We're heading back to Europe for this week's post, and back to cookies (aka "biscuits" in some parts of the world). I located three varieties of German cookies from the Hans Freitag company--Noblesse, Desiree, and Noblesse Noir. Evidently, the part of East Central Pennsylvania I was in, again near the town of Jim Thorpe, has a large percentage of population with German heritage, or at least an appreciation of this country's cuisine.
The Hans Freitag website was a bit inconsistent. In some ways, in was incredibly precise, yet in others it was vague and not especially helpful. For an example of the former, the website outlined that the company sells exactly 130 products, and employs 330 people. Furthermore, the company's property consists of 55,000 square meters, with the factory production area being 27,000 square meters. Most company websites don't go into this degree of depth on these matters, I've found. However, the history of the company, and its product line isn't nearly as comprehensive. I did learn that the company was begun by a man named Hans Freitag, not shockingly, on August 12, 1946. It was a combination confectionary (candy-maker) and bakery. The big breakthrough came in 1949, when they acquired a steel belt oven. Somewhere down the line they abandoned the candy making, as now they appear to only make biscuits/cookies. The website's Frequently Asked Questions section noted that Hans Freitag is committed to only using sustainably-grown palm oil and chocolate, and only using eggs coming from cage-free raised chickens. However, their products are emphatically not gluten-free, since wheat is the main ingredient in everything they make. Their foods are suitable for vegetarians, but definitely not for vegans, as their cookies are made with eggs, and sometimes dairy products. The importing company is American, and also a guy's name, Carl Brandt. This company, which has been around since 1989, specializes in importing specialty European foods, and items from Egypt.
1) Hans Freitag Noblesse assortment of biscuits and wafers. Came in a 400 g. (14 ounce) bag. The chocolate-covered pretzel was tasty. The roundish cookie with a raspberry-gel dollop was plainer, and just okay. Then there were flat yellowish cookies with chocolate patterns on them--one looked like the Purina-logo, one with a bowtie-like pattern, and one with a cross. These were all kind of dull. The one that looked like a spiral-etched rod with chocolate dipped ends was good, as were the various wafers, which had both vanilla and chocolate fillings. The shell-shaped cookies with chocolate drizzled on them were just plain, kind of boring butter cookies.
2) Hans Freitag Noblesse Noir assortment of biscuits and wafers. Came in a 300 g. (10.6 ounce) bag. There were some differences in cookie types from the Noblesse kind. There were the chocolate-covered covered pretzels again, wafers, round doughnut-shaped cookies with chocolate drizzling, and chocolate-drizzled shell-shaped cookies. As the name suggests, this time the chocolate was dark chocolate, as opposed to milk. In past posts about chocolate, I've noted how I usually prefer milk chocolate to its dark cousin. Oddly, though, this time I had the opposite reaction. All of these were okay, with the wafers being pretty good.
3) Hans Freitag Desiree assortment of wafers. 400 g. bag (14 ounce) once again. Some repeats--the spiral, chocolate-ended rods were represented again, along with a variety of wafer shapes--some square, some rectangular, some with both chocolate and vanilla filling, some with only vanilla, and some chocolate filling with a chocolate outside. I pretty much liked all of these the same, and thought all were good. This was my favorite of the three types.
Therefore, to sum up, I found the Hans Freitag cookies/biscuits to run the gamut--from below average, to average, to above average. I had a definite preference for their wafers over their other kinds of cookies. I would consider buying the Noblesse Noir and especially the Desirees again, and would try other Hans Freitag products if I see them for sale.
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