Decoder Ring | Cozy Autumn Mysteries

Summary

Slow Burn Presents Decoder Ring | Cozy Autumn Mysteries

Date: November 5, 2025
Host: Willa Paskin
Guests/Voices: Don Martin, Carolyn Super, Simcha Levyadun, Suzanne Renner, Grace Dewey, Lauren Tarr, Malcolm Gore
Theme: Exploring the comforting, quirky traditions and seasonal products that define autumn in America, through the lens of three mysteries: the changing taste of the Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL), the science behind autumn leaves turning red, and the elusive, beloved seasonal cookie: the Malamar.

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Episode Overview

This episode of Decoder Ring dives into the stories behind three beloved autumnal signifiers: Pumpkin Spice Lattes, vibrant fall foliage, and Malamars—the marshmallow-and-chocolate cookie only sold half the year. Through engaging discussions with scientists, foodies, and brand insiders, host Willa Paskin untangles these seasonal mysteries, revealing how some traditions are newer and stranger than we assume, and what their popularity says about our culture, anxieties, and the nature of tradition itself.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Pumpkin Spice Latte: A Modern Autumn Ritual with a Tangled Backstory

• The Rise of the PSL

  • The PSL debuted in 2003 as an attempt to replicate the success of Starbucks’ Peppermint Mocha. Unexpectedly, it became synonymous with fall, selling hundreds of millions of drinks and spawning a tidal wave of pumpkin spice-flavored products—everything from cereal to even toilet paper.
  • "[The PSL] became a lifestyle phenomenon." —Willa Paskin [03:19]

• Cultural Impact and Ritual

  • PSL’s arrival is now a widespread seasonal ritual, marking the true start of fall for countless fans.
  • "Need to pull out my knee-high boots... get that pumpkin spice latte, like, to celebrate the changing of the seasons." —Don Martin [04:17]

• The Taste Controversy and Reformulation

  • By the mid-2010s, controversy arose as fans insisted the drink tasted different than they remembered. Many blamed a Starbucks recipe change.
  • The real shift came after a viral campaign by food blogger “Food Babe” (Vani Hari) in 2014, which exposed that PSLs contained no real pumpkin and included potentially problematic additives. Starbucks responded by reformulating the drink in 2015 to include pumpkin puree and drop artificial color.
  • "Food Babe specifically said, do you know what isn't in the pumpkin spice latte? It’s pumpkin." —Don Martin [10:53]
  • "And so since 2015, the PSL is indeed not the same PSL that America first fell in love with." —Willa Paskin [13:10]

• A Broader Symbol: Food Fears and Misinformation

  • The PSL's journey mirrors wider anxieties about “unnatural” ingredients and media-fueled scares, prefiguring trends in online skepticism and misinformation.
  • "We present a problem people didn’t even think that they had... tell people not to trust... it's a breeding ground for misinformation." —Don Martin [13:53]

• Notable Quote:
  "I think all of the headache of the pumpkin spice latte eventually made me break up with it. Like, maybe, maybe we don't need everything to be pumpkin spice." —Don Martin [15:25]

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2. The Mystery of Red Autumn Leaves: Science, Debate, and Wonder

• Popular Science vs. Complicated Truth

  • Leaves change color in fall because trees pull chlorophyll (green pigment) out of their leaves, revealing yellow and orange pigments that have been there all along. But red is different: the pigment (anthocyanin) is newly synthesized just before leaves fall.
  • "But it does not explain why a leaf would turn red. Because the red pigments are not there all year." —Willa Paskin [21:00]

• New Theories: The “Bug Spray” vs. “Sunscreen” Debate

  • In the early 2000s, biologist W.D. Hamilton suggested that red leaves acted as a warning to pests (especially aphids), deterring them from attacking the dying leaves—an “anti-herbivory hypothesis.”
  • "Hamilton figured... maybe autumn leaves were a communique too. Maybe the trees weren’t just inadvertently putting on a show... maybe they were defending themselves." —Willa Paskin [24:13]
  • [28:19] Simcha Levyadun: “The red says, pay attention, red is danger.”

• Pushback and Alternate Explanations

  • Botanist Suzanne Renner is skeptical, noting that aphids don’t care about leaves in autumn; they're looking to overwinter in bark.
  • Renner’s research found a geographic link: red-leafed trees are more common in sunny eastern North America than in Europe. She suggests red coloration is “sunscreen” produced to protect leaves from excess light while the tree reclaims nutrients.
  • "Having this sunscreen... would allow you to pull back the nutrients for a little longer, maybe seven days longer." —Suzanne Renner [33:14]

• A Multilayered Mystery

  • Simcha Levyadun and others propose both explanations can coexist: red pigment might defend against both excess sun and certain pests—a “multi-tool” for trees.
  • "You have a tool. Why not use it for several functions?" —Simcha Levyadun [34:29]

• Memorable Moment:

  • Willa and arborist Malcolm Gore stroll through Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, marveling at the colors—noting how the debate doesn’t trouble the leaves themselves, which simply “keep doing their thing.” [35:20–36:53]

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3. The Case of the Elusive Malamar: Scarcity, Nostalgia, and the Power of Seasonal Marketing

• What is a Malamar?

  • A nostalgic, marshmallow-and-graham cracker-cookie enrobed in chocolate, Malamars have been a specifically autumn treat in the Northeast U.S. for over 100 years.
  • "They look kind of like brown hockey pucks. And Grace finds them totally irresistible." —Willa Paskin [40:20]

• Scarcity as an Event

  • Their return to grocery store shelves each fall is an annual event for devotees—many of whom stockpile boxes for the “off season.”
  • "Once I discovered that, I got as many as I can... I stockpile them in my pantry." —Grace Dewey [42:34]
  • The cookie has garnered a cult following, featured in pop culture from The Golden Girls to The Sopranos.

• The Real Reason for the Season

  • Officially, Malamars are sold seasonally due to their thin real-chocolate coating, which can melt or “bloom” (turn white) in heat. While this was once an unavoidable problem, modern production and distribution means they could, in fact, be sold year-round.
  • “We have the technology to be able to ship the products full year around.” —Carolyn Super, Malamar Brand Manager, Mondelez [49:26]

• The True Motive: Manufacturing and Marketing

  • Mondelez’s enrobing lines (which cover cookies in chocolate) are rotated between products, so space is limited. But more importantly, scarcity itself is now the selling point. Seasonal sales keep excitement high and consumers obsessed.
  • "I think a lot of the fad and the excitement is that they aren’t available year round." —Carolyn Super [51:44]

• Malamars' Genius: Accidental Scarcity Marketing

  • Their “outdated” production strategy matches today’s hottest consumer marketing trends, like limited sneaker drops—making their reappearance feel momentous and urgent.
  • "By not changing their sales strategy for a century, Malamar’s has ended up with the most cutting-edge way to sell anything right now... built around scarcity." —Willa Paskin [54:16]

