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.

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Your e-Mails

Viv	Dear Nicey, I am a devoted fan of your delightful and informative web-site. Imagine my horror upon landing on your home page to find a globulous and vomit-inducing photograph of custard. I nearly choked on the M&S Viennese Finger I happened to be enjoying. Custard is the Devil's own sweet sauce sir, and should not grace the same site as biscuits. Yours Disappointed from Sheffield
David Blaxill	Evening, Nicey, I seem to be becoming a regular correspondent, which is a refelction on a brilliant website that gets down to life's real issues. Don't wish to hog this section, but I had to reply to Alison Debenham to reassure her she is not alone in the marmalade making industry. My wife Sheila and I took over our family marmalade manufacturing concession about ten years ago, when my mother, then aged 80, decided she'd had enough (of slicing up oranges, that is). We are about to go in search of Seville oranges, a quest not so easy in Finchley now as there is only one greengrocer left - last year I ended up paying half as much again for them in Waitrose. We usually make three batches, each using three pounds of fruit - there is always a demand from family & friends as the finished product is so superior to the commercial one. My favourite is Three Fruit, made from a combination of Sevilles, pink grapefruit and lemons, although I can't resist spiking a few jars of Seville with Bell's whiskey (for personal consumption). I have also found a recipe for rum and raisin marmalade, which we may give a try. I think that once you are used to the home made stuff, anything else is just not up to standard. We are also masochistic enough to make our own jams, wine, chutneys, and pickles. So no, Alison, you are not alone, you are not sad, you are helping to preserve a bit of old England, and long may you continue to do so. Incidentally, a great and simple pudding can be made by making a sandwich of a McVities Jamaica Ginger Cake (that has preferably been left to mature for six months, they improve with age) - filling it with a liberal helping of marmalade of choice, wrap in foil and bake in a moderate oven for 20 minutes. Serve with lashings of (Bird's) custard. And on the subject of custard, Nicey, you are raising an issue which seriously needs addressing. Sales are slumping - the British are not taking their custard seriously enough, and I don't understand why. Do you ever meet anyone who says "I don't like custard"? Proof enough, surely.
Tim Bromhead	I just read your news item about model cities out of biscuits. I know of an artist who uses biscuits in her sculptures and thought you might be interested to see
	Nicey replies: Hi Tim, I'm feeling ever more vindicated about the Hanzel and Grettle section in our book now.
Anthea Marie Review	Thank you for your review on that marvelously bland biscuit we all love so much! I'm an ex-pat South African, living in the USA now, and let me tell you, the food I miss the most is ... You guessed it MARIE BISCUITS. :D Pathetic isn't it? But I really do. We used to make sandwiches out of them with butter and marmite, or just dunked them in our tea (as a kid I could eat half a packet easily!). Sometimes we drenched them with Illovo syrup, and they always tasted good crumbled up in custard and jelly! I loved nibbling off the frilly edges first before delivering the death-blow bite to the center. When I got pregnant with my son, the only thing that helped with the nausea was this innocent little biscuit and our native Rooibos tea. Maybe it was nothing but a placebo effect, but hey, it worked! :)
George Penguin Review	Dear Sir, I am writing to ask you, as a nationally renowned expert on the matter, your views on a certain teatime consumable. Is the 'Penguin' bar a chocolate bar, a biscuit bar, or a biscuit? Of course,I initially assumed it would fall in to the category of chocolate bar, however I than realised that the biscuit/chocolate ratio is actually higher than one imagines (due to the chocolate flavoured biscuit), and that the penguin has a tremendous biscuit heritage as something to be found in the biscuit tin, in among other biscuits, and certainly not a conventional chocolate bar (despite obvious resemblance). I know you are are very busy, but any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Yours faithfully, George
	Nicey replies: George, I will indeed take some time out of my hectic Sunday morning schedule to help you out on this one. This is precisely the sort of trouble one can get into if you think overly hard about the classification of biscuits. The simple answer is that the Penguin is of course a biscuit, technically a member of the chocolate covered count line. So called because when they were first introduced biscuits were sold loose by weight, and these new premium biscuits were sold by number or count. A few other factors for you to consider, they are mostly made from biscuit, by United Biscuits who call them biscuits and they are sold in the biscuit aisle with all the other biscuits, plus they are very good with a cuppa.
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