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 |
Enzo
Wagon Wheel Review |
Hi Nicey!
Love the site and the book (only about halfway through).
The reason I'm writing is my dad used to work for Burtons / Westons in Slough, so I have knowledge of the dark arts of biscuitry from these climes.
I'll start with a nice simple one :
The used to sell reject wagon wheels to the staff. They came in bags of 30! And the defects were such things as too much chocolate on, so there was at least 5mm of chocolate on the top or "offsets" where the two wafers were out of whack. We also used to get "test" batches like Strawberry, Butterscotch and other flavours. At one stage our fridge had about 90 wagon wheels in it!
Regards
Enzo |
Nicey replies: What a enchanted childhood and fridge you must have had. I think that comfortably trumps 'My Dad's a traindriver/fireman/astronaut'. |
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Alison Debenham |
Hi Nicey and other fellow custard-lovers!
I think your correspondent Paul should have complained under the Trade Descriptions Act if he only got half a pint of custard. But then I suppose you'd get the Health and Safety Executive saying that it wouldn't be safe to have a bottomless jug in case somebody got scalded. And then there's the Weights and Measures people - it's a bit of a minefield really, isn't it? I suppose one can only hope that, having polished off the first jug-ful, you find another full one appears immediately, as if by magic, on your table.
I suppose the opposite and ultimate disappointment would be to have your pudding fashionably "drizzled" with custard.
TTFN
Alison |
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Paul Coupe |
Hi Nicey,
Last weekend I found myself at a Toby Inn Carvery place in Sheffield, and was tucking merrily into a shivering tower of beef and yorkshire puddings with all the trimmings when thoughts turned to pudding.
Imagine my delight when I spied on the menu a steamed treacle sponge which came with 'a bottomless jug of custard'. This was it, I had found the Holy Grail! Of course I ordered immediately, and regretted not bringing a suitable custard-carrying container with me. A children's paddling pool in the back of the car maybe.
Anyway, it turns out that bottomless means about half a pint. I was disappointed, but at least it saved me the mess of having to empty my coat pockets of custard when I got home. To be fair it was a very nice tasting half pint.
Have any of your other correspondents located the actual bottomless jug of custard at a Toby Inn? It would be worth travelling any distance to see. With my oil tanker.
Cheers,
Paul |
Nicey replies: I think you dealt with that very well, I wouldn't of put up with anything less than about 2pts calling itself bottomless. The younger members of staff can easily see off half a pint each.
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Janet |
Hi, Just to let you know your site was shown on morning Canadian TV here in Vancouver today Feb 15th.
Seems they think the British are pretty darn crazy having a site dedicated to biscuits and custard! They all hate custard - but it's lovely stuff....keep up the good work and by the way Rich Tea and Bourbon are the best!
Janet |
Nicey replies: We may be odd but at least we have a special Canada icon (as well as Custard one). |
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Tomsk |
Greg Shailes mentioned 'lashings' and 'dollops' as standard custard measuring units - I reckon there's a subtle qualitative as well as quantitative difference. Lashings sounds far more liquid (less viscous) than dollop - same sort of difference as a 5W-30 engine oil versus an NLGI No2 grease for the lubrication engineers out there. A dollop would also certainly be smaller than lashings, and might just stay on top of a piece of that jam sponge pudding, while lashings would flow down all the edges and round the bowl until the sponge was swimming in custard. Which takes us dangerously near to thin swampy custard as found in horrible cafés in Harrogate.
Which leads us to a linguistic problem: what if you want large quantities of thick custard? Do you ask for 2, 3, or 4 dollops? Or take a chance with 'lashings of custard please'?
cheerio,
Tomsk |
Nicey replies: I would have thought the next units of measurement would be a 'dribble' for something less than a dollop and 'bucket-loads' for something greater than lashings. As for multipliers I think they are best avoided, you would be far better placed arguing that you had asked for lashings of custard but had only received a dollop rather than you had requested 3 dollops. Just ask for lashings of thick custard, or maybe a bucket-load. |
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