• Core Insight:

  • If you could buy Malamars all year, you might not love or crave them nearly as much.
  • "That is part of the fun. Most definitely part of the fun. You can't get them every day, so it's very special when they do come out." —Grace Dewey [54:16]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On the PSL Cultural Shift:
  "Could you have ever imagined the cultural shift that happened when Starbucks debuted the pumpkin spice latte? Like, just the obsession. Wow.”
  —Don Martin [01:59]

• On Food Fads and Fueling Misinformation:
  "We present a problem people didn’t even think that they had... it's a breeding ground for misinformation, disinformation, and for a whole host of other things."
  —Don Martin [13:53]

• On Autumn Leaves' Science and Wonder:
  "Why would a tree bother to do this right before its leaves are about to drop anyway? ...You don't put money in it before you dump it."
  —Simcha Levyadun [22:34]

• On Red as Plant “Sunscreen”:
  "Having this sunscreen... would allow you to pull back the nutrients for a little longer, maybe seven days longer."
  —Suzanne Renner [33:14]

• On Malamar Scarcity:
  "We were the trendsetters."
  —Carolyn Super [53:28]

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Key Timestamps for Major Segments

• Pumpkin Spice Latte's Cultural Rise & Reformulation:
  01:59–15:40

• The Science (and Debate) of Red Autumn Leaves:
  18:14–36:53

• Malamar Mysteries: Scarcity, Marketing, and Tradition:
  39:59–55:05

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Takeaways

• Autumn traditions, while seemingly timeless, are often newer and stranger than we remember—shaped by marketing, debates over “authenticity,” and the surprising power of collective nostalgia.
• The PSL’s evolution mirrors larger cultural anxieties about food, authenticity, and information in the digital age.
• Even the scientific “truths” behind natural wonders, like why leaves turn red, remain a subject of lively debate and new discovery.
• Scarcity, whether intentional or accidental, powerfully fuels desire and tradition—whether with cookies or coffee.

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This episode is a cozy, thought-provoking journey through the quirks and comforts of the season—perfect for anyone who loves fall, questions traditions, or just wants to know why some cookies are so hard to find.

Transcript

[Willa Paskin]

You know that feeling when someone truly has your back? Like when a friend shows up to help you move, or a colleague takes the time to recognize your work? It's those shared moments that mean the most. Because staying connected matters. That's why AT and T has connectivity you can depend on, or they'll proactively make it right. That's the AT T guarantee. So what are you waiting for? Terms and conditions apply. Visit att.comguarantee for details. @ and T connecting changes everything hey decoder ring listeners. You know how much I love a good deep dive. And since you're tuning into the show, I know you do too. This holiday season, you can give the gift of endless exploration to like minded friends and family with Apple Gift Card. They can use it for research apps on the App Store, documentaries on the Apple TV app, or even ad free podcasts. It's the perfect present for the curious mind. Visit applegiftcard.apple.com to learn more and gift one today we tend to think of seasonal traditions as old, established, they're off, repeated, and so presumably something we've done before. And yet all traditions have to start somewhere. Santa Claus was not always a fat, rosy cheeked man with a white beard and a red suit until he showed up in a Coca Cola ad In the early 1930s, the same decade kids started trick or treating. Auld Lang Syne didn't become the New Year song until Guy Lombardo's band played it on the radio in 1929, and Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas couldn't top the charts every December until it was actually released in 1994. And one of the fall season's most sippable autumnal traditions did not become established until 2003.

[Don Martin]

Could you have ever imagined the cultural shift that happened when Starbucks debuted the pumpkin spice latte? Like, just the obsession. Wow.

[Willa Paskin]

Don Martin is a writer and podcaster who has thought a lot about the Starbucks pumpkin spice line since he started ordering Frappuccinos in college.

[Don Martin]

Back then I was all about like, give me a big frothy pumpkin spice flavored, basically milkshake that like somebody had whispered the word coffee. Next to I think I have a photo of me with some terrible hair of like French of like French kissing pumpkin spice Frappuccino.

[Willa Paskin]

How do you French kiss a pumpkin spice Frappuccino? Just like a lot of tongue.

[Don Martin]

Listen, I was young. I'm not proud. We all do things for love, and.

[Willa Paskin]

Donna's not the only person who has ever fallen hard for this beverage.

[Don Martin]

It's Officially, PSL season pumpkin spice is.

[Carolyn Super]

Back at Starbucks, y'.

[Willa Paskin]

All. First pumpkin spice of the season. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. According to Starbucks, the drink originated in a group brainstorm convened to try and recreate the success of a peppermint mocha drink. The pumpkin spice latte was intended to just be a one off released that fall. But when the psl, as Starbucks refers to it, was introduced, something, if you stop to think about it, really bizarre happened. This sweet spiced coffee drink became a lifestyle phenomenon.

[Don Martin]

I don't think anybody could have, like, prepped for, like, the seismic cultural shift that that was.

[Willa Paskin]

By the 2010s, hundreds of millions of drinks had been sold, and pumpkin spice was not just in coffee cups, it was everywhere. Pop tarts, Pringles cereal, beef jerky.

[Don Martin]

Do you remember that era a few years ago where there was pumpkin spice toilet paper?

[Willa Paskin]

I do not.

[Don Martin]

Oh, my God.

[Willa Paskin]

I have a gross question which is like, how do you know it's pumpkin spice toilet paper?

[Don Martin]

That was my question as well. So I did, of course, have to buy it for science. It just. It smells like it.

[Willa Paskin]

And putting pumpkin spice into consumer products was only part of the PSL's cultural reach. For many, the drink had become one of the very hallmarks of autumn, where.

[Don Martin]

It'S like, oh, the seasons are changing. Oh, God, I have to have this in order to start fall. You know, like, I need to pull out my knee high boots, I need to get my puffer vest, and I need to go and get that pumpkin spice latte, like, to celebrate the changing of the seasons.

[Willa Paskin]

It's officially fall, AKA pumpkin spice season.

[Carolyn Super]

Let's get the first pumpkin spice latte of the year.

[Willa Paskin]

The first sip instantly made me want.

[Carolyn Super]

To pull out all the fall decor.

[Don Martin]

It tastes like fall. It's a big cup of fall. Or at least it used to be.

[Willa Paskin]

Because for all the excitement that to this day greets the PSL's annual arrival, it's also accompanied by a certain amount of grumbling and suspicion. And I'm not just talking about the eye rollers who find it and the women who love it unbearably basic.

[Don Martin]

There's usually a mention of, I remember the pumpkin spice latte tasting better, and I went and tasted. I hadn't had one in years and I wanted to go back and try it, and it just doesn't taste the same. Everyone's saying that they changed the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

[Willa Paskin]

Yeah, that's why it tastes different.

[Don Martin]

There is something different about that. It's very, very strange. Very, very weird flavor.

