Biscuit Etiquette – Part 5 : An Inconvenient Truth…

For many reasons this has been a difficult post to write. You see I’ve recently suffered a loss. A month ago I received the bad news that I was in fact a bit fat. This of course came as a complete surprise to me as I’ve always thought of myself as eloquently portly, but no. While dressing one morning I caught sight of my visage in the mirror and did a classic comedy double-take to see what rotund interloper was standing behind me, alas I was alone. Just me and my engorged belly. This will not do, I decided, and promptly sprang (or more accurately rolled) into action. Desperate times call for drastic measures and this has seen the implementation of a harsh diet that has stripped flesh from my bones and biscuits from my fingers. The pain has been of a magnitude probably never known to man before, but slowly the tide is turning and land is once more in sight.

I’m sure you’ve heard it said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and this has proven very much to be the case. At times I swear I can hear the merry laughter of Happy Faces as I pass by the kitchen, or find myself dragged ever closer to the rocks of destruction by the siren song of an open packet of Oreos teasing me with the delights that lay so close. And here in the midst of my sufferings I have discovered something shocking. I warn you dear, sweet reader that what I have to say may affect the rest of your lives. It could leave you hopeless, with crushed hearts that may never learn to love again. So tread warily if you wish to follow me into the darkened halls of unwelcome truths. Alright, here it is, brace yourselves……biscuits are not our friends.

There! I said it. Please, stop the screaming at the back, you knew it really…deep down inside.

Yes, we’ve been duped. How could packaging that seems to burst forth with promises of joy and life in all its fullness be such a perjurious house of lies? Truly there have been times in my life that I counted Digestives and Bourbons among my most trusted confidants, only now to see that they were nothing but alluring mistresses with allegiances solely to the sugar fields. Even the Jammy Dodger, that innocent and most jocular of confection, with its cheeky smile and bejewelled centre was no more than a harlot and me its willing cuckold. Yes, cry it from the rooftops, let your barbaric yawp hail this treason so it dare not prosper, but do it in vain…for our end is at hand.

Who am I fooling? What full blooded man could resist the entreatments of a Ginger Nut? Or stay resolute when a Jaffa Cake flaunts its smashing orangey bit in his face? Let the truth be told and the heavens fall, the biscuits have us in their grasp and I for one welcome our new overlords with a whetted palette and fevered hunger. Such delectation and tasty doom awaits me and yet I fall knowingly into it’s arms, teacup in hand. Oblivion take me, I am done!

Guess that buggers up the diet then….

Biscuit Etiquette – Part 2

The biscuit world is awash with pretenders and charlatans. We’ve all seen them…offering the promise of cake when they’re clearly nothing of the kind, or wearing airs and graces that sit oddly with the paucity of their origins. Thankfully there is at least one biscuit that wears a nobility and bearing that brings certainty to the world. A confection upon which a way of life can be built. A teatime snack that is all things to all men. I speak of course of the wondrous Digestive.

Its unassuming face and structure suggest a simplicity that most find comforting and instantly appealing. Here you will not discover sticky fillings that must be carefully negotiated, or flaky carapaces that seem taut to the point of explosion as they approach the unwary mouth. No. The quiet, determined aura of the Digestive reassures you that it’s on your side.

As Nelson prepared his battle plans for the engagement at Trafalgar, and wrestled with the dangers of his ‘Touch’ manoeuver, you know that as he slumped into his captains chair, took his tea in his hands, felt the gentle roll of the cabin beneath his feet, and picked up a digestive that his kindly steward had saved for a time as dark as this, he would have felt his worries melt away and his courage return whilst in the company of such reserved strength.

While Churchill prepared his ‘On the beaches’ speech you can be certain that a plate of digestives nestled nearby. Shakespeare’s original manuscripts are no doubt awash with brown crumbs that even now remain sweet to the taste. If only Captain Oates had remembered to include a pack of them in his rucksack while preparing for the antarctic expedition then maybe things would have turned out different…

So what makes the digestive so special? Well, it has a unique place in the nation’s heart in so far as you will find it just as readily being dunked into the tea of builders while on their tea-break as you will on the fine china plate of royalty. The special blend of sweetness, alongside the perfect balance of tensile strength that means it stays crisp in the bite but quickly melts into your mouth, lends it what William Blake once described as a ‘fearful symmetry’.  It can bear being buttered to make digestive sandwiches, brave the hot waters of tea without falling apart, and dwell happily amongst its biscuit brethren without appearing to be trying too hard.

In many ways it represents the British as we want to be seen. A stiff upper lip, hardy in the travel, most palatable, and able to walk with paupers and kings. Ask anyone whether they want a digestive and the answer will be unanimous in the affirmative – unless the people you are proffering them too are either escaped mental patients or possibly French.

So, the digestive is a confectionary representation of the British ideal. It is quite simply Michael Palin in biscuit form.