getbracknell - Reading Evening Post

getbracknell - Reading Evening Post

Site navigation

  • Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Jobs
  • Property
  • Motoring


Categories

  • XML Bracknell nights
  • XML I like Bracknell..
  • XML Mmmm! Bracknell's best biscuits
  • XML Who's Barmy!?..


All categories

Thursday, September 4. 2008

The Global Biscuit Revolution

Mmmm! Bracknell's best biscuits

A cup of tea and a biscuit. Few things are more quintessentially English – or are they?

It seems in our modern, multi-cultural society even the biscuit is being brought into the 21st century by influences from abroad.

Biscuits like the digestive, the rich tea, the bourbon and many of our old favourites are finding themselves battling for supermarket shelf space with colourful imports from overseas.

So, which ones are worth spending your hard earned pennies on and which would be better sent back where they came from?

I brought three varieties of foreign biscuit into the office with me this week to test out on my hungry colleagues – The Oreo Cookie from America (chocolaty), the Ratafia biscuit from Italy (macaroony) and the Choco Leibniz from Germany (difficult to say).

The first thing that’s worth pointing out is that they are all a bit on the expensive side. One of my favourite things about biscuits is that, in these times of spiralling prices, the biscuit remains a relatively cheap treat. All of today’s foreign biscuits cost much more than a pound each for a packet (note how I avoided the cheap ‘credit crunch’ pun…).

So which one came out on top in the office test?

Hard to say really, they all had their merits. The Ratafias come in a big bag and are light, tasty and morish although they aren’t the most biscuity of biscuits. I’m not sure what they are, maybe more a trifle ingredient than a biscuit – as the editor of the Wokingham Times said: “They aren’t really a biscuit, they should come on a platter with a cup of tea.”

The Choco Leibniz were delicious as far as I was concerned, thick, proper chocolate on top of a rich tea style base – who could ask for more (apart from a few more in the packet – nine biscuits for one pound twenty-odd?!)? 

The Oreo biscuits were unexpectedly good to dunk, tasty and fun – any biscuit that can be pulled apart and eaten inside out is good as far as I’m concerned.

I went to quiz one of my colleagues about her favourite international biscuit and, when probed about where the best biscuit came from, said helpfully: “Oreo Land”.

Once out of her biscuit induced trance she continued: “They are amazing biscuits. Oreos are versatile too – they’re amazing with ice cream.”

It also turned out that she is a fountain of Oreo knowledge and she informed me that they came to this country when Wal-Mart took over at ASDA. Fascinating.

My only complaint about them is that they’re surprisingly small. They use a kid to advertise them and in juvenile mitts they look like a nice sized biscuit. In my hands they look like one of the plastic Pogs (remember them?) you chucked at the other Pogs for reasons nobody was ever sure of.

These three treats barely scratch the surface of the international biscuits available in the supermarket – not to mention the biscuits available in the delis and cafes in town.

So, what are your favourite biscuits from overseas? Have you ever had any truly awful experiences with international biscuits? Which countries produce the best and worst biscuits?

Posted by Mike Pyle 2 in Mmmm! Bracknell's best biscuits at 09:12 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

No comments

Add Comment

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
Standard emoticons like :-) and ;-) are converted to images.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

 
Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.
 

Calendar

Back November '08
Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun
          1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Archives

November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
Recent...
Older...

Syndicate This Blog

XML RSS 0.91 feed
XML RSS 1.0 feed
XML RSS 2.0 feed
ATOM/XML ATOM 0.3 feed
ATOM/XML ATOM 1.0 feed
XML RSS 2.0 Comments

 


Got a story : Contact us : Work for us : Terms and conditions : Privacy policy : Help : Home

© Reading Evening Post - S&B media 2008