[Willa Paskin]

It's not normal Reddit threads, Facebook posts, TikToks, YouTubes, and Instagram Reels are full of people claiming that something is off that this pumpkin spice latte, this beloved fall ritual, is just not what they remember. And instead of chalking this up to crankiness or faulty memories, it turns out.

[Don Martin]

There'S a reason for that. And now it's just a little bit worse.

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. Some things just scream Autumn though. Exactly what may be different for all of us? Personally, nothing says fall to me like sweaters, slippers, and a screening of one Harry Met Sally. But maybe you're a football fan are really into spooky Season an apple picker, A leaf peeper. A candy cornaholic. Whatever it is, fall just seems to have a lot of these homey signifiers. And in today's episode, we're looking closely at three of them. First, we'll get to the bottom of whatever's going on with the taste of the pumpkin spice latte. Then we'll gaze deep into the enigma hiding inside a beautiful fall leaf. And finally, we'll finish off with some serious questions about the availability of an elusive cookie. So today on Decoder Ring, snuggle up to three cozy mysteries. It's fall y'.

[Don Martin]

All.

[Willa Paskin]

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[Don Martin]

Everyone keeps saying that it tastes wrong.

[Carolyn Super]

I'll be honest, the pumpkin spice lattes weren't as good.

[Don Martin]

It's worse than last year.

[Willa Paskin]

And while most people didn't do anything with this information besides staging a personal taste test on TikTok, Don is not most people. He decided to investigate and what he found led him back to 2014.

[Don Martin]

A lot of this started in the heyday of like Facebook, back when like memes and infographics were becoming a primary method that people consumed news and information. And there was this blogger who goes by food bait.

[Carolyn Super]

Hi, I'm Vonni from Foodbabe.com I'm about to call the Lean Cuisine headquarters and try to find out what exactly is natural about their honestly good product.

[Willa Paskin]

Food babes real name is Vani Hari and she had built a large following on social media as a self styled investigator of what she deemed to be questionable ingredients. Hari had already been part of successful campaigns to get Subway to remove an additive from its bread and to get artificial dyes out of Kraft macaroni and cheese.

[Carolyn Super]

Yellow number five and yellow number six specifically are known carcinogens. That means it's linked to causing cancer.

[Willa Paskin]

In 2014 she posted a meme that went viral. It was meant as a wake up call. The PSL was not what it seemed.

[Don Martin]

So there was like a picture a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte and it was like sliced down the middle and you could like see all the layers of the nefarious ingredients in there. Like there's these dyes and these chemicals.

[Willa Paskin]

This meme pointed out that the PSL contained two doses of caramel coating which it annotated as being considered a carcinogen. Hari also claimed it contained a toxic dose of sugar and called out other food additives. But there was one complaint that really stood out.

[Don Martin]

Food babes specifically said, do you know what isn't in the pumpkin spice latte? It's pumpkin.

[Willa Paskin]

And that was true. There was no actual pumpkin in the pumpkin spice latte. And for a lot of people this was shocking. Okay, do you know what pumpkin spice is? Let me educate you real quick. Pumpkin spice doesn't actually have any pumpkin in it. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So there's no pumpkin in pumpkin spice? Pumpkin spice foods inexplicably seem to grow more omnipresent even though there's no actual pumpkin in the drinks. But this was not news to Don.

[Don Martin]

I never assumed it had pumpkin in it. Pumpkin spice was always the spice blend. It's the spice blend that turns pumpkin into pie ingredients. Like, I never once thought it had pumpkin in it.

[Willa Paskin]

Bakers have been referring to this mixture of cinnamon, clove, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice as a pumpkin spice blend since at least the early part of the 20th century. And Starbucks hadn't been keeping the lack of pumpkin a secret. But when the Food Babe meme dropped, the message was clear.

[Don Martin]

They're lying to you. Starbucks is lying to you about what's in their product.

[Willa Paskin]

The backlash was on.

[Don Martin]

Oh my God. It went. I mean, it was everywhere. It was all over social media. The news covered it.

[Willa Paskin]

Hari made a big splash earlier this fall when she posted the previously undisclosed.

[Don Martin]

Ingredients of Starbucks pumpkin spice Latte.

[Carolyn Super]

Seeing that a coffee drink is colored with this ammonia based art artificial food dye is very alarming that they are putting this chemical in my drink.

[Willa Paskin]

Ultimately, it generated enough concern in hubbub that Starbucks was forced to respond.

[Don Martin]

They were like, well, we're going to take your concerns to heart and we're going to reformulate our pumpkin spice latte drink. And we need to make this right by including the missing ingredients that they should have added in the first place.

[Willa Paskin]

Namely pumpkin.

[Don Martin]

Namely pumpkin.

[Carolyn Super]

Starbucks has announced it will include real pumpkin in its pumpkin spice latte. No artificial coloring. Didn't know it didn't have any real pumpkin at the coffee chain. Will make this change after a popular food blogger known as the Food Babe questioned the drink's ingredients.

[Willa Paskin]

And so since 2015, the PSL is indeed not the same PSL that America first fell in love with.

[Don Martin]

And I'm a tell ya, people can tell that little bit of extra pumpkin. I don't, I don't know, it just, it just makes it taste weird.

[Willa Paskin]

Yeah, it is a weird thing to.

[Carolyn Super]

Put into your coffee.

[Don Martin]

It is like, I mean, raw pumpkin is what we gave my diabetic dog. Raw pumpkin doesn't taste good.

[Willa Paskin]

And Don is not interested in all of this just because of the taste. He sees this whole incident as a harbinger of things to come. Because the uproar about what is really in the PSL has since recurred many times over in far more consequential areas.

[Don Martin]

We present a problem people didn't even think that they had because it's not a real problem and tell people to be scared and tell people not to trust. And that in and of itself is a breeding ground for misinformation, disinformation, and for a whole host of other things.

[Willa Paskin]

Vani Hari, the woman known as Food Babe and the person who kickstarted the outcry against the pumpkin spice latte, has since become one of the major players in RFK Jr. S Maha movement, and she even spoke at the White House earlier this year.

[Carolyn Super]

This has got to start day that American companies are poisoning us with ingredients. Americans deserve safe food and our children.

[Willa Paskin]

Deserve she's been criticized for inaccuracies, fear mongering, and making claims rejected by food scientists. But she's also clearly tapping into genuine anxieties about what we're putting into our own bodies. Getting a small dose of pumpkin added to a sugary, caffeinated decadent treat that no one ever should have construed as healthy in the first place is an odd accomplishment. It's one that doesn't do much but make the PSL a little thicker, goopier, stranger. But maybe that makes the PSL even more exemplary of our current moment when anxiety and mistrust lead people to be skeptical of traditional expertise and yet simultaneously credulous of individuals doing their own research. You get weird outcomes, compromises, workarounds. You get metaphorical pumpkin puree in your coffee.

