Although I, too, honor the memory of Charles E. Entenmann, allow me to say a word for Charles Freihofer. For those of us who grew up in upstate New York (and no, New York City people, Westchester is not upstate), it is Freihofer cookies, cakes, and donuts that serve as the equivalent of Proust’s madeleine. In fact, it was a point of pride for upstaters to compare “our” boxed pastries and cookies to Long Island’s. I think I speak for all of my fellow provincials (or at least those in the Albany area) when I say that Freihofer’s chocolate chip cookies were the ne plus ultra of boxed chocolate chip cookies — far superior to Entenmann’s, at which we scoffed. If you want to understand the unceasing political acrimony of the upstate–downstate divide, look to the cookie.
Alas, the Freihofer Baking Co. was bought by a national company a while back, and the cookies were never the same after that. You can taste them only in memory, which of course makes them — sweeter.