A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down: review

I happened across A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down in the library the other day. I didn't think that it would be an intriguing read, but I thought that despite my love of tea, milk no sugar please, I probably have a fair amount to learn about the English biscuit. I'm very well-versed in the shop-bought Aussie biscuit and to a lesser extent, the US cookie market, but I'd really only ever come across the Rich Tea, Digestives & Jaffa cakes.

So now I've got to head out to find some Penguins to compare to the Tim Tam. I love Jaffa cakes, they're just *so* moreish. But my own leanings at the moment are for home-baked biscuits. Basically so I can put butter in them, rather than hydrogenated vegetable oil (Crisco, I'm looking at you). Now there are many home-bakers from the 70's whose recipes rely on HVO, and I realize that fried chicken is just not the same without it. But somehow, I really dislike what HVO does to the texture and taste of a biscuit. It coats my tongue and somehow doesn't melt. I think its lack of flavor means the biscuit lacks a butter taste plus I can usually taste the bicarb soda because there is not the mask of the butter. And finally, well, they crumble incorrectly. It's too stiff a biscuit. Sure now the biscuit will withstand shipping cross-country and still sit happily in your cupboard for weeks, but because it does not taste that great it will remain in the cupboard for weeks. Poor dear. Why create a biscuit that is only going to be ignored?

And why haven't other biscuit-eaters noticed this weird taste/mouth-feel issue?

I know as a kid I Looooooved Twinkies. But now if I have one, all I taste are preservatives. I was wondering how my taste-buds have changed. Not sure if it is education, or sugar losing its ability to mask the flavor, perhaps my sugar receptors don't go wow! they way they used to?

Well, the book does not cover these issues of HVO, but it is well-suited to reading in little pieces, biscuit by biscuit, while you wait for the kettle to boil. If you're interested in a walk down memory lane, or perhaps you're new to the country and want an overview of the tea and biscuit landscape, then this is a worthwhile read.