Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Mark Edward |
Hi Nicey,
I noticed quite a few international additions to the biscuit reviews page, so as a POM living in New Zealand for a year, i thought i'd take the opportunity to add the database of world biscuit data.
NZ biscuit information worthy of note:
"Jammy Dodgers" are called "Shrewsburys" over here. For no good reason whatsoever, as far as i've been able to find out.
Kiwis are extremely fond of "Afghans", a rough textured, baked, choclatey affair. Ironically, they are shaped slightly like the funny Pork pie hats that the Taleban wore.
Although not really a biscuit, "Chocolate Fish" seem to be a national institution here, usually used as an incentive for kids to work harder at school.
Hope this biscuit data is of some interest :o)
cheerio, Mark
urther investigation into the mildly odd world of Kiwi bicuits has revealed that Shrewsbury's made specifically by Griffins (http://www.griffins.co.nz/), but a your average Kiwi would call any Jam sandwhich biscuit a Shrewsbury.
As for the chocolate fish, the Kiwis i've talked to about them are shocked to find that they aren't a world-wide phenomenon, as they grew up expecting a chocolate fish (Pronounced "fush" here) anytime they did anything good at school.
Fishy links:
Link to a Cadubury's NZ catalogue (Including Chocolate fish):
http://www.cybercandy.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_6_New_Zealand_6.html
How to get a lifetime's supply of Chocolate Fish :o)
http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~malcolmg/chocolate_fish.html
Some rather ornate looking (and FUN to eat) chocolate fish, but possibly not authentic Kiwi types..
http://www.candydirect.com/html/eng/243287-AA.shtml
Enjoy your chocolate fishing & congrats on the web site (Especially Apocolypse bunny), as you can probably tell i do have a bit of spare time at work at the moment, and your website has been an ideal accompaniment to all the tea and biscuits i've been scoffing :oD
cheerio, Mark
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Nicey replies: Thanks for that valuable biscuit info Mark. Its important to keep a global perspective on biscuits. Do you know if Shrewsburys are generic jam sandwich biscuits, or are made by any company in particular? The Chocolate Fish sound good, do you have a picture or link to one?
Hoorah for odd Kiwi biscuit/cake things! |
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Mike Lamont |
Dear Nicey,
I was browsing around your lovely site and tried to think of the biscuits I enjoyed as a lad. I remembered a biscuit which was fantastically nice and can't remember what on Earth it was called, and decided to seek your advice. It was a donut shaped bisciut, with a 2 colour pattern (actually very similar to the pink and yellow on your site), possibly with a biscuit centre, but not sure about that last bit. The coloured icing coating was the best part. By the way, do you know anything about that cat whos been doing a biscuit column in Loaded magazine?
Thanks for your help
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Nicey replies: I think you speak of the Party Ring, a biscuit which is held in high esteem by many. I saw some in our local Iceland the other week. I don't have time to read anything printed on paper, so no not heard of the biscuit cat, hope he's not talking crap about biscuits.
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Sandie Cleland |
If you're going to talk advanced biscuit eating skills, then surely you have to mention the "kitkat as a straw" technique. If you bite both ends off a kitkat finger, you can then use it as a straw to suck your cup of tea through. The best bit is when you then eat the remains of the tea filled kitkat. Truly wondrous. Best done in private though.
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Nicey replies: You're not alone in this use of chocolate covered items as drinking aids, apparently the Australian songstress Natalie Imbruglia uses Penguins in a similar fashion, although your plan with the KitKats seems much more plausible.
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Mike Brophy |
hello nicey,
wow, i have found your biscuit reviews inspirational. eating biscuits and drinking tea is about all we do at work, so to find a website dedicated to my average day was truly a happy occurence. due to the fact that we also spend much of our time at work surfing the internet it has introduced a wholesome interconnectedness of oneness into my day (and it's a friday so extra warm feelings of contentedness all round).
anyway, on to my cookie centred thoughts. the sainsburys soft cookies comes in packs of five and are well above the average cookie size. truly they are huge, and extremely moreish. they come in several flavours, the best being the chocolate chip ones (mmmm, white chocolate chip - like a piece of paradise on a plate), although if you prefer your biscuits not so sugary then the oatmeal and raisin ones are filling and satisfying. I can't think of a downside to the biscuit itself - but it's packaged as an all-american cookie (rather like the maryland cookie), when it seems to be made instore at sainsburys in their bakery section. I think it must be as sometimes they are still warm and soft, yum!
must go now, keep up the good work,
mike.
hello again nicey,
just got distracted at the end of my message and missed a bit out. it was about why call the cookie an american cookie when it's been made at the store. why don't they say instead;
SAINSBURYS: soft chewy cookies, we've just made them and they're yummy. buy them now or we'll eat them all at lunchtime and then we won't be able to fit behind our tills and you'll get no more biscuits ever
ME: i'm buying them now - don't eat them all, please!!
bye bye again,
mike.
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Nicey replies: Yes good point about the random application of the adjective American, to biscuits. I like to think that Maryland cookies come from a land of Marys, probably like a cross between Munchkin land in the Wizard of Oz, a bakery, and toy town where Noddy lives, with vast Marys the size of tall buildings striding around sort of like the bit in Power Rangers when who ever is doing the fighting gets 40 times bigger for no good reason.
Yes.
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Owen Tromans |
Hello,
I recently discovered your website and I thought you would like to know that my former band San Lorenzo had a song called Sports Biscuits in honour of that great treat. You can buy the album with that song on from Bearos Records whose site you can get to via diskant.net
My mum got some Sports Biscuits in for the last time I visited home. They truly are mega.
OWEN |
Nicey replies: Fantastic a song about retro biscuits. Hoorah. Is there a bit of an MP3 of it anywhere so we could hear this important new direction in 'rock'. If you did one about Abbey Crunch I would probably need to hold up a fag lighter above my head, I expect. |
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