Your Views

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Your e-Mails

Keith O'Kane	Dear Nicey and the Wife, We have a vending machine in our office which dispenses a beverage described simply as “soup” with no indication of the flavour. This morning, curiosity got the better of me and I found myself pressing the appropriate buttons for said beverage. The liquid provided had a frothy top, similar to a whipped coffee. Once this melted away, the actual contents of the cup looked and tasted like vending machine tea with added salt for flavour and some green herby flakes sprinkled on top for a pleasing visual effect. It was not possible to determine the intended flavour. All I can say for certain is that it wasn’t tomato, this judgement being based on colour alone. The real treat was the multi-coloured slurry at the bottom of the cup which was reminiscent of a particularly traumatic dunking incident. In future, I will be sticking to the coffee shop downstairs. Regards, Keith O'Kane
	Nicey replies: Given how many people you see not drinking the soup you have to wonder how long that stuff has been sitting there.
Chris Rayment	Dear Nicey and co, Me and m’colleagues have been discussing custard, and have, rightly I believe, come to the conclusion that a drop in sales of ‘proper custard’ is indicative of a drop in the production of ‘proper’ i.e. homemade, trifle. So disturbed are we that we are now bent on the definition of what a 60s, retro, Christmas Day tea, after the turkey sandwiches trifle consists of. There is much dispute over the inclusion of jelly, and the type of fruit and cake to use, but we are all agreed that ‘proper custard’ and 100s and 1000s which dissolve to give a rainbow effect to the topping are essentials, as is the moulded glass bowl bought at Woolworths. We’re thinking of having a ‘trifle challenge’ in aid of charity – as one of the judges I’d appreciate your (and Nanny Nicey’s) thoughts on the matter. Yours, a trifle excitedly (‘scuse the pun)
	Nicey replies: As you know Chris I'm not one for recipes but here is my trifle construction plan. In a measuring jug microwave one strawberry jelly in with a few tablespoons of water till its melted. Add a tin of strawberries in light syrup a hefty slug of cream sherry and make the whole lot up to a pint with cold water. Bung it in the trifle bowl and allow it to set. Take one pack of trifle sponges (you can use other sponges if you like but trifle sponges are best) and arrange them on top and douse them with a bit more sherry. Next cover in a pint of proper custard (not carton, not tub, not instant made with water, proper Birds custard made with milk), and allow to cool. After it has chilled in the fridge, whip up a pot of whipping cream and spread it on top. Then just before serving deploy hundreds and thousands or grate over some dark chocolate shavings.
Geoff Schofield	Wax cartons of custard... an essential camping all rounder. On muesli for breakfast, with ginger cake for dinner, on dried fruit for tea, and as a good solid drink any time of the day...
David Weston	Dear Nicey With utter horror I now find a whole year devoted to a childhood nightmare. Only behind blancmange does custard fall at the top in my list of foodstuffs consigned to Room 101. Granted I can appreciate some people find it an ideal pudding accompanyment but as a child on Sundays it would be terrible. Sunday lunch would often see my brother and I last to finish, in which time my Parents had dished up pudding, invariably some left overs from a cricket tea - Mum's homemade scone drenched in custard. As we struggled through roast beef the custard would cool and slowly the dreaded 'skin' would form. I eventually developed a system of leaving it so long as to scoop the entire gelatinous glob off the pudding so as not to suffer the yellow menace. Because of the forced endurance of this liquid/solid, when my Parents knew full well my brother and I did not like it, I have denied others this 'treat'. In school I would be terrified when the dinnerladies would wheel out the puddings and those enormous aluminium jugs would be sitting next to some sponge product. Foolishly one lady stopped at my table and I reached up to see what was in it, only to topple the entire contents over. Luckily I was not scarred for life by boiling custard but there were many who gave me dirty looks for not having custard that day. I'd mention my pink blancmange fiasco too, as I believe in it's final state custard morphs into blancmange, but I am eating now and I do not wish to spoil anyones lunch, as I did, that fateful day in Primary school, the horror!
	Nicey replies: I like custard skin, its a treat. Blancmange is also wonderful, especially when deployed in its guise of pink custard or chocolate custard over school sponge pudding. I'll have yours if your not going to have it.
Samantha Carr	Hi, I was wondering if you could help me, after a number of discussions with friends I/we are still wondering if their is such a 'job' as a biscuit designer (I believe there is!) If you could get back to me i'd be grateful! Thank you in advance Samantha Carr
	Nicey replies: Well Samantha, The all too obvious answer is, of course there is, otherwise how would we get new sorts of biscuits. They tend to called 'product development specialists' that sort of thing, rather than biscuit designers. As with anything manufactured on a large scale automation plays a huge part in what is possible, not just the recipes. So a bit of engineering know how as well as food science and of course a well tuned palette are needed. Think about all the machines that have to get jam, cream ad so forth in the right places for thousands of biscuits a minute. Depending on the size of the company will depend on how many people are involved in the development team, and how many of those roles are shared. In the United States many products are developed by third party companies to a clients brief or sometimes as blue sky projects that can then be licensed on to large manufacturers. This article from last years New Yorker magazine is an account of how some of these design processes take place. It makes a lot of silly and unsubstantiated parallels to software development which can safely be ignored. It's equally as interesting as it is bleak in its portrayal of mass produced food. At the moment lots of recipes are being reformulated to remove the hydrogenated fat from them and as a result even old faithful biscuits are requiring a great deal of careful 'design' work on them.
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