| Thanks to our friends Gaz and the Lad (he's 31 but that's his designation since 1995) we have managed to come by some interesting and unfortunately named biscuits. It's been a while since we've had a biscuit with a proper full on comedy name and we've never had a biscuit from Balkans so some Serbian Noblice are to good to pass over. In fact the last comedy biscuit being the 'Super DickMann' was only mentioned by assoociation, when we tackled Lidl's version the Choco Softie. It's no coincidence that Gaz had his hands briefly on a pack of these too.
Gaz tells me that he picked these up on a recent trip to Croatia, and had made a gift of them to the Lad who foolishly had neglected to finish them all. Thus they were left wide open to seisure by marauding biscuit enthusiasts invited into your home to help you see off the enormous quantities of fromage acquired on your last trip to France. A few days later the offending biscuit enthusiast brought round some different and equally exciting biscuits to make amends. Given that these are Serbian biscuits sold in Croatia it instantly brings to mind the most pressing question hanging over the entire region in the 21st century. Why do countries who visited so much dreadful violence upon each other in recent history vote so readily for each other in the Eurovision song contest each year? I'm sure there are probably some very long and serious answers to that, however I shall just remain curious and ignorant.
So Noblice no doubt translate to something perfectly lovely in Serbian, my best attempts using the might of some website that purports to translate Serbian to English place it as an 'aristocratic stuffed bun'. Not too helpful there especially given the tricky bun word something that is not universally taken to mean the same thing. Yes Noblice as a quick glance will tell are some type of chocolate cream sandwich biscuit.
The Noblice is not altogether unfamiliar, in fact just across the Adriatic sea in Italy the Ringo which we examined in our Pan European Choc Sandwich has more than a passing resemblance, having its upper biscuit plain and its lower one cocoa flavoured. And Serbian manufacturers Banini even have a Italian sounding name. What I particularly enjoyed in the manner of an ex-smoker having a crafty cigarette due some exceptional circumstance like involvement in a road traffic accident, or hen/stag do, was the fact that they were loaded with good old artery clogging hydrogenated fat (or margarine as it used to known). Given that there were only a dozen small biscuits left and that the rest of team NCOTAASD would need to give them the once over, I plunged into a small handful. Whilst not being a terrifically stimulating cocoa biscuit, in fact they had more of a almond taste, the texture made me quite nostalgic. That heavier more cloying feel in the mouth that we once all took for granted was here. In fact a quick glance at their website confirms that their entire range is loaded with hydogentated fat, including their blatant Oreo clone the Toto (Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti - as we've mentioned before).
The brown stuff up the middle also bearing quantities of the aforementioned had the assured look of a multi-purpose filler much like something you might acquire from a DIY superstore should you be foolhardy enough to enter such a place. Just as this stuff is capable of patching up holes smoothing over cracks and covering over dangerous amateur electrical wiring, the brown stuff in the biscuit provides the glue whilst the little button of it poking out the central hole has a slightly unreal sheen.
Wifey knows not to let me go into DIY superstores now as the ensuing stress simply doesn't warrant what ever it is that in theory could be purchased there. The simple fact that if you wish to buy anything really heavy such as paving slabs or fence posts they place this in the furthest corner of the store probably nearer to ones house than to the distant tills. Next you have to find a trolly or wheeled thing suitable to carry the half a ton of stuff you have eventually picked out. This is after spending three quarters of an hour compromising on all your plans as you try and to accommodate what their woeful and overpriced selection. Next you have to push the whole lot through the lighting department which amazingly seems always to be between building supplies and the tills. If you don't manage to smash all the reproduction tiffany lamps you'll no doubt flatten some old dear not immediately visible from your vantage point at the back of trolly load of six foot fence panels. If you do make it to the tills, you are presented with a sea of people many who have been there for hours as a distant problem at a data processing centre has rendered all the tills largely in-operable except by one highly trained individual who must visit all twenty of them individually to give master classes to their teenage operators on how to enter in a refund / exchange on packet of curtain rail hooks.
So there we are a dodgy biscuit from virtually every standpoint, but we strangely rather liked them.
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