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!

Type some key words here to search the feedback section

Your e-Mails

Mrs Liveinabin	Hi Nicey, I'm a student teacher and I thought you might like to know that next week we are having a whole week devoted to biscuits! We are going to be tasting them, looking at the packaging and design and finally designing and making our own! Hurrah for the biscuit based national curriculum! Kate (Mrs Liveinabin)
	Nicey replies: Hello Mrs Liveinabin, Good luck with all of that it sounds very enlightened. I used to enjoy collecting the YMOS from nursery, a few years back now, on biscuit baking days. There is something unique about biscuits that have been rolled and battered flat over an over again into a tough leathery dough by tiny people. They end up like a sort of biscuit jerky. What makes this even more of a delicacy is the fact that you have enter into lengthy negotiations just to get a bit of your toddlers solitary biscuit which they guard jealously. If I was to conscience the exploitation of child labour then it would be to knock up the occasional batch of their rock hard biscuits. Alas we don't seem to have a suitable icon for such an important topic.
Tim Gwynne Rich Tea Review	Dear Nicey, Sorry to clutter up your inbox with my ramblings but I am a neophyte to this site and I have to get a few things off my chest. Having perused the site and I am puzzled as to why you harbour such a negative attitude towards the lovely Nice biscuit? When I was a toddler in the early Sixties, and my parents were struggling to raise a small family, we were fobbed off with a variety of cheap biscuits in the hope that we might actually eat them occasionally (if desperate, and at gun-point). They tried us on Rich Tea, which only demonstrate traces of something that might be described as "flavour" for the first 25 seconds after the packet is opened; they tried us on Morning Coffee, which were only a marginal improvement (and mainly due to the elaborate decoration); they tried us on Lincoln, which only provide pleasure through stroking the upper surface. Once we were given long, slim biscuits with a thin, hard, lurid, swirly pink icing on top which we liked but were declared "bad for the teeth". Eventually they hit upon Nice biscuits which were not only coconutty but had granulated sugar on top. And proper Peek Frean's Nice too, which were a lovely pure white colour and not the American Tan of the modern impostor. I could eat an entire packet of Peek Frean's Nice right now, if you had a time machine and decided to use it for biscuit retrieval purposes, rather than world domination. Tim P.S. to this day my parents always have Rich Teas in our old biscuit tin with a Kingfisher painted on the lid. They are always soft and smell of damp flannels (the biscuits, not my parents). My children won't eat them either.
	Nicey replies: Its a coconut thing really. Some desiccated coconut is like wood shavings and the taste can be quite overpowering. Although in later years it seems my views on coconut may be softening somewhat I would still like to keep the Nice biscuit at a safe distance. I think this is much like old adversaries who are bound up with one another by historical events but cannot yet bring themselves to regard old foes as friends. I can also see that given the selection of biscuits you were exposed to at a young age that something with sugar on top would have been magnificent and an instant hit. People often forget in our modern days of excess that such simple things were once genuine treats. I still think of the fruit shortcake in much the same way as biscuit whose cup runneth over with bountiful goodness.
Anthony Smith Tim Tam vs Penguin Review	Nicey, I recently read your review of the Tim Tam, comparing it with the Penguin. A most enlightening read indeed. I am an Englishman who has temporarily moved to Australia for a year, and I have been able to purchase and consume a large number of these delicious Antipodean biscuits, especially making good use of the local custom, the Tim Tam Slam. I have tried two varieties: Original and Double Coat. The Double Coat has a thicker layer of chocolate covering it, and is available for the same price per packet. Why bother with the Original, then, you ask? Well, the problem is that the Original Tim Tam comes in a pack of eleven biscuits, or a "share pack" of twenty, whereas for the price of the standard original pack, the Double Coat variety comes in a pack of just NINE. That's 81% of the number of original biscuits. The question, then, is: Is the Double Coat Tim Tam at least 19% better than the Original? Can its extra choc make up for the difference in biscuit quantity, and crown it The Best Tim Tam? I leave it up to you to test this. I remain, Sir, yours sincerely, Anthony Smith
	Nicey replies: I thought he Double Coat ones were certainly better as it gave more of an opportunity to study Arnott's unique chocolate coat, which has a slight caramel flavour. They possibly were 19% better actually. Given that recently we were be told by advertisers about shampoos which could make your hair 81% more shiny or something then I think its fair to measure 'better' in percentage points. Also talking of adverts last night Wifey and I saw an old video of Heart singing their hit that goes 'How do I get you alone?' which always makes me think of adverts for bank loans. Then I realised that with the credit crunch there are no adverts for loans or credit cards right now, and no credit card junk mail landing on NCOTAASD's HQ door mat. That's got to be saving some trees. I've digressed haven't I. Nicey
Charlotte Blue Riband Review	Thanks the new review, interesting that it's Blue Riband and Tunnocks that you compare. As a child there were both in the "nice biscuits" biscuit tin on top of the cupboards that my brother and I couldn't reach even when working in (rare) partnership with a kitchen stool. Your description of the Blue Riband reminded me exactly of the taste I remember from childhood and then, I remembered that my Dad always had the Tunnocks saying they weren't as nice as Blue Riband and he was doing us a favour by eating them and not the Blue Riband. I now suspect that might not be completely true. Thanks Charlotte
	Nicey replies: Very glad to hear that my taste descriptions are relevant. I remember Nanny Nicey opening up a mystery parcel when I was little which had been sent to her by my Nan who was on holiday in Cornwall. I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. I can vividly remember looking up at her and asking her what was in the little tin and being told that I wouldn't like clotted cream
Tim Gwynne Tim Tam vs Penguin Review	Nicey, I note that as I reach my half century my enjoyment of many childhood treats is spoiled by modern repackaging. You have rightly complained about the diminution of pleasure from eating a four-fingered Kit-Kat wrapped in plastic. I cannot enjoy a Penguin biscuit similarly clothed. And there is no place on God's Earth for a yellow Penguin. As children my sister and I would only eat a Penguin in a blue, or at a push green, wrapper. I later found out that my Father heroically unwrapped the red Penguins and re-clad them in the blue and green wrappers. This task was made easier by the fact that my sister and I would carefully unwrap a Penguin, remove the biscuit, and reform the wrapper so that it appeared to be a uneaten biscuit, complete with payload. Now you can't do that with a plastic sheath. Regards, Tim
	Nicey replies: Really. I've always considered it a widely known fact that all green foods, green fruit gums in-particular are derived from Fairy washing up liquid. As such the green penguins were the last to go in our house.
	<< Previous | More >>