Your Views

Keep 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!

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Your e-Mails

Sara Tumalty	Hi Nicey Thanks for clearing that little one up. I think that you should go on with your choice of bicky. I must say I have never been a big fan of the fig roll but I’ll be backing it all the way… Come on Australia!! Thanks Sara
	Nicey replies: Thank you Sara, You are very gracious. I have to say I didn't realise that Jason was actually interviewing me this morning but then I was a bit out of it as the Wife left in the middle of the night (to go on a girls weekend to Poland (she has strict instructions to bring back exotic Polish Jaffa Cakes) ) and a car alarm woke me up twice after that. Then just before waking I was having a strange dream where the girl from Big Brother who was the actress who pretended to be Australian was pinching a variety of sandwich cream biscuits from a conference room which was sited in the middle of a very busy road here in Cambridge. I think one of the biscuits might have been a form of Canadian Maple syrup biscuit, judging by the colour of its cream. I however didn't mind as I was only on my second best bicycle. Have a nice sensible Friday and a lovely weekend. Nicey
Ruth Civil Café Noir Review	Dear Nicey, I stumbled across your web site whilst googling for "Fox's Chocolate Creations" and was immediately hooked. As a Brit who has been living in that biscuit wasteland known as Canada for the last 10 years I have to admit that it made me feel quite homesick. I wonder if you could help me identify a biscuit that I remember from my early childhood which has almost certainly been discontinued now. During the late 60s/early 70s I looked forward to visits to my Grandparents' house where the class of biscuit was always a cut above that served up in our own household. Cafe Noir was often on offer, but there was also another biscuit (most probably made by the same company as Cafe Noir). It was an rectangular iced biscuit, but the interesting aspect of it was that the icing on the top was in 3 different coloured stripes (one pink, one pale yellow and one brown). An odd combination of colours you may think, and indeed, it was an odd combination of flavours too. The brown icing was definitely coffee flavoured and I imagine the pink was strawberry (though I can't remember for sure). The pale yellow icing must have been lemon I guess, since I don't remember it being anything as exotic as banana or pineapple. As the coffee flavour was my favourite, (Yes - I am one of those strange people who always ate the coffee creams out of the boxes of Milk Tray first) I always consumed the biscuit by nibbling along it's length and getting rid of the pink icing first, then the yellow, until I was left with a long thin strip that just had the coffee icing on it. Yum! Anyway, I would be most appreciative if you, or some of your readers could jog my memory for me and remind me what this biscuit was called. On the subject of other biscuits that have probably been discontinued, another childhood favourite was sports biscuits. These had a stick figure embossed on them in some sporting stance, often the stick figure was holding a ball or a golf club or some other piece of sporting equipment. Am I imagining it or do I also recall an iced version called iced sports? The stick figure bore a strong resemblance to those on some of the playbox biscuits. So perhaps they were made by the same company. Ta Muchly, Ruth
	Nicey replies: Hello Ruth, Our next door neighbour is Canadian, and feels he is living in an Ice Hockey wasteland, so may be that goes some way to restoring balance in the universe. Anyhow many many iced biscuits have fallen by the way side and are perhaps the Sauropods of the paleolithic biscuit world. I say perhaps as the existence of the Cafe Noir however a specialised a beast it may be would need us to have a Brontosaurus or Diplodocus knocking about some place (maybe the Congo) Anyhow back to my point, there used to loads of them and they were all fairly similar and now they all gone. Titans of a bye gone age, now just the Party Ring and Cafe Noir grace our supermarket shelves. However the Sports biscuit is very much still alive and kicking although it has suffered terribly in that all its little sports people are no longer proper stickmen and have plumped up to at least sausage men. Foxs who you mentioned at the start of you mail make them and used to make them too for M&S, which is where you may have seen some iced ones. I spoke to a nice lady at Foxs just before the stick men were put out to pasture who said that they were up to something with their Sports biscuits but wouldn't elaborate. I think she knew we wouldn't be impressed. Playbox biscuits were made by Peek Frean, and I would instinctively attribute many bygone Iced biscuits to Peek Frean and Huntly and Palmers, although this is pure guess work.
Brent Eades	Hello Nicey and Wifey, Am watching a "Biography" program on television here in Canada about the Rolling Stones. Was intrigued to learn that one of Mick Jagger's first audiences was a local friend, whose mum and sister "used to bring out Jaffa cakes and tea while Mick was singing in our house. She did love Mick's singing." So. Was it tea and Jaffa cakes that in truth launched the Rolling Stones? We may never know. But they played an, erm, instrumental part, it seems... Brent Eades Almonte, Ontario, CANADA
	Nicey replies: Actually it would be more shocking if Mick Jagger didn't like Jaffa cakes, and before we lower the tone of the whole site we should probably leave it at that.
Chris Carr Garibaldi Review	I stumbled across your web site whilst ‘Googling’ Peek Freans. It was started by my Great Great Grandfather John Carr with John Peek and Mr Frean and the Carr family ran it right through until the 1970s. I worked there for 10 years but left before the various take overs. Yes, the Canadian Factory was set up by my Uncle Rupert and there are also factories in India called Britannia Biscuits and a factory in Australia, which my father Richard pioneered. I still miss the smell of Ginger Nuts as I go passed the factory on the way to London Bridge station….happy memories. Chris Carr
	Nicey replies: Chris, Thanks very much for getting in touch, you and your family are of course biscuit royalty.
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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