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 |
Charles Hutchinson |
Dear Nicey,
30 years ago while in the cadet force we had some army field rations. In this there was a truely wonderful biscuit. It was like a slightly oversized digestive and somewhat sweeter. I have not been able to find it since . Any ideas?
It could of been terrible and I could have been very hungry but I don't think so.
Also army tea is a very unusual drink all of its own - actually I'm not sure it really was tea. It was also very sweet and milky; I think they used condensed milk to make it.
I have long since given up on any ideas of military action but wouldn't mind another of their biscuits.
Charles |
Nicey replies: I was talking just the other day to somebody about NAAFI digestives which she described as being like a buttery sweet digestive. Perhaps this is your fondly remembered biscuit. |
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Susan Moore |
Are gypsy creams still available, who makes them and who sells them please my neighbour was asking to look out for them when I went shopping. Be grateful to know about these and save wear and tear on my shoes!!
Susan |
Nicey replies: We don't know of any mass produced Gypsy cream being available any place in the UK right now, although we have heard that some small bakers make them. The distantly related Romany Creams can be found in South Africa made by Bakers, or made under license in Australia as Kingstons made by Arnotts. |
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John Kirkpatrick |
Like many of your readers, I have been scouring the supermarket shelves for the long forgotten (but much loved) Royal Scot biscuits of my childhood. Alas, without success. Never to be savoured again, my mother's home made concoction of two Royal Scot biscuits sandwiched together with strawberry jam, white icing on the top and finished with a jelly sweet from some dolly mixtures on the top.
Or so I thought. On a conference trip a couple of years ago, I was surprised to see some Royal Scot biscuits amongst some custard creams, bourbons (61mm!), etc. being supplied at tea-break. It was obvious that they had formed part of some prepacked selection of biscuits. My unanswered question was - were Royal Scot biscuits still being produced or had some hotelier found a very old pack?
Regards,
John Kirkpatrick |
Nicey replies: Well if you look at our Missing In Action section you'll see that the Royal Scot has indeed been out of action for a long long time. I maybe wrong, but I suspect that you had a Round Shortie which in your excitement mistook for the Royal Scot. Of course the Royal Scot was a a good bit thinner a typical round shortie. United Biscuits who made the Royal Scot do make lots of selections like Rover, which find their way into just this sort of situation. The tracking down of the white cream filled Bourbon from civil service meetings to a Rover selection confirms this. |
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Andy Price
HobNob Review |
Nicey,
I was just sitting here in the US as a Scouser in exile, having a nice cup of tea and a sit down at work, when I came across Peter's email regarding Dundee biscuits.
I remember them clearly as well from my childhood days in Liverpool, and they were gorgeous, huge, chocolatey biscuits! I can't remember the last time I had them, but now they've been mentioned, I remember with fondness their taste.
In the US we can get some decent British biscuits (like chocolate McVitie's and Hob Nobs), but most of what is sold is sub-standard cookie-like efforts. It may be worth your while to take a visit to the US to see the state of the biscuit and tea situation; almost inevitably, you get offered "tea" in dodgy cups with the teabag still in it, and the milk (or, horrors, cream) on the side.
The Americans are, by the way, fascinated by my electric kettle (you know, the type every house in the UK has!) ... they still use whistling kettles on top of the oven - how 19th century!
Anyway, your site is great - a nice way to remember England, and I steer both English and non-English friends to it (for educational purposes, of course).
Cheers, la!
Andy Price |
Nicey replies: Yes we had a big discussion about electric kettles and America back in September. The conclusions were that even those electric kettles that did exist in the States weren't able to boil water as fast as our Brit kettles due to their weedy 120V electricity. Hoorah! for proper dangerous power supplies. This seemed to explain the barbarous practice of making tea in microwave ovens, prevalent in the US.
As for dodgy American biscuits, Biscuit Enthusiast Mandy has just brought me back a packet of something with peanut butter in, from New York. I have to have a sneaking regard for the Americans ingenuity in getting rid of their mountains of surplus peanut butter. Perhaps anybody driving one of those odd looking Chrysler Roadsters around the UK might want to get the door panels off just in case the Yanks have stashed a few gallons of spare crunchy peanut butter in there. |
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Peter Lee |
Hello!
Now this is doing my head in...
When I was a kid (32 now, so you're looking at a fair while ago) I used to love these things called Dundee biscuits. I've scoured the net but all I seem to find are these little brown things with what look suspiciously like almonds on the top, and these are most definitely not what I'm looking for. The Dundee biscuits I remember were as follows:
1. Sold in stacks of five or six, wrapped as per Eccles cakes (i.e. in clear cellophane);
2. Approx. 3-4 inches across (as a kid this would have been 12-18 inches);
3. Shortbread-type base;
4. Circular, with a slightly crimped edge;
5. Rich chocolatey topping;
6. Chunky grains of sugar stuck to the underside;
7. The word DUNDEE visible on the underside (standing proud rather than embossed), written in a rugby-ball shape, so the initial D and trailing E were smaller than the rest, the central ND the biggest of all letters.
This is now kind of a mission in life for me - to find Dundee biscuits still on sale somewhere. Some of my friends and family remember them well and have joined me on my quest, scouring local supermarkets wherever they go, whilst others think I have lost my mind and am making it all up, but I am not.
So do you know anything of these biscuits? If so, please help!
Cheers,
Pete |
Nicey replies: Peter,
I never had a Dundee biscuit but I have received other but much less detailed emails about them. Perhaps I should just make a new Missing In Action entry based on your excellent description. |
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