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 |
Lindsey Dodd
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Dear Nicey
I was interested to note the recent emails concerning our Russian cousins' drinking of tea with jam, and would like to tell Nicky Bramley about my Polish experience: one of the jams of choice which was added to tea in that fine country, by my unfine fellow-at-the-time, was rose jam. It had petals and everything (when I say 'everything' I exclude thorns and hips and leaves and stalks and roots). Rose jam is also a popular choice in Poland's famous doughnuts, which are merrily scoffed in a pre-Lenten fashion (a la pancakes), as is cheese. But that is another - and quite dangerous - matter. Imagine those petals floating up in your tea! Very pretty.
Best regards,
Lindsey.
PS I am currently downing vats of tea (milked, not jammed) in order to rid my mouth of the unpleasant sensation of a Jacobs Kimberley. How can these atrocities be permitted in this day and age?
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Nicky Bramley |
Wow, I’d love to know what type of jam is used in Russian tea.
Strawberry? Lumps of strawberry hunkered at the bottom of the cup
Raspberry? A layer of pips to sieve through your teeth when you get to the bottom
Rhubarb? Stringy floaters
Blackcurrant? Little bouncy purple balls popping to the surface from time to time
Aren’t other countries wonderful?
Nicky |
Nicey replies: Yes it does raise many questions, doesn't it? |
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Isabel Stainsby |
Dear Nicey,
I'm glad that you have decent jam at NCOTAASD HQ - this means you can try drinking tea Russian style. I lived in Russia a few years ago and when I first came across tea-with-jam, I thought "Yuck!" - until I tried it. It's easy to make - make ordinary black tea the way you like it best, then stir in a generous teaspoonful of good-quality, preferably home-made jam. Don't add milk, and obviously you won't need sugar.
Incidentally, the Russians don't always drink tea like this, just when they have people round for tea. The jam (in Russian, varenie) is provided in bowls and people also put it on slices of bread - and it's always home-made and extremely nice.
I do hope you like this new tea-drinking experience. I'm going to go and eat some biscuits now.
Isabel
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Nicey replies: That is so much more impressive than fruit tea. |
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Marge |
Hi Nicey
In this state of tropical weather we are having in Yorkshire (can’t stand it myself, bring back the rain!), do you recommend trying iced tea? I once had this drink in Paris and it was vile and bitter. It is too hot for me to drink a normal cuppa, but I am missing it also. What can I do?
Yours thirstily
Marge |
Nicey replies: Marge,
We would never ever recommend drinking iced tea, its muck. You just need to gather yourself and have a proper cuppa, you'll be fine. Maybe get a few scones and some jam and cream and pretend you're on holiday. I have to say I'm getting quite skilled at scone making, and we have pretended to be on our holidays about 3 times in the last month. |
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Mrs Ann Day |
Good afternoon Nicey,
Love the site. Anything that keeps me off of eBay is a good thing!
Where do you sit on the subject of date slice? Is it a biscuit or a cake or something else? I have made loads of these as they go well at a cricket tea along with the jam and cream scones, chocolate cake and strong tea. I always know when to start brewing the tea....it's when my husband goes in to bat.
As an addition to my extensive cake repetoire I have invented the bakewell slice and the mincemeat and marzipan slice. Basically the same constrution as the date slice but filled with marzipan and mincemeat/jam of your choice. I especially like making them as my husband hates marzipan and I get to eat them all ;-)
On the subject of tea I have been to India on a number of occasions and they can't make tea worth a damn. what with the hot milk and boiling everything up together in a saucepan. What is it with Lipton's Yellow label tea? It seems to be all you can get in hotels. I've travelled extensively and the only hotel where it wasn't on the breakfast table was in The Dominican Republic where they served proper Twinings Breakfast tea.
Best wishes
Ann |
Nicey replies: Ann,
We had a discussion on this very topic not so long ago and agreed that 'slice' should be a recognised term deserving of its own circle in our mighty Venn Diagram of the baked goods world. It has the significant advantage of neatly solving the 'Flapjack dilemma' that has plagued cake biscuit taxonomy theory for years.
Of course the only problem in all of this is that I had just got the diagram looking very nice for the book and I'll have to redo it. |
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