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The case of the missing stroopwafels

No one is perfect, and mistakes are always going to happen, but good customer service goes a long way to fixing them

John I. Carney
4 min readOct 4, 2022
Photo by Saaleha Bamjee from Johannesburg, South Africa, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I first heard of stroopwafels in 2018, when United Airlines — which had been offering them as a snack item on morning flights — switched to something else, and regular United customers raised a ruckus. The airline soon announced that the stroopwafel would be making a comeback, and that it would be available not just during the mornings but any time of day.

At the time I read those news stories, I’d never had a stroopwafel; I got to try one some time after that.

A stroopwafel is a Dutch cookie, sort of, composed of two crisp, very thin, waffle-textured wafers with a thin layer of caramel between them. The cookie can be eaten as is, right out of the package, but apparently the pro tip is that you rest the stroopwafel on top of a fresh, hot cup of coffee. Most stroopwafels, while quite thin, are large enough in diameter to fit on top of a coffee cup. The heat from the coffee gently warms up the caramel filling, bringing out the flavor. That’s probably why United Airlines thought of them as a morning snack.

Alternatively, you can put a stroopwafel in a microwave for 10 seconds and warm up the filling that way.

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John I. Carney
John I. Carney

Written by John I. Carney

Author of “Dislike: Faith and Dialogue in the Age of Social Media,” available at http://www.lakeneuron.com/dislike

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