Fancy (Gem) Florecitas?
the suprising tale of a snack in two seas
But First, MLK Day
I hope you celebrate today with a healthy helping of civil disobedience and spiritual restoration.
Get away from this computer! Go out into your community!
But before you go, I’ll leave you with a Martin Luther King Jr. quote that has guided much of my political journey:
Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
- “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 1963
Still so much rhetoric today is stuck in the preference of “negative peace” (the absence of tension) over “positive peace” (the presence of justice). We—you and me both, dear comrade—refuse to accept the white moderate’s “mythical concept of time.”
The Scoop
I have been designated, thank you Kali and Audrey, the keeper of our workplace snacks. See below my plunder (and a sign from Kali):
While I’ve been fielding an unfortunate amount of unsolicited comments concerning the—apparently esoteric—pork floss snack, a different treat elicited the most discussion.
Do you know what these are? And if so, what do you call them?
Audrey told me that they’re from Singapore, and there, they’re called any variation of fancy gem cookies or iced gem biscuits.
Then David came by and excitedly exclaimed, “Oh my god, why do you have these?”
They told me that these little treats are a Puerto Rican snack, Florecitas.
Audrey described the cookies as an elementary school treat, kids gleefully biting off all the meringues, occassionally abandoning the biscuit bits. David described the cookies as coming in a yellow-orange tin, grandmas buying a big tub and leaving them out around the house.
How did this simple snack, a wonderful combination of meringue and fluffy cookie, come to be a staple in two different seas, both South China and the Caribbean? I’ve decided to go down some Google rabbit holes to find out.
Sea One, South China
According to The Straits Times, a Singaporean newspaper, iced gem biscuits are sold in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Ireland, and Britain. No mention of the cookie’s Caribbean cousin (or should I say identical twin?). And the cookie’s manufacturers include Jacobs, McVitie's, Rich Garden, and Khong Guan. No mention of the Florecitas brand, Royal Borinquen.
Author Jalelah Abu Baker writes that the iced gem biscuits were first produced in the 1850s by Huntley and Palmer of Reading, Britain. But that was only the base. The icing was introduced 60 years later in 1910.
Food writer Jun, of Jun & Tonic, attributes the English cookie’s rise in the South China Sea to British-imposed colonialism and capitalism.
British colonization… an unfortunately likely explanation for any number of phenomena in our world today. But the question remains, how did Puerto Rico, an island first colonized by Spain and then, to this day, colonized by the United States, come to know this sweet treat? Or did Puerto Rico happen to concidentally create the same exact snack?
Sea Two, Caribbean
I Googled every variation of “history of florecitas cookies,” “florecitas cookies origin,” “first production date of royal borinquen florecitas” … Nothing. All I found was this thorough description on the company’s website:
and this paywall-blocked article:
I do respect the Substack hustle. And if someone more generous than me wants to bite the subscription fee, I would be curious as to what the article says. But I come from a proud, frugal, self-sufficient, we-make-it-on-our-own Chinese diaspora lineage. I stubbornly refuse to pay for anything, particularly the intangible, that I convince myself I could engineer on my own for free.
The Bridge?
In searching for images for this article, I stumbled across something that could be the missing link.
A cookie also called Iced Gems, but with Spanish on the packaging? Maybe just maybe, this product is the bridge, the evolutionary connection between the British iced gems and the Puerto Rican Florecitas. Maybe this Holsum company, which started operations in Puerto Rico in 1958, first introduced the iced gems and then Royal Borinquen started producing their own version. But Royal Borinquen opened in 1864, almost 100 years before Holsum. And, neither company mentions when they first started producing my particular cookie of interest.
I started imagining a rivalry of epic proportions akin to the great bubble tea debate in Taiwan: two revered industry giants vying for unanimous acknowledgement as the first.
Fugue-Induced Google Translate Rampage
Unsatisfied with this lack of clarity, two possible first Puetro Rican manufacturers and no explanation of the British/Singaporean/Malaysian equivalent, at 12AM I took to Google Translate:
(It appears that my delirious brain overlooked the fact that, whether I ideologically agree or not, Puerto Rico is in fact also the United States and English is mandated as a compulsory second-language course from elementary to high school… No looking back, the grave I have already dug.)
After a bit of tinkering, with my limited Spanish tinkering abilities, I sent the message out into the world:
Now to sit and wait…
But I’m impatient!