[Don Martin]

I think all of the headache of the pumpkin spice latte eventually made me break up with the pumpkin spice latte. Like maybe, maybe we don't need everything to be pumpkin spice.

[Willa Paskin]

When we come back, we try and make you look at another false signifier. Autumn leaves a little differently. This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart Choice Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive Car Insurance quote with rates from other companies so you save time on the research and can enjoy savings when you choose the best rate for you. Give it a try after this [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. You know, those little check ins like calling your grandmother to say Happy Birthday or texting your friends just to gossip. Feels good, right? It's those shared moments that matter most. Because staying connected matters. That's why in the rare event of a network outage, AT&T will proactively credit you for a full day of Service. That's the AT&T guarantee. So take a moment to connect. Make the call to your parents you've been putting off. Send a quick message to an old friend and do it all, knowing you've got AT and T behind you. Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers must be connected to impacted tower at onset of outage. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See att.com guarantee for full details. AT and T Connecting changes everything. It is a human foible that we don't always appreciate things until they're gone, that we don't remember to call our great aunt until she's very sick, that we don't go to that restaurant we loved until it announces its closing, and that we don't appreciate a tree's leaves until they're about to leaf us. As the weather changes in certain parts of the world, as the days shorten and get colder, the leaves of deciduous trees begin to die. And only then do we get very excited about them. Look at the reds on that tree. Just beautiful. And then we got some oranges, we've got some yellows.

[Carolyn Super]

This is my favorite time of year.

[Willa Paskin]

It's this, the fall foliage.

[Carolyn Super]

These colors go straight through my retina and feed my soul.

[Willa Paskin]

You know what just rips, dude, is just like some foliage, dude. Like, how. How does a leaf even do that? How is it even that color, dude? Annually, millions of leaf peepers descend upon places like Vermont and New Hampshire, where the foliage fireworks are most pronounced. Just to take it all in. We get to look down and kind of watch the colors wash down the hills.

[Carolyn Super]

Yellows, oranges, reds.

[Willa Paskin]

It's just. It's so beautiful. This brilliant display has inspired paintings, photographs, poems, and songs.

[Simcha Levyadun]

The falling leaves drift by the window the autumn leaves of red and gold.

[Willa Paskin]

And it's also inspired a seemingly simple question. Why do leaves change color in fall? Why do leaves change color in the fall? Why do leaves change colors?

[Grace Dewey]

Is it because they're tired of being green?

[Willa Paskin]

And you'd think a kid's question like this would have a simple answer, but as we have learned, and you're about to, it does not. It turns out that, like our other people seeing the same shade of blue as me, it's a bona fide stumper. It gets right to the matter of how we know what we know. So it's an adult question, really, and the complications begin immediately because there has long been an answer provided one you might already know yourself. The leaf is one of the most.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Important parts of a plant.

[Willa Paskin]

Leaves capture the energy of sunshine and use it to make food. The traditional explanation starts with why leaves are green in the first place. And it's that to make their food they need a chemical. It is called chlorophyll. Chlorophyll has the power to trap the sunlight and harness its life giving energy. And chlorophyll is what makes plants green. And so leaves have a lot of green chlorophyll inside them. They have other pigments in them too. The story goes, but you can't see the yellows and reds and oranges because the green is so dominant. That is for most of the year.

[Simcha Levyadun]

All summer the leaves stay green.

[Willa Paskin]

But as the days get shorter, the down the chlorophyll and begin to pull all their energy and nutrients back into their trunks. And so the green starts to fade. And then suddenly all the hidden colors are revealed.

[Simcha Levyadun]

And so the leaves become more colorful than ever.

[Willa Paskin]

This has long been the explanation for the vibrant colors of autumn. It's just a side effect of them preparing for winter. One that, lucky for us, happens to be very beautiful. I actually remember learning this in science class when I was younger and I wasn't alone.

[Simcha Levyadun]

What I was taught in a course of gaobotany was the green disappears. You see the red and yellow because they are not masked anymore by lots of green.

[Willa Paskin]

Simcha Leviadun is an emeritus professor of botany and archaeology and he heard the same story well into graduate school.

[Simcha Levyadun]

This was the common belief.

[Willa Paskin]

But he says there's long been a problem with this belief. It's incomplete. It does accurately describe what's happening when a leaf turns yellow or orange. Pigments that have been lurking inside the leaf the whole time. But it does not explain why a leaf would turn red. Because the red pigments are not there all year. In fact, trees do not even begin to produce them until the fall.

[Simcha Levyadun]

They are synthesized in the leaves before they are shed.

[Willa Paskin]

The chemical that produces the red is called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are what give fruits like blueberries and grapes their colors. And they take a lot of effort.

[Simcha Levyadun]

To make not just energy, but time and materials to construct those molecules.

[Willa Paskin]

Why would a tree bother to do this right before its leaves are about to drop anyway?

[Simcha Levyadun]

You have an old car, you want to send it for metal recycling or whatever, or just dump it. You don't put money in it before you dump it.

[Willa Paskin]

But that's exactly what the trees seem to be doing, making all this costly red for their leaves even as they are dying. It's a head scratcher and one that scientists had long been aware of, but that they hadn't really gotten to thinking about.

[Simcha Levyadun]

People were not really interested in this. I mean, it was a byproduct, nobody paid attention.

[Willa Paskin]

But that changed around the turn of the millennium.

[Simcha Levyadun]

This was the time that people started to understand that something is happening though.

[Willa Paskin]

The person most responsible for a new burst of interest in autumn leaves was a renowned evolutionary biologist named W.D. hamilton.

[Simcha Levyadun]

The more influence life has in the universe, the better as far as as I'm concerned. So it would be nice to think of the whole world as a one.

[Willa Paskin]

Living organism in some sense. Hamilton was a giant in his field, generating all sorts of creative theories about the workings of evolution. He was one of the first people to argue that there was an evolutionary basis for altruism. He thought sexual reproduction evolved as a way to avoid parasites. And he proposed novel explanations about behavior of everything from wasps to algae. And in the late 1990s, he turned his attention to fall foliage. If a tree is expending energy to change colors, he thought, then the tree must have evolved to do so for a reason.

[Simcha Levyadun]

What was so important was that he said that the colors has a function.

[Willa Paskin]

But what could that function be? Well, we have long known that plants and animals use color to communicate. Dazzling flowers tell bees and butterflies come here. Brightly colored poison dart frogs and coral snakes signal stay away.

[Simcha Levyadun]

They advertise their qualities. They say, listen, I don't hide myself, it's better don't deal with me.

[Willa Paskin]

Hamilton figured if the natural world is full of species communicating with one another via color, maybe autumn leaves were a communique too. Maybe the trees weren't just inadvertently putting on a show for us. Maybe they were defending themselves. And so he and a couple colleagues at Oxford co authored a paper with a brand new theory.

