Last week I wrote an article about an old hoax that’s been going around in various forms since the 1990s. I thought it was the hoax that wouldn’t die, but I’ve found one that beats it by about 80 years. I recently saw this post on Facebook.
It told the tale of a woman who ordered a cookie at Neiman-Marcus, then asked for the recipe and discovered she had been charged $250 for it. Out of revenge, she was posting the recipe online and asking others to share. There’s one legitimate part of this post – it’s a pretty good cookie recipe. The rest is totally made up. I’ve seen it before: in e-mails back in the 1990s and printed out or copied on paper to be passed around in the 1970s. In fact, this hoax actually goes all the way back to the 1920s! Yep, it’s nearly a hundred years old!
Sometimes the recipe is for Neiman-Marcus cookies, in the 1980s it was Mrs. Field’s cookies and back in the 1920s it involved cake from the Waldorf-Astoria. Bottom line: Not true. Share the recipe if you want, but don’t make up lies about businesses.
Neiman Marcus actually publishes their cookie recipe online. Check it out by clicking here.
~ Cynthia
Yes, Whenever I use to visit my family in Boston My niece would take me to
Neiman-Marcus for a Champagne breakfast it was quite a treat….I made the coolies years ago… My niece is no longer with us but the breakfast memories still are..Thanks for the memory.
Yes. This is the first time I’ve heard the one about the cookie, but hoaxes abound these days. Every couple of months, we get the one about the cell phone registry, and how you have to call a number to get on the list, or else you’ll be charged for all incoming phone calls. Then there’s O’bama’s wedding ring, and on and on.
It’s usually a pretty safe bet that if the warning is in ALL CAPS !!!!!! and it says to FORWARD IT TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW !!!, it’s baloney. My mom just started using the internet, and she’s always calling me about getting some dire warning about something.
For most of us, it’s just an irritating distraction. But to the gullible and naive, it’s upsetting. I guess that’s why the social cripples who send that stuff do it.
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