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 |
Helen Taylor
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Dear Nicey,
What can I say, the Kimberley, best biscuit in the world EVER! However, I am a purist and do not agree with the chocolate variety at all. If it aint broke, don't fix it etc. Chocolate Kimberley used only be available at Christmas. I vividly recall a "trolleys at dawn" episode in my local supermarket many years ago trying to get the last tin of them one Christmas Eve morning. I have a sister who lived in London for many years and every time she came home my mum purchased the Kimberley for her - the rest of us didn't deserve them at any other time! Happy memories of all 6 of us being together again around the kitchen table, cups of tea and Kimberley. God, I've got a goo on me now for a pack, must buy some on the way home! I have actually found one friend in Yorkshire who also loves Kimberley but she does have Irish ancestry so it could be that she's inherited the gene. Whenever I brought some back to England with me when I lived there, nobody else touched them.....until they were stale! Strange.....
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Mrs Sarah Mint-Viscount
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Dear Nicey (and Wifey, and NCOTAASD YMOS),
As I listened to Today FM's Ray D'arcy Show this morning, I was getting very engrossed in the debate that raged - a debate on the nomenclature of that delicious little delicacy which is made by mixing Rice Krispies with melted chocolate, and dividing the mixture out into little paper cases to set.
Now, the many NCOTAASD enthusiasts who don't live in Ireland can't have heard the show, so they won't know that the debate in question raged between those who insist that the perennial party favourite made from chocolate and Rice Krispies should be called Rice Krispie Cakes, and those who are adamant that they are, and always must, be called Rice Krispie Buns.
Guest host Jenny Kelly was very calmly handling the situation, as well she might, for she is usually the producer of the Ray D'arcy show, and the show regularly broadcasts very important and controversial debates such as these. But calm as she was, there was no doubt that this debate was getting heated - the emails and texts sent in by listeners were becoming more terse and aggressive by the minute.
Even without hearing this show, your NCOTAASD readers will readily understand how my enjoyment of this debate rose to all new levels, when none other than your good self was suddenly introduced to weigh in with your expert opinion. But I must say I was deeply surprised by the opinion you gave. Stating that you would call them Rice Krispie Cakes was bad enough, but to assert that you had never even heard of them being called Rice Krispie buns? It was almost too much to bear. And then, to my delight and relief, Jenny announced that the result of the poll was in, and that a resounding majority of the voters, well over 70%, agreed with me in calling them Rice Krispie Buns. Phew! I wasn't crazy after all.
Now, the British and the Irish are usually in full agreement on the subject of Tea, Biscuits and Cakes (or Buns, as the case may be). We're both in favour of them. Lots of Them. Lots and lots of them. But as you had never even heard of Rice Krispie Buns being called buns, and as they are buns to the majority of listeners to one of Ireland's most popular radio shows, I can only conclude that here is an issue which divides these two islands more than the Irish Sea divides us, and perhaps even more than the Jacob's Kimberley divides us.
In light of this, I wonder if we on the Emerald Isle deserve our to have our own icon on the NCOTAASD feedback section, as the French, Canadians and Aussies already do? After all we are the only nation to which you have ascribed a national gene allowing enjoyment of a particular biscuit (the aforementioned Kimberley). A little shamrock, perhaps, which would sit so nicely with the other icons, and make my heart swell with pride!
Mrs Sarah Mint-Viscount |
Nicey replies: Well yes I came to much the same conclusions in the news item I posted after the interview. Anyhow you're right the time has come for a proper Ireland icon. I'm normally fairly reticent about dishing out icons based purely on geopolitical boundries but as you all seem to have this weird rice krispie bun thing going on over there in addition to Kimberleys I think you've finally earned it (its a pity you had to mention the others as protocol dictates that they need to go up too (Also the Welsh will be after me again (...oh you left out the Kiwis))). |
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Lisa Power
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Hello Mr. Nicey,
I discovered your site today after hearing the details of your news story on Chocolate Kimberleys being available in Britain on the radio. On reading your news story, and the various comments (particularly Rachael's), I did a little search on t'internet and have discovered this company who distributes Kimberleys, plus their 'sister biscuits' Mikados and Coconut Creams, not to mention a whole host of other Irish delicacies, to a large number of UK supermarkets. I've just been to my local Budgens (Porchester Rd,London W2) to see for myself and there they were!
Really like your site by the way!
Best wishes,
Lisa |
Nicey replies: Thanks Lisa you have probably got to the bottom of it there. Wifey will be off for some Tayto Cheese and Onion crisps now as well as a few Chocolate Kimberleys and a bottle of red lemonade. I wonder if these O'Kanes are any relation to NCOTAASD regular Keith whose email precedes this. |
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Kate Devlin
Kimberley and Chocolate Kimberley Review |
Dear Nicey and Wifey,
Two things. Well, three actually.
1. The book is amazing.
2. I am using it for genuine educational purposes in a University setting. Is this a first? I teach Introduction to Archaeology to 83 first year undergraduate students and in Monday's lecture we will be exploring typology and taxonomies, seriation and the suchlike, and I have decided to make this a hands-on practical involving biscuit sorting. The whole point is to beautifully illustrate the subjectivity of classification, with the added bonus of eating the demonstration materials. Anyway, your book has been properly cited and I'll try and sneak it onto the reading list.
3. As a child of Norn Iron (indeed, of Portaferry, where I read you had visited during the summer) I was unaware that kimberley-mikados-and-coconut-creams were a) separate biscuits and b) unavailable in the rest of the UK, so your book has educated me hugely, and now I've got that annoying jingle stuck in my head on a permanent basis. Thanks for that. Oh, and I tried buying them in Tesco's in Ards shopping centre when I was last home, but their biscuit selection was crap and they had none.
Keep up the good work,
All the best,
Kate |
Nicey replies: Well it's probably a first in that sense. A chap at Bath University is translating it into Chinese for his MA, I asked if they could get somebody to translate it back when he was done as I'd like to see how it turned out. |
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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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