The Visor

Cafeteria serving Backer’s traditional recepes

December 15, 2009

Nick Pelini and Allison Jackson

Every week Hoban sells between 800 and 1000 mushie cookies. The popularity of this Hoban staple is seen everyday at lunch, but its history is baked in obscurity.

18 years ago, cafeteria manager Kathy Backer received a new shipment of cookie dough. Unsure how long she needed to bake the cookies, Backer experimented with different cooking times. When the cookies were sold not fully cooked, the students spoke up.

“The kids started to like them a little less cooked. Soon the demand for the uncooked cookies exceeded the demand for the cooked ones,” Backer said.

The cookies were just known as uncooked until a student serving a detention after school in the cafeteria dubbed the cookie with its popular name.

“The name came from a student named Tanya May. She said ‘these cookies are really mushie,’” Backer said.

The name stuck. Only three years after the introduction of the mushie cookie came the invention of one of Hoban’s most unique concoctions: the mushie cookie sundae.

“There was a student that went here [Curtis Witherspoon ‘97] who said he wanted a sundae with a mushie cookie on top 15 years ago,” cafeteria manager Mary Heyden said.

The mushie cookie is not the only treat to rise out of Backer’s oven. Stromboli enthusiasts can also thank her for adding some sauce to their otherwise dull Wednesdays.

“I liked to look at things that students ate at restaurants,” Backer said. “Pizza was always a favorite.”

The reason stromboli has traditionally been served on Wednesday can be answered in one word: preparation. It takes three days to have approximately 336 of these puffy pepperoni-piled pastries ready to go.

Backer’s legendary mushie cookie is still found in the Hoban cafeteria but it is also on the menu at Hoban’s rival school. St. Vincent- St. Mary “borrowed” the mushie cookie recipe from an employee of Backer’s who went to work at St. V-M.

Kathy Backer served 19 years as Hoban’s cafeteria manager. Though she is now retired from this position, she credits the success of the mushie cookie and stromboli to the input and ideas of the students.

“I never got tired of working at Hoban,” Backer said. “I loved the job and I loved the students and I cared what I served them.”

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