[Simcha Levyadun]

They propose an anti herbivory hypothesis.

[Willa Paskin]

What does anti herbivore mean?

[Simcha Levyadun]

Means it stops herbivore from eating the plants.

[Willa Paskin]

And the paper made a guess as to which pesky herbivores they might be defending themselves from.

[Simcha Levyadun]

There's an insect that all gardeners loathe, Aphids.

[Willa Paskin]

Aphids are a family of SAP sucking pests. There are more than 5,000 different species of them and some are known to cause tremendous damage. They're a nightmare for anyone growing veggies. They pierce leaves and stems with their stylet and suck out sugary SAP. Hamilton and his colleagues hypothesis was that the bright colors in autumn leaves were to keep aphids from doing exactly this, that the colors were basically a warning sign to deter aphids, telling them, hey, don't suck your SAP here. Their paper was published by the Royal Society in 2001, shortly after Hamilton died. It cited data that seemed to suggest that aphids behaved differently depending on a leaf's color. And suddenly, scholars started to pay attention.

[Simcha Levyadun]

It was controversial. Very quickly, there were several dozen papers published with some nasty quarrels. Some papers were not so polite.

[Willa Paskin]

Botanists, who tend to study the specifics of how plants really work, faced off against ecologists, who tend to take a broader view of species interactions.

[Simcha Levyadun]

And it's very good in science when people start to argue because it intrigues many other, and people start to think so new ideas are coming, are added to this theoretical soup.

[Willa Paskin]

Soon, scientists had to mix our metaphors, chewed some holes in the original soup. That first paper had made no distinction between yellow and red leaves. It said aphids might be deterred by both. But other scholars proved within a year or two that far from deterring aphids, yellow seem to do the opposite.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Yellow attracts aphids because when it's becoming yellow, it's full of amino acids and many aphids drink it like we drink some juice with a straw.

[Willa Paskin]

So yellow did not seem to be defensive, at least when it came to aphids. But what about red? A 2008 study showed that aphids did appear to find red leaves less attractive than green ones. And there have been many, many ideas proposed as to why. It could be that red is there to cover up the yellow aphids like so much, or that the red just makes the leaves appear dark and thus invisible to bugs. Or maybe it's not the color itself, but the chemicals, smells, taste, and toxins that can go with it. Simcha has studied the research extensively, and he believes all 25 years of work work adds up to a basic confirmation of Hamilton's original hypothesis. At least one of the functions of autumnal leaf colors, and red in particular, is a defense against pests, not only aphids.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Many, many, many types of herbivores are deterred by red. The red says, pay attention, red is danger.

[Willa Paskin]

He thinks the evidence shows caterpillars and fungi also get the message in various ways and that the trees are protecting themselves against all of them.

[Simcha Levyadun]

And I think this is enough.

[Willa Paskin]

But not enough for everyone.

[Suzanne Renner]

If there was a person predisposed to believing in signaling from plants to herbivores, it's me of Course, plants signal to insects.

[Willa Paskin]

Suzanne Renner is a botanist and an honorary professor of biology at Washington University in St. Louis, who first became enamored with her field by observing bee and flower interaction.

[Suzanne Renner]

But there's so many implausible aspects of the idea that red or yellow leaves in the fall would signal to insects. There is no evidence.

[Willa Paskin]

Suzanne doesn't buy, that a tree would be expending all this energy to ward bugs off of leaves that are on the verge of dropping anyway.

[Suzanne Renner]

We are talking about leaves about to be shed from which the nutrients are being removed. Why would any tree have a selective advantage from telling some aphid to either eat it or not eat it?

[Willa Paskin]

Besides, she argues, in the autumn months, aphids don't care about leaves. What they care about is bark.

[Suzanne Renner]

They're looking for a crevice to put their eggs in. They are not looking for leaves. They are not feeding. They're concerned about putting their little eggs in a protected place so it will be able to withstand frost.

[Willa Paskin]

Furthermore, she says that in the nearly 25 years since the paper came out, nobody has been able to identify a species of aphids that actively avoids red fall leaves.

[Suzanne Renner]

I think it is implausible that we will ever find an herbivore, pollinator, or fruit disperser reacting to the leaf red. I think it is completely implausible. Completely implausible.

[Willa Paskin]

But just because she doesn't think the red is deterring pests does not mean that Suzanne thinks the red in leaves isn't doing anything. It's just that her research has led her to a different conclusion. About what? It started with some observations about where leaves turn red. As you may or may not be aware, autumn's color palette is different depending on where you live. When people travel from all over the world to Vermont, they're seeking out multicolored forests streaked with red. But that's a different view than the one you might get in, say, Colorado.

[Suzanne Renner]

You never see a red leaf in Colorado. I'm only exaggerating very, very slightly. All of Colorado is yellow.

[Willa Paskin]

And it's not just a matter of how far north you are. Boston and Rome are on the same latitude, but you won't spot many red leaves along the Via appiah. And when Suzanne conducted research on a species level, she confirmed that this was the case.

[Suzanne Renner]

What we found, both experimentally and by monitoring, is that many more species in eastern North America produce the red color than European and Asian tree species.

[Willa Paskin]

To be clear, it's not that all trees in eastern North America turn red in the fall, and There are Asian species that do turn red, like the Japanese maple. But in general, Suzanne found there was a pattern.

[Suzanne Renner]

So why could that be?

[Willa Paskin]

Why would a tree species that evolved to survive in New England be more genetically predisposed to have red leaves than a tree that evolved to survive in Italy? And she realized the answer is light.

[Suzanne Renner]

This same latitude in eastern North America will get more incoming light in September compared to Europe.

[Willa Paskin]

It may sound strange, but it's true. The Northeast in fall is exceptionally sunny. It has to do with how land masses, oceans, and wind affect our cloud patterns.

[Suzanne Renner]

And this is highly statistically significant. Okay, and so then if you have all this light coming in in September, October, then it makes sense that you would want to protect your leaves against.

[Willa Paskin]

Excessive light, just as it is with humans. Excessive light can be harmful for trees. It can degrade the nutrients the trees are trying to p pull out of their leaves.

[Suzanne Renner]

Excessive light can damage nuclei, can damage the cells.

[Willa Paskin]

And Suzanne knew there was a chemical that had been shown to protect a plant against the dangers of excessive light. Anthocyanin. The very same chemical that makes leaves in the fall red. And so Suzanne had her answer. In 2019, she co authored a paper arguing that the red wasn't acting as bug spray. It was sunscreen.

[Suzanne Renner]

Having this sunscreen, this red anthocyanide sunscreen in your leaves would allow you to pull back the nutrients for a little longer, maybe seven days longer.

[Willa Paskin]

And Suzanne says this is the answer to the mystery of why leaves turn red.

