There are certain experiences that are common to almost every American. Taxes, commercials, PBS telethons; you get the picture. Some of these experiences become memories that get stored in the recesses of the mind. It doesn’t take much to trigger an unlock of these. And when it happens, the memories come rushing back in. If you need an example, just look at this blue cookie tin.
Grandma’s Famous Blue Cookie Tin
Yeah, that’s right. You recognize it, and you know it from the depths of your childhood. It’s the tin of Grandma’s cookies. The ones that were always there whenever you went to visit her. But it wasn’t cookies inside of it. It was sewing equipment for some reason. Did it ever even hold cookies? Were the cookies a huge lie? Why did everyone come to the same agreement that the blue cookie tin should hold needles and thread? We can’t answer all those questions. But we can at least explain what those cookies are.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about these cookies is that they’re not as old as you think they are. Maybe we should actually give them their proper name, though. They’re Royal Dansk butter cookies. They’re Danish and originated in Helsingør, Denmark. It seems like they should’ve been around since the 1800s or something. But the company was founded in 1966. The company is aware of the iconic tin as well. Their website flat-out calls it out for being “resealable and reusable.”
A Potential History
In looking into this topic, we came across an article from Vice that asked the question about how the tins became so ubiquitous as sewing kits. But it didn’t really do a good job of answering the question. It made a reference to a BuzzFeed post, and that’s about it. Truthfully, there probably is no true answer, but one can postulate based on the nature of needles. Logically, where are you going to store sharp objects like needles? You can’t really store them in anything soft, as the needle will poke through. Plastic could work, but those containers weren’t popular until the 1960’s and ’70s. Needles and sewing obviously predate that.
This leaves two other main material alternatives: glass and metal. Glass is fragile, though. Metal is far less so. Tin packages were pretty common too for storing things throughout the 1900s. At least barring wartime rationing. But that made the metal you already had even more valuable to reuse. A great place to store needles and sewing material. Now, keep in mind the design of the blue cookie tin. Royal Dansk containers have a large circumference and a completely open top. Once you remove the lid, you can see virtually everything inside since the depth isn’t too vast either. This means you don’t have to reach in with your hand and feel around. Everything is right there with ease of access. If the tin were taller with a shorter diameter, that access would be much more limited.
A Reusable Holiday Treat
At least in our families and the people we know, the cookies tend to be very common around Christmas as a traditional gift. So, that means almost every family is getting a tin throughout the years and the generations. Learned behavior and traditions being what they are… Royal Dansk containers became a staple for gifts and later secondhand storage. It’s just hard to believe they didn’t exist before 1966. Somehow they just feel like they’ve been a part of the world since forever. You can almost picture an American family during the Revolutionary War gathered in the living room and sharing the butter cookies.
Core memory unlocked.
[Editor’s note: In college, my professor brought in a tin of Royal Dansk butter cookies around Christmas as a treat. I jokingly exclaimed, “You brought us a sewing kit?!” I’d never seen her laugh so hard. Given that she was born and raised outside the US, it shows how pervasive this second use of these containers is. And how amazing it would be for someone to make a vegan version so I could have them again.]
