Cream sticks are the hill I choose to die on

Not too doughy but not too light with a nice yeasty bite when you chew it.

The cream filling must be rich and smooth, not a pudding consistency.

Maple frosting must be slathered over the top.

The perfect cream stick.

We are Holmes County, and although I can’t tell you the origination of the cream stick, I can tell you what they should taste like.

I am far too thorough an expert on the taste and consistency of them: what they should do and shouldn’t do when dunked in coffee. That if they fall apart, they aren’t yeasty enough, and if they do, they’re cake-like, which isn’t my style. If the cream inside is grainy or Bavarian, no thank you, means my weekly dunk will either be the best day of my life or not.

There’s a lot I can opine about the perfect cream stick.

I was cruising a social media platform the other week, and my eyes bugged out of my head when I saw a local that-shall-not-be-named bakery call our beloved cream sticks the L word: Long John.

It was Indiana where I first learned this word existed outside where I go occasionally to buy a Fish & More platter with clams on the side.

I stepped inside a bakery, half of a road trip under my belt, and scanned the menu for cream sticks. Not seeing them, I asked the cashier if they had them. She looked at me with a strange look and said, “We have Long Johns.” To which I said, “Do they have cream on the inside?” She cocked her head and asked, “Why in the world would there be cream on the inside?” And I replied, “Who makes a long stick of dough without cream?”

It was a tense standoff with me leaving clutching a bag of doughnut holes and muttering under my breath.

I am a cream stick purist. I know that in some parts they’re called eclairs or filled Long Johns. Other places they’re called maple bars, and I can’t help but feel sorry for the people missing out on the cream filling we create here in Holmes County.

I have friends and kids and acquaintances that lament the dearth of good baked goods outside our small area. “There’s no pastries like Holmes County,” they say.

When groups of kids visited my own over the years, they would get up early on a Saturday morning and do doughnut tours, sampling to their hearts’ desire the massive variety and goodness on display. Our area proudly shows its colors when it comes to baking.

So while I celebrate differences in culture and diversity, home and hearth, embracing all types of foods and people the world over, I only have this one thing to say: Cream sticks are the hill I choose to die on.

The local bakery that tweeted out a photo of their Long Johns while having trays nestled with all manner of cream sticks several miles away from me? I get that they have places in several states with regional names of pastries to keep up with, but I call it lazy social media.

Create two accounts. Three accounts or four. You must cater to those that keep you in business locally, targeting intentionally. And calling a cream stick a Long John where millions have been purchased faithfully over the years? That’s pie in your face.

My son likes maple cream sticks from Hershberger’s: the fattest, biggest ones in Holmes County. My eldest likes chocolate cream sticks with Bavarian filling; my middle daughter likes a good blueberry doughnut but also a maple cream stick from anywhere. My husband likes a light and airy glazed doughnut, and if he is forced to eat a cream stick, he will scrape off all the frosting and half the cream out of the middle. We all have our tastes.

Me? I’ve described my perfect cream stick because it’s the taste I grew up loving. I have two favorite places to buy them from, but only one is my all-time favorite. Rich and yeasty with filling that holds up to the denseness of the dough. Maple frosting only. Cream stick only.