[Suzanne Renner]

Isn't it a wonderful story? Isn't this all wonderful evidence of how plants have managed, managed to evolve strategies to handle all these terrible conditions they are exposed to? Isn't that wonderful? I think it's absolutely wonderful.

[Willa Paskin]

Simcha Levyadoun doesn't deny the sunscreen explanation.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Yes, why not?

[Willa Paskin]

But he's not too troubled that in the 25 years since the herbivore hypothesis was first proposed, there's been no new experimental evidence suggesting any actual pest is deterred by red leaves. It is, as ever, hard to prove.

[Simcha Levyadun]

A negative, because the animals that are deterred by something are not there. So you cannot measure them because they are not there.

[Willa Paskin]

He's certain that the bug spray explanation can be true at the same time as the sunscreen one, that a red leaf can protect against sunlight and simultaneously defend against aphids and caterpillars and fungi.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Listen, you have a stove at home. You can cook potatoes, and you can cook a chicken or pork or beef. I mean, you have a tool. Why not use it for several functions?

[Willa Paskin]

I have to confess, at this point, as a non scientist, I felt properly unsettled. Discovering that we could not reach consensus on even the simplest seeming kids question surprised me. My instinct was to make like Simcha and say, hey, why can't all of these things be true at once? But maybe that's an oversimplified dodge. Just because a stove can cook sweet potatoes and chicken and carrots all at the same time does not mean that it is. It was all enough to make me want to go out and look at some actual leaves. Should we go through the woods?

[Suzanne Renner]

Yeah, sure. Right through here.

[Willa Paskin]

I took a walk through Brooklyn's Prospect park with Malcolm Gore. He's the Prospect park alliance arborist, which means he takes care of the park's 30,000 trees. What's those ones over there that are going.

[Malcolm Gore]

Those. That looks like a sweet gum to me. I like to call sweet gums the rainbow tree because they, like, change on a gradient from red to yellow to purple from the top down. So they're like, gorgeous.

[Willa Paskin]

The leaves in this park and elsewhere are not aware of the debate raging around why they do what they do. They're not aware that even this seemingly simple matter has run afoul not only of the limits of our knowledge, but the limits of our ability to agree about that knowledge. They just keep doing their thing.

[Malcolm Gore]

The maples are classic, and they have different variation in their color.

[Willa Paskin]

Like, two of them look like they have, like, that have frosted tips. Yep. The other one is, like, mostly red, right? Yeah.

[Malcolm Gore]

A tree that we have in Prospect park that is not around in a lot of other parts of New York is black gum or tupelo. It's kind of more of a southern tree. And they get this, like, iridescent red. It's like they almost like, glow with their, like, reddish purplish hue when they.

[Willa Paskin]

Change color and all the color. The reason that people really care about autumn leaves in the flower first place is what Malcolm thinks is most fascinating too.

[Malcolm Gore]

It's just a beautiful thing. Like, for me, as a practitioner, I'm not a scientist, I, you know, maybe trees are just doing it because they like to be pretty. Like, you know, it's their. It's their showoff season or something like that.

[Willa Paskin]

Like peacocks.

[Malcolm Gore]

Yeah, exactly. It's possible that they are doing it for. For us, you know, probably not.

[Don Martin]

But.

[Willa Paskin]

Autumn in New York, why does it seem so inviting? When we come back, returning to a more edible fall mystery, it's the case of the cookie you can't get in summer. Some days we celebrate the wins, like calling your best friend to congratulate them on a big promotion or texting your grandmother Happy Birthday. Other days we work through the tough stuff, like calling a partner to deliver bad news. Whatever the reason for picking up the phone or sending that message, staying connected matters. That's why, in the rare event of a network outage, AT and T was will proactively credit you for a full day of service. That's the AT T guarantee. So what are you waiting for? Send that message to someone you miss. Make that call you've been putting off, because those are the moments that matter most. AT and T connecting changes everything. Terms and conditions apply. Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more cause by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers must be connected to impacted tower at onset of outage. Restrictions and exclusions apply. See att.com guarantee for full details. This episode is brought to you by Saks Fifth Avenue. Saks makes it easy to find the perfect gifts and holiday looks that suit your personal style. The holidays can be a lot of things fun, relaxing, heartwarming and yes, sometimes even a little stressful. That's why it's fun to go to Saks.com where shopping feels easy and exciting. Whether it's for me or my family and friends, or even the pickiest person on my list who also happens to be me, Saks actually has truly so many designers to choose from. It is an incredibly robust amount. I had a number of nice looking VIN sweaters, including one with a very wide neck that looks chic and cozy. Also, I've been toying with the idea of button downs and boy does Saks.com have button downs. Everything from a classic white version from Max Mara to a Ralph Lauren Pussy Bow version to an Alice and Olivia silk number in I'm not kidding Willa Style. If you're looking for shopping to be personalized and easy this holiday season, then head to Saks Fifth Avenue for inspiring ways to shop for everyone on your list. So as you've heard, for some fall is a time of pumpkin spice lattes or of changing leaves, but for others still, autumn means something else entirely. My mother. She really does associate it with the release of Malamars.

[Grace Dewey]

I just love chocolate.

[Willa Paskin]

The first voice you just heard belongs to Lauren Tarr. I am a writer and a editor.

[Grace Dewey]

And a blogger and I'm Grace Dewey and I'm an 82 year old mother of this darling daughter, almost 83.

[Willa Paskin]

So we should clarify that so. And for Most of those 83 years, Grace has been a fan of the Malamar, a cookie based upon the classic campfire treat, the s'. More. It's a disc of chocolate sitting atop a round graham cracker bottom. And. And both are coated in chocolate. They look kind of like brown hockey pucks. And Grace finds them totally irresistible.

[Grace Dewey]

I leave them in the refrigerator, and I kind of pick at them all day long.

[Willa Paskin]

How many do you think you eat a day? I'm not so sure she's going to be honest about that answer.

[Grace Dewey]

At least a half a dozen.

[Willa Paskin]

Do your friends know about this?

[Grace Dewey]

Of course they do.

[Willa Paskin]

Do they come over for a Malama?

[Grace Dewey]

No, no, no. I'm not sharing.

[Willa Paskin]

And Grace is not alone in her Malamar obsession. These are Malamars, the best cooking known to man.

[Don Martin]

Every single time that I see them.

[Simcha Levyadun]

I always have to buy two boxes.

[Willa Paskin]

The marshmallows, the cookie, the chocolate is like the trifecta of flavors and textures.

[Suzanne Renner]

This is a superior snack.

[Willa Paskin]

And the testimonials aren't just on TikTok. They're all over popular culture. Well, why don't you just say something so I can become hysterical? Eat a box of Malamaz and get it over with. They're beloved by both the Golden Girls and the Gilmore Girls. What the hell is this?

[Carolyn Super]

My birthday Malamar's, she says.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Like I should just know this.

