Oh my darlings, I am so suggestible.  Yesterday when I was thinking about manna I thought of crème wafers.  And wouldn't you know what I brought home from the store last night?  That's right!  Grocery store brand crème wafers.  

There are better brands of crème wafer, but Safeway only carried Safeway brand.  I know that there are better brands, because I have some very vivid memories of a temp job I worked for a while back in, oh, 2004 or so. 

Those were hard times.  I'd just broken up with my live-in boyfriend and cadged money from my family so that I could afford to move out, and I barely had two pennies to rub together.  

The office kitchenette was frequently my salvation, because they provided free coffee and hot cocoa.  Mix up a couple packets of hot cocoa, five or six Mini Moo creamers, and a dollop of coffee, and you've got enough caffeine and calories to keep you going through until the next meal break.

This kitchenette also had a vending machine.  When I couldn't afford a more expensive lunch, and was still hungry after eating the one sandwich I could afford to bring from home every day, I turned to the vending machine.  

Under these circumstances you want to maximize your investment, you know?

I had calculated that the best bang for your buck, both calorically and by weight, was the packet of vanilla crème wafers.  They came wrapped in a gold mylar wrapper, and were always vanilla - never chocolate or strawberry.  

I remember them being absolutely delicious.  Ambrosia!  The best cookies EVER.  But then again, I must point out that my other meal options were hot cocoa sludge, or nothing.  Also I may have been out of my head with despair at what my life had become.  

Would those cookies still taste as delicious to me today?  I'm guessing not.  

One thing I can say for sure is that Safeway brand Crème Wafers are not very delicious.  Cheap store brand cookies often have a sort of rakish appeal, but these are simply horrible.  And horrible for you as well, containing a laundry list of chemicals, and a staggering 3.5 grams of trans fat in every four-wafer serving.

These come in the traditional Neapolitan assortment.  The chocolate cookies were so faintly chocolate that I had to peer at the ingredients list to verify that they contain cocoa. Which they do, but as an ingredient listed by volume it comes after corn starch, and before salt.

The vanilla wafers are the least obnoxious in flavor, although the fluorescent Cheeto orange color of the cookies is somewhat unsettling.

Strawberry is by far the worst.  From the "punch in the face" volume of the fake strawberry flavor, to the cerise pink color of the cookies, the strawberry cookies are frankly inedible.

As a whole, these cookies provide none of the joy usually found in crème wafers.  The best of the form are almost like ice cream in a waffle cone.  That play of crunchy wafer cookie and smooth creamy filling.  These cookies have tissue thin cookies that mush instead of crisping.  And the filling leaves a gross fatty film in your mouth.

Avoid at all costs.