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Your e-Mails

Hilary Seidman	Dear Nicey and Wifey, I saw your book in the library the other day and borrowed it, and now I am going to buy copies for many members of my family who would really enjoy it. Well done, a really good read with lots of truly vital information, as you will be well aware. But I had to write to ask if anyone knows anything about Milk and Honey Creams. I doubt there was much honey in them, and possibly not any milk, but for me they will always be the quintessence of a jam sandwich cream biscuit. Slightly toffee flavour jam (the so-called "honey") and vanilla "milk". Do you think people were put off by the possible extreme messiness of a Milk and Honey Sandwich? Maybe if it was explained that it was really a toffee and vanilla biscuit then Huntley and Palmers, or whoever they call themselves now, would produce it again, thus taking me back to my childhood and doubtless providing much pleasure to those whose childhoods were bereft of this wonderful biscuit. I like the website too by the way. I live near Belfast and we recently had a Christmas market featuring stalls from all over Europe, but most of my money went to the Breton cake stall. Apple buns, almond slices, chocolate tart, all wonderful. Sadly the market was only there for 3 weeks so I did not have time to eat every item on sale, so maybe I will have to go on holiday to Brittany like you did. Keep up the good work! Hilary Seidman
	Nicey replies: Hello Hilary, Yes I just about remember Milk and Honey's, amongst my earliest biscuit memories, I must have been about 3 or 4 years old. My Auntie Edna had some and they very different to the Crawfords Custard Creams which would have been my benchmark biscuit at the time. At the time she lived in a large old Essex weatherboard house called Clements Hall. I remember eating Milk and Honey's as we went to watch a bonfire in the very overgrown grounds of the place, all sat in a disused tram car that had been salvaged from Southend Piers's light railway. Apparently it's all gone now, I think it burnt down, and a leisure centre has been built there. Although it is part of our missing in action section I have heard tale that Milk and Honeys which like many Huntley and Palmer biscuits were produced under licence around the world, are still made in Malaysia. As for living near Belfast, the same can be said of Wifey's family. In fact Grandma Wifey's unrelenting one woman PR blitz on a poor unsuspecting Northern Ireland after our books publication could well be the reason that your Library has a copy.
Erin Newby Fox's Butter Crinkle Crunch Review	Dear Nicey and Wifey I turn to you having searched long and fruitlessly for the chief biscuit of my childhood, the Treacle Crunch Cream. It came into my life in the late 80s/early 90s and despite being treacle-based, I recall that the cream was reasonably light in colour and clasped by buttery, rivuleted biscuits, similar in taste if not in texture to the biscuits used in that Bar of Sunday Teatime Glory, the Classic. I believe it eminated from the Kings of Crunch-named biscuits, Fox's. I also recall that in that bastion of 80s film, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, the afore-mentioned kids encountered what looked suspiciously like a Treacle Crunch Cream abandoned in the garden and hurled themselves at it with the wild abandon that would be expected when one encounters a biscuit that is many times the size of oneself. Anyway, do let me know if you've seen my beloved anywhere or have heard tales of its return. Thank you Erin
	Nicey replies: Its not in their current range as far as know, but they are always up to something with their crunch range so maybe it will get another chance one day. BTW They have just done a chocolate crunch which is very reminiscent of a biscuit I used to buy from Sainsbury's when particularly flush in the 1980's. Maybe its a harbinger for the Treacle Crunch. In fact you could come up with quite a convincing mythology around biscuits being harbingers for the coming of other ones. In a three weird sisters form Macbeth sort of way.. "When the chocolate crunch is once more upon the shelves of Sainsbury's and Huntley and Palmers arise fro their long slumber with their Olivers all chocolate covered, then shall ye seek the treacle crunch cream - or not".
Allen Bollands	Dear Nicey, I’ve just enjoyed a splendid biscuit, so, when I returned to my desk, I typed “Best Biscuit” into Google, as you do, and arrived at your most interesting site. Like your recent correspondent (Julie Marlow), I am an expat living in Melbourne, and the biscuit that transported me today was an Arnott’s Chocolate Shortbread. Confusing I know, since it’s neither short, nor bread, but as we know nomenclature in the biscuit world is inconsistent at best (i.e. Jaffa Cakes). We really need an international naming convention to sort it out once and for all. Conforming biscuits could advertise the fact on their (cardboard) packets as in: HobNobs (Approved – Societe Internationale de Biscuit Nomenclature, Geneva). Anyway, I digress. The ACS is redolent of Dundee biscuits that I used to enjoy in the schoolyards of my youth, in darkest Sheffield. Extremely moreish, with a pleasingly doughy texture , and lots of clag. You’re picking clumps out of your molars for hours. Allen Bollands Melbourne
	Nicey replies: Good plan in the biscuit naming body, but I can't see its decisions being adhered to if its based in Geneva, as Swiss biscuits are mostly utterly woeful. Most of them would carve out a more useful living for themselves as packing material, given that they tend to be puffed up with air in some fashion, rather than being full of biscuity usefulness. I think I would be tempted to site it on the Isle of Man, which would make it handy for the British and Irish to thrash out the various issues we have in biscuit nomenclature. Actually there aren't too many but it would make a lovely long weekend for everybody and I haven't actually been there, only over it. As for Dundee biscuits the unrest continues here as the authenticity of the ones produced by Cottage biscuits (see our missing in action section) was questioned by one meticulous correspondent. Never having had one I'm unable to comment.
Robin and Danielle	Hello Nicey and Wifey We only found your website three days ago by complete accident, and now it’s the most favourite of our favourites. It’s especially appreciated, since we live in Romania, where the selection of biscuits in the shops is dire, and the black tea is prohibitively expensive (they all drink fruit teas here, for their supposed health benefits). Anyway, the way I stumbled across you was that I was trying to do a Google search for a biscuit called ‘Decadent’ that existed for a brief time in Britain in the late 1980’s (I think). It lived up to its name – it was big, loaded with chocolate chunks and other stuff, expensive and superb. Do you (or any readers) remember it and know what happened to it? Best wishes, Robin and Danielle
	Nicey replies: In the late 1980s my life style was very far from decadent, and I was probably subsisting on large packets of GingerNuts and the odd Digestive. So I never tangled with these biscuits, although they do sound very shoulder pads and loads of money.
Rosalind Levy Custard Cream Review	When I was treasurer of my union branch way back in the 1970s, one of my duties was to buy the tea and biscuits for the meetings. It was then that I discovered orange creams. These are very much like custard creams but with orange filling not vanilla. They are divine. Are they still for sale? It's a long time since I've seen them on a supermarket shelf. Perhaps an orange cream spotting competition with my grateful thanks as a reward?
	Nicey replies: Every so often we get a mail from somebody trying to track down some Orange Creams. The last ones I saw in the wild were in the biscuit aisle of an Iceland as part of a three pack of custard, orange and coconut creams. The Iceland in question has since been demolished and a whole new set of of shops built, so it was a while back. I have seen various flavoured cream biscuits originating from Ireland, such as raspberry creams and these were made I think under the Bolands brand which was used by Jacobs. These could occasionally turn up in the UK in small grocers and the like. Since the acquisition of Jacobs in Ireland by Fruitfield in 2004 I'm not sure what has been happening with the Bolands brand, or products. However we have heard that the Irish have fixed their Club Milk back from the rubbish raft format adopted in 2001 to the proper sandwich format we all know and love, so they certainly seem like a force for good. Yes I am aware that I have completely wandered off the point now.
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