[Willa Paskin]

They've been celebrated in When Harry Met Sally got Malamar's the greatest cookie of all time, and even Tony Soprano guards them jealously. I do something wrong Sunday, my house.

[Don Martin]

Box of Malamars on the counter, empty.

[Willa Paskin]

You think I don't know it was you? Despite having so many fervent admirers, you may not be familiar with them at all. And that's because they are largely a regional delicacy, even though they are now made by Mondelez, the multinational food company that also makes Oreos and Ritz crackers and Sour Patch Kids. They are sold almost exclusively in the Northeast. In fact, Grace was introduced to them as a little girl in Brooklyn. Malamars were her grandmother's favorite.

[Grace Dewey]

And the funny thing is, growing up, I didn't realize that it was a seasonal thing.

[Willa Paskin]

And that's the other reason Malamars may be hard for you to spot. Their yellow boxes don't arrive on shelves until right after Labor Day, and they disappear again in March.

[Grace Dewey]

And once I discovered that I got as many as I can, I'm obsessed with getting them on sale, and I. I stackpile them in my pantry.

[Willa Paskin]

Like, are you Paying attention to, like, it's about to be Malamar season. Like, do you know when it's coming?

[Grace Dewey]

Oh, yes, I definitely know when it's coming.

[Willa Paskin]

How many do you think you get a season?

[Grace Dewey]

Probably a dozen.

[Willa Paskin]

No, you have a dozen in your pantry right now.

[Grace Dewey]

I don't like to tell my daughter.

[Suzanne Renner]

Everything.

[Willa Paskin]

But Grace is not stockpiling boxes just for her own pleasure. My mother's obsession with Malamars definitely grew when she realized her grandchildren enjoyed these. They all have come to know as.

[Carolyn Super]

Soon as September comes, they will be.

[Willa Paskin]

Having a package delivered to their door filled with Malamars from their grandmother.

[Grace Dewey]

I'm hoping that they don't share with.

[Willa Paskin]

Their roommates, and that's because of how hard these boxes are to come by. Amassing her annual cash has required some craftiness on Grace's part because she is far from the only person who is so keen on Malamar's. They're treated like a precious commodity in some places. Her old supermarket on Long island put strict limits in place. Customers could purchase only two boxes at a time.

[Grace Dewey]

So my strategy for that would be to take the tool that I was allowed to get, put them in the car, and go back into the store. But then I had to find a different checkout cashier so that she didn't recognize me and say, oh, you have already here and you already had your two limit.

[Willa Paskin]

She has been known to go to different grocery stores in the same week if that strategy didn't pan out the way she hoped. And this brings us to the mystery at the heart of the Malamar. Why on earth is Grace required to jump through all these hoops for a cookie? Why are Malamars sold like this? Why can you only get them for half a year? I thought I knew part of the answer. My dad's a Malamar fan himself. Every year when they first go on sale, he snags a few boxes. I have to admit that I don't find them to be particularly special. But we have talked many times over the years about their strange schedule, which does go back more than a century. And that's because it's a solution to a problem that has plagued Malamars since they were first invented. Malamars were introduced by the National Biscuit Company, later Nabisco in Hoboken, New Jersey, all the way back in 1913. Then, as now, a Malamar was a mound of marshmallow sitting atop a graham cracker bottom and covered in chocolate. But something back then was not the same, especially in the summer, in the intense heat.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Food preservation became a problem of increasing gravity, milk size, meat spoiled and vegetables withered.

[Willa Paskin]

And you can only imagine what might have happened to the chocolate in a Malamar. And so, to avoid the cookies turning into a gooey, dirty mess, Malamar's could only be distributed in the cooler months. And that schedule has remained in place for the past 112 years. It's remained even as the packaging has changed. It's remained even as the Behren company has gone from Nabisco to Kraft to NOW Mondelez. And that whole time, whenever the cookie's various owners have been pressed on its quirky and ancient scheduling, they have insisted this is just what the Malamar requires. It is one of the only cookies covered in pure chocolate.

[Don Martin]

And because it's real chocolate and such.

[Willa Paskin]

A thin coating of chocolate, Malamars aren't.

[Don Martin]

Available during the summer months. You can only find them on store.

[Carolyn Super]

Shelves between October and April.

[Willa Paskin]

That's a newscast from 2000. The then owner, Kraft, confirmed to another reporter that Malamar's had to be baked only during cooler weather because the pure chocolate is susceptible to excessive heat. And in the summer, the chocolate would apparently melt and the cocoa butter would leach out, turning the cookie white. That does seem like a fate a Malamar should try to avoid. And yet a quick perusal of any corner or grocery store reveals tons of chocolate products for sale all year round, none the worse for wear. And that's not some brand new human capability. Modern dairies now, by the use of refrigerated and ice trucks, transport the products to the surrounding territory speedily and efficiently. The refrigerated truck was invented all the way back in 1938 by a guy named Frederick McKinley Jones, a black engineer who whipped one together in just a few weeks and then co founded a refrigerated truck business that by the 1950s had perishable food shuttling across the country year round. It may have taken a few more decades to perfect chocolate that would melt on hot store shelves, but thousands of other chocolate products seem to have figured it out. This is the most powerful nation on earth. Can't we figure out a way to refrigerate Malamar's Properly? A 2004 episode of Conan featured a whole rant challenging the company line on the stage seasonality of Malamars. I should be able to eat Malamar cookies anytime I want, even in the summer. So what gives? Are Malamars just some kind of purist holdout chocolate traditionalists who don't want anything to do with preservatives? And newfangled non melting technologies. I needed to figure out how this cookie really crumbled. And so I reached out to Carolyn Super, a brand manager at Mondelez, who oversees Malamar's.

[Carolyn Super]

Among other cookies, honey made graham crackers, Nilla wafers, Fig Newtons. So it's. It's a big cookie job.

[Willa Paskin]

Were you familiar with Malamars from your childhood?

[Carolyn Super]

I was not. I was actually. I grew up in Idaho, so I had never even heard of Malamars before I took this job. And I. The first time I had them was today.

[Willa Paskin]

Really?

[Carolyn Super]

Yes. Yeah.

[Willa Paskin]

That's incredible.

[Carolyn Super]

Well, since this job, I started it in February, and as you know, it's a seasonal item, so I haven't really even had a chance to try them until now.

[Willa Paskin]

What did you think?

[Carolyn Super]

I loved them.

[Willa Paskin]

After her review, we did get down to the business at hand. Why are Malamars sold this way?

[Carolyn Super]

Part of the reason why it's only available in the fall is it's actually real chocolate as opposed to some other products out there. So, so traditionally, we couldn't ship it in the summer because the real chocolate would melt. So we had to wait until like, those leaves were falling to start shipping it out.

[Willa Paskin]

So, okay, yes, the melting was genuinely the reason we couldn't have Malamar's year round. But what I really needed to know from Caroline was, is that still true in 2025?