And at 1AM, I couldn’t sleep, my mind racing with all the Florecitas origin possibilities. So, naturally, I joined r/PuertoRico and posted:
u/Reasonable-Heart6740, My Hero
I woke up in the morning to a few replies on my Reddit post, this one being the most helpful:
Thank you, noble warrior u/Reasonable-Heart6740, for entering into this Google rabbit hole journey with me. Forever grateful for your service.
Looking to the source material, I went to the El Nuevo Día article that u/Reasonable-Heart6740 had hyper-linked to. If Google Translating has not failed me, the article says that the Royal Borinquen company started in 1864 as “Porto Rico Biscuit.” Then in 1932, during the Great Depression, the company closed and then relaunched with a new name: “Borinquen Biscuit Company.” That same year, 1932, they launched the Florecitas cookie in its iconic orange tin. 1968 marks the first year that Borinquen Biscuit Company exported its products to the United States.
We’ve done it! We’ve reduced our two competitor Puerto Rican iced gem bracket down to one. The known and beloved Royal Borinquen Florecitas has eliminated the 1958-launched Holsum company. However, the 1932 Florecitas date means that the British iced version, launched in 1910, predates the Puerto Rican cookie by 22 years. Did the then Borinquen Biscuit Company find inspiration overseas?
While the rest of the El Nuevo Día article didn’t illuminate much, two quotes stood out to me:
“Creaciones propias como las Cien en Boca, Vainilla Imperial y la emblemática lata anaranjada de Florecitas, terminaron de consolidar la empresa.”
“Poco a poco, Rodríguez Zamora [Royal Borinquen CEO] acumuló recursos e hizo investigación hasta lograr diseñar el equipo que automatizó la producción de uno de los productos emblemáticos de Borinquen Biscuit.”
So not only does Royal Borinquen claim to be the sole originators of the Florecitas, they also pinoeered the equipment necessary to automate the cookie’s production.
For my Spanish-understanding friends, the video linked in u/Reasonable-Heart6740’s post.
The Real Rivalry?
Maybe the real head-to-head face off for being the first does not lie between two Puerto Rican companies, but between Puerto Rico and Great Britain. And there are two layers, it seems, to creation. One is first producing the concept, the cookie itself. The second is producing the technology necessary to distribute and export the cooke en masse. Each, you could could argue, is a craft.
I have a suspicion that it is statiscally highly improbable that both Puerto Rico and Great Britain independently invented the same exact dessert. I could be horribly mistaken. And I would love the awe-inspired serendipitous moment of being proven wrong. But, I imagine that somewhere along the line, a Puerto Rican cookie businessperson sampled some of Britain’s biscuit offerings and decided that the iced gem would be a hit.
But the art of engineering and perfecting machinery? I speculate there is a generous helping of ingenuity and technical knowledge across the globe, enough so that each producer of the fabled iced gem Florecita cookie biscuit may have decided for themselves not the end product, but the how, the journey there.
But until I have a concrete answer… More emails:
Art!
Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Singers
It has now been more than a couple weeks since the new year, but I find the comedy in this choral piece—which recounts the tale of an art-minded young adult fielding criticisms and comparisons over the holidays—to ring true always. And if you’re a lunar new year celebrant, this may help you brace for that. (There are English subtitles, don’t worry). Thank you Christie for sharing!
Friends!
Belle Alatorre has been working as Associate Sound Designer on Pasadena Playhouse’s KATE.
Madison LeMieux was cast as the titular character in Fowlerville Community Theatre’s Cinderella.
Jorence Quiambao celebrated one year at Barrow & Co. Creative.
Emma (Fergie!) Fergusson started grad school at University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts.
Allison Guinn was nominated for a SAG award: “Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series—Only Murders in the Building”
Wren Rivera has been in rehearsals for Playwrights Horizons’ Teeth … AND SuperYou, which they performed in, won “Best New Play or Musical" and "Best Dance Production" for the Broadway World Awards in Milwaukee.
Have good news? Let me know, and I’ll celebrate you here!
Action!
Edit articles on Wikipedia to generate more accurate Palestine-related content.
Read the full South African application bringing forward genocide charges against Israel.
Sign the Queer Artists for Palestine ceasefire demand.
Donate to Emergency Aid for Gaza.
TTFN, ta-ta for now! hope to see you next time <3