980s Almost Home Cookies by Nabisco

Almost Home cookies from the '80s.

Does anyone remember Almost Home cookies by Nabisco?

I've already reminisced about yummy long-gone 1980s foods like TEAM Flakes, Better Cheddars and Pudding Pops. I want to dedicate this post my favorite cookies from the '80s -- Almost Home. These soft cookies truly rocked. I think I first had them at my grandma's house. She probably bought them on sale or with a coupon. I sorta remember my grandparents saying they didn't like them because of their chewy consistency. Most adults prefer crunchy cookies.

Nabisco was one of the first companies to introduce SOFT and chewy cookies. However, soft and chewy obviously don't always sell well and Almost Home cookies faded into the woodwork along with foods like Chicken Tonight and JELL-O 123. 

About a year ago, I picked up a box of Chewy Chips Ahoy! and was shocked to taste a big difference in their chewiness. They were rubbery and nothing like they once were. This made me realize that if Almost Home cookies were available today, they too would most likely taste rubbery -- they're both made by Nabisco.

Here's a cool retro commercial from 1983 for Nabisco's Almost Home cookies.

Kraft Nabisco Handi-Snacks Crackers 'N Cheez

Kraft Foods' Handi-Snacks Cracker 'N Cheez snack

In the mid 1980s, this Kraft Nabisco cheese and crackers snack was one of my most favorites. There was something cool about the two different compartments. I loved unwrapping the plastic and revealing four or five rectangular crackers, a red plastic spreader and applying the cheese myself to each cracker.

The cheese, often soft and somewhat melted from my brown bagged lunch which sat in my desk for several hours prior to lunch time. It's funny, to this day I gauge how long a non-refrigerated sandwich will remain safely edible based upon my grammar school brown bagged lunch days. Seriously. I honestly do this, it's like my "grammar school bagged lunch" theory. Example, bringing a sandwich without a cooler on a road trip or leftovers back to a hotel room without a fridge, etc. Crazy, right?

Today, Kraft Nabisco has an entire line of Handi-Snacks featuring more modern day dipping options such as Bread Sticks 'n Cheez, Oreo Sticks 'N Creme and Honey Maid Grahams 'N Apple Dip. I wonder if they purposefully spell cream as "creme" and cheese as "cheez" because it's processed and fake? Anyone know? I mean, if the rationale was for the cuteness factor, wouldn't Nabisco spell sticks as "stix"?

Handi-Snacks, in my opinion, paved the way for Lunchables, also by Kraft. Think about it. Empowering kids to fix their own processed food lunches from cute sectioned-out plastic trays?

Remember Better Cheddars from Nabisco, Kraft?

The other day I found myself in the cracker aisle of the Parsippany ShopRite. Now chillax. I know what you're thinking... "You're on a diet! What are you doing in the snack aisle?" Leave me be! I was wishfully thinking Nabisco suddenly developed a low-carb cracker just for me. Sadly, I was mistaken. However, I did stop dead in my tracks when I spotted a box of Better Cheddars.

Better Cheddars are thin, circular, cheese flavored crackers and were first introduced in 1981. Honestly, I had no idea Nabisco still made Better Cheddars snacks. According to the nutritional information, one serving (6 crackers) is 160 calories, 8 grams of fat, 18 grams of carbohydrates and 320 grams of sodium. Don't worry, I put the box down. If you haven't had one, they taste similar to CHEESE NIPS (another Nabisco product).

Basically, the point of this post is simply to share with you my surprise in seeing them after all of these years. For the remainder of my shopping trip, the following jingle played out over and over in my head like a broken record, "New better cheddars sourdough baked right in, delicious tasting better cheddars, the San Fransico style, snack thin!" 

Funny, I couldn't remember anything about the commercial and watching it now on YouTube, it's pretty damn funny.  Caution, you may have this song in your head for the rest of the day/night.