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Your e-Mails

Katie Drummond	All this talk of custard and carveries reminds me of a great moment of schadenfreude I experienced as a child. My grandfather, a retired policeman, liked to treat his family by taking them for Sunday lunch at the Metropolitan Police Club in Chigwell, Essex. Sunday lunch was a magnificent carvery. A table as long as an Olympic-sized swimming-pool stood against one wall. At the far right hand end were two jolly carvers, sharpening their huge knives promisingly over an immense joint of beef, a golden turkey and other assorted hunks of burnished protein. Down the rest of the table was spread a dizzying array of vegetables, glistening under the hot lamps. At the far left hand end was a selection of puddings to which each person could help him or herself after personally demolishing enough Sunday lunch for a family of four. And between the last vegetable and the first pudding stood two big bowls with ladles: one brimming over (not literally, of course, that would be a bit disgusting) with a rich brown gravy; the other a font of purest 'real' custard. Imagine my ten-year-old delight when I saw a man arrive at the end of the line of vegetables, his plate heaped high with thick slices of lamb, roast parsnips, glazed carrots and all the riches the carvery had to offer, only to hesitate over the two bowls and finally plump for a generous quantity of custard ladled over every inch of his food. I wonder what he thought when he sat down at his table and tucked in. And what on earth do you suppose he thought he was putting on his roast potatoes? Incidentally, do you think this could be an example of the famed bottomless custard?
	Nicey replies: I reckon he thought it was cheese sauce. Certainly sounds like an impressive amount of custard, much more than you would see in the domestic setting, and probably requiring special equipment to make it such as a huge saucepan.
Christine Davidson Digestive Review	Having conducted a rather interesting experiment with a digestive biscuit we thought you would be very excited at the results and therefore would like to share it with you. We came across this exciting find rather by accident in Waitrose Dorking. My colleague Liz and I were purchasing some digestive biscuits for later this pm and a jar of mayonnaise for lunch time to go with our cheese toasties. At the checkout, with just the digestives and mayonnaise, we were telling the checkout lady how we were going to enjoy mayonnaise digestives for lunch - a passaway comment from one of us about dunking them in tea then followed. To our amazement the checkout lady considered the prospect of this exciting new creation until she realised (because we were laughing) that we were indeed joking. However, on walking back to the office Liz and I decided that we should in fact carry out this experiment and to our complete surprise found out that it works wonderfully well. However I should state - for safety reasons, that you MUST dunk the biscuit prior to dipping in the mayonnaise or risk horrendously ruining the sacred tea. I would urge your community to try out our newly patented recipe! Since conducting this experiment we have now decided to pursue further combinations of digestives, tea and other unlikely partners. I will keep you informed. Liz & Me
Paul Bishop	Dear Mr Nicey, Having not visited your site for some time I was delighted to read your dedication of the year 2006 to the pinnacle of pudding accompaniment – custard. I have yet to find a desert that could not be improved by the addition of lashings of the yellow food of the Gods. Indeed, many main courses would also benefit. I appreciate your position regarding real custard however I have to admit to a liking for custard in nearly all its forms. The ready made and instant varieties all have their position in the custard spectrum and the world of custard would be a poorer place without them. Nevertheless, there is one feature of “real” custard that these pretenders cannot compete with – the skin. Only real custard, when left for the optimum period, forms the to-die-for gastronomic delight of custard skin. I fondly remember the many fights I would have with my brothers over that skin. It was well worth a Chinese burn and a few tooth marks to get the first helping after dinner. Even to this day I try to time my visit to the canteen custard bowl to ensure that there’s a good chewy bit to layer on to the jam roly-poly. If anybody could manufacture and package that skin they’d make a fortune. Bish.
	Nicey replies: Yes Custard skin and Rice Pudding skin are delicacies. Perhaps this is the stuff you would get at a really really posh banquet with the Queen, your own individual giant Custard skin for pudding. I bet she has all sorts of such delicacies at her disposal, apart from caviar and quails eggs, such bacon rinds that have gone really crispy or the really crispy end bits from roast beef joints.
James Huckett	Nicey A friend of mine has recently moved house and his new local have a tradition of sharing cheese on a Monday evening. Last Monday my friend made his debut appearance in the said establishment and was presented with a ‘TUC’ biscuit to accompany his cheese. He said “thanks for the tuc biscuit”. To which the reply was “It is a T.U.C. biscuit, not tuc!” Who is right? And if it is T.U.C. does it stand for ‘tasty under cheese’? Rgds Jim
	Nicey replies: It's a 'tuc' biscuit (actually a cracker really). The strap line is 'TUC in', so it seems pretty wrong to 'T.U.C. in' even more wrong to 'Trades Union Congress in'. Not quite sure what it stands for but I always thought it was evoking links with either tuckshops or Frier Tuck.
Enzo Wagon Wheel Review	Hi Nicey! Love the site and the book (only about halfway through). The reason I'm writing is my dad used to work for Burtons / Westons in Slough, so I have knowledge of the dark arts of biscuitry from these climes. I'll start with a nice simple one : The used to sell reject wagon wheels to the staff. They came in bags of 30! And the defects were such things as too much chocolate on, so there was at least 5mm of chocolate on the top or "offsets" where the two wafers were out of whack. We also used to get "test" batches like Strawberry, Butterscotch and other flavours. At one stage our fridge had about 90 wagon wheels in it! Regards Enzo
	Nicey replies: What a enchanted childhood and fridge you must have had. I think that comfortably trumps 'My Dad's a traindriver/fireman/astronaut'.
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