[Carolyn Super]

No. We have the technology to be able to ship the products full year around.

[Willa Paskin]

So if Malamar's can be sold year round, why aren't they? Why is this cookie being sold like it's 1914? Caroline says part of the answer actually does have to do with the Malamar's chocolate, though not how melty it is. It's about how it's manufactured.

[Carolyn Super]

So there's a biscuit at the bottom and then there's marshmallow on top. And then it's. The technical term we use is it's enrobed in chocolate.

[Willa Paskin]

Picture little naked Malamars, just a graham cracker and a puff of white marshmallow. And imagine they are waiting in the Malamar factory to get dressed, enrobed in chocolate.

[Carolyn Super]

And then just like the enrobing process, it's just you, like, literally dunk it. It's a very manual factory. So there's just a lot of people who are always, like, there, as opposed to some other factories that have a lot of machines.

[Willa Paskin]

But the very manual Mondelez factory in Toronto, where the Malamars get enrobed in, has to dress other cookies too.

[Carolyn Super]

We share the manufacturing location with our other brands. So there's Oreo and Robed that runs on that line. Pinwheels run on that line. So we also have to balance how much we can really run at one time.

[Willa Paskin]

So I mean, what you're saying is like, because Malamars are made in a factory that has like enrobing capabilities, when Malamars are not in production, you are using those enrobing capabilities and a whole bunch of other cookies. And if you were running Malamars all.

[Carolyn Super]

Year, you couldn't do that 100%. So Malamars we run mostly in July and August. We run 80% of all of the volume in July and August.

[Willa Paskin]

In the summer.

[Carolyn Super]

Yep, exactly.

[Willa Paskin]

See, they're not really worried about melting and they don't want to bump other cookies like chocolate covered Oreos from access to the company's enrobing facilities. But presumably they could and would rearrange their production schedule if it made financial sense to try churn out Malamar's year round. So there's something else too, maybe the biggest factor of all, and it's that selling these cookies six months of the year, selling these cookies that are handed down from generation to generation that have been sold this way for over 100 years, that's part of what makes Malamar so desirable in the first place.

[Carolyn Super]

I think a lot of the fad and the excitement is that they aren't available year round.

[Willa Paskin]

Malamars are scarce. And so when they do come around after Labor Day, it's an event. An event customers are eager to promote all by themselves.

[Carolyn Super]

I have been on the hunt for.

[Willa Paskin]

These cookies for weeks in the grocery store yesterday and I saw the Malamars.

[Don Martin]

And I got really excited because like it's Malamar season. They're back.

[Willa Paskin]

I'm hopped up on the Malamars. Do you ever eat the Malamars, John? What's that? You've never had a Malamar? It's a seasonal cookie.

[Carolyn Super]

We have that talkability where we don't actually do a ton of marketing. We're just this tried and true product that comes back every year at the same time, always after Labor Day. And it's really the word of mouth marketing. Some retailers actually cut a spot on their shelf for Malamar's. They plan for that space to be open just for us to be on shelf. Like shoprite has this in mind.

[Willa Paskin]

Like everybody's in it together about like the seasonality of Malamar 100%.

[Carolyn Super]

So I think that the fad would, I think, kind of die in the interest and people wouldn't be looking for them as much in the fall.

[Willa Paskin]

The funny thing about all of this is that Malamar's, by not changing their sales strategy for a century, has ended up with the most cutting edge way to sell anything right now. Organic viral marketing built around scarcity. This is how sneaker drops work. It's Monday morning, so here's all the sneakers dropping this week. Just like every other release week we're talking about just how limited are the.

[Simcha Levyadun]

Air Jordan 4 rare air.

[Willa Paskin]

Check out these kicks that were just delivered to my house. They're one of 100. It does seem like a very newfangled way to sell an old cookie, right?

[Carolyn Super]

And we were the trendsetters.

[Willa Paskin]

And for Malamar's, it's still working.

[Carolyn Super]

We actually sell like $13 million worth of the product just from September to like February, March when they become unavailable, which is sometimes the size of our other cookie brands that are sold full year.

[Willa Paskin]

Around 13 million is about the same amount that Pinwheels make. Pinwheels are another chocolate covered marshmallow cookie similar to Malamar's, but they're on shelves the entire year and despite being always available, they don't get nearly the attention Malamars do. So the answer to the mystery of why people like Grace Dewey can't buy Malamars all year is the company figures she would probably love them a whole lot less if she could. And they might be right.

[Grace Dewey]

That is part of the fun. Most definitely part of the fun. You can't get them every day, so it's very special when they do come out. You know, at my age, one month after another just repeats. But as soon as I see that ad that it goes on sale, I know it's fall and it's Malamar season and I have to start collecting. And it's a little sad too, when the warm weather starts coming and there's none to be had by the end of the season.

[Willa Paskin]

Like, you can tell me the truth, it's okay. But like, by March, are you like, I'm sick of this cookie.

[Grace Dewey]

I never get sick of them.

[Willa Paskin]

This is Decoder Ring. I'm Willa Paskin. If you aren't already a Slate plus member, please subscribe now from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or you can visit slate.com decoder ring/ to get access. Wherever you listen, Slate+ members get access to all of Slate's great audio content, including shows like Slate and Money, which just had a very entertaining episode about what I find to be a surprisingly cozy and fascinating crime. The Louvre heist. It's just so autumn coated for some reason. Slate plus members also get access to our bonus episodes, including the one we have this week about another seasonal mystery. People complain about the holiday season starting earlier than ever every year, but is that really true? Is that a recent phenomenon, or does it just feel that way?

[Don Martin]

I found something as far back as 1883. The Washington, D.C. evening Star says the holiday season of trade seems to begin earlier every year, which sounds very much like the sort of thing people would say now.

[Willa Paskin]

This episode was produced by Katie Shepard. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie, Me, Max Friedman, and Evan Chung. Our supervising producer, Merrick Jacob, is senior technical director. We'd like to thank Brian Gallagher, Tom Arnold, Sylvie Russo, and Lauren Robinson. I also want to direct you to Don Martin's new reported audiobook, all about loneliness. It's called Where Did Everybody Go? If you're looking for something chewy to listen to, and if you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at decoder ring slate.com or call us on our phone number at 347-460-7281. We love hearing from you guys and we will see you in two weeks.

[Don Martin]

Hi, I'm Josh Levine. My podcast the Queen tells the story of Linda Taylor. She was a con artist, a kidnapper, and maybe even a murderer. She was also given the title the Welfare Queen, and her story was used by Ronald Reagan to justify slashing aid to the poor. Now it's time to hear her real story. Over the course of four episodes, you'll find out what was done to Linda Taylor, what she did to others, and what was done in her name.

[Willa Paskin]

The great lesson of this for me is that people will come to their own conclusions based on what their prejudices are.

[Don Martin]

Subscribe to the Queen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now.