Your ViewsKeep your e-mails pouring in, it's good to know that there are lots of you out there with views and opinions. To help you work out what is what, are now little icons to help you see biscuit related themes. And now you can see at a glance which are the most contested subjects via this graph (requires Flash 6.0 plugin). Please keep your mails coming in to nicey@nicecupofteaandasitdown.com | If you like, you can use this search thingy to find stuff that matches with any of the icons you pick, or use the fantastic free text search, Yay! | Your e-Mails |
Deborah Simpson
Bakers Iced Zoo Review |
Dear Nicey,
I love your website, having been pointed in its direction by my teenage daughter who came across the name somewhere and said it sounded like me.
Having grown up in South Africa I was delighted to read the references to Tennis biscuits and to find they are available (with a bit of effort) in England. They were one of my favourites when I was a kid, not so much because of the taste, though they do make a great ‘fridge cake’ – my mum used to make a rather good one involving lime jelly whipped with evaporated milk on a base of crushed Tennis biscuits; very Sixties but yummy – but because I loved the pretty lacy flower pattern.
On the subject of South African biscuits, the ones I remember best were Zoo biscuits, which were not chocolate biscuits but iced in pastel colours with (not very recognisable) silhouettes of animals on the front. Others might like to know that there is a stall on Brighton Pier which sells South African foods, including said Zoo biscuits, though they now seem to be iced in much more lurid shades than I recall. They taste the same though (and it’s still a challenge to work out what the animals are meant to be).. The best thing was being able to prove to my English children that they weren’t a figment of my imagination. At the same stall I also bought Fanta Grape (which I don’t think I’ve ever had in England) and a cake known as ‘koeksusters’, which are an extremely sweet and sticky plaited dough soaked in syrup, like a cross between doughnuts and the Middle Eastern pastry called baklava, but without the nuts. Does anyone else know these?
Best wishes
Deborah |
Nicey replies: Yes we enjoyed our pack of Zoo biscuits, and decided that many of the animals were probably slugs. |
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Julia
Bakers Iced Zoo Review |
Nicey!
Ah, a classic... the history of animated nature all segmented. Evidence that tea is in fact a life preserver; because no matter how hot, when the ZB was dipped, only the biscuit base would get soggy. So leaf saves squirrel. And only animal sustains animal. Or not. Poor things. I had absolute power in all two (or was it three? four?) years of me. The best part was, as white as they appeared, they disappeared. No blood. I wanted to believe it true - if it doesn't bleed it doesn't hurt (isn't that nice - like the sticks and stones rhyme). The king of all South African Zoo animals is, of course, the mighty housefly - can't postage him in, all red and green and blue and confusingly shiny. Well, if it's not on top...
Blah blah
Totsiens
Julia |
Nicey replies: OK, good.. I think. |
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Hal Couzens
Bakers Iced Zoo Review |
Hi Nicey,
The white icing 'animals' have provided much room for mirth, debate and derision (compared to the picture on the pack afterall) over the years but I can confirm that the whale/slug/fox hybrid is in fact intended to be a squirrel.
I never drew on the animals but the tri-partite architecture of these biscuits does reward the adventurous biscuit-eater with a variety of methods for eating them.
My personal favourite IS to eat as much of the biscuit away, then lick the beast off, at which point the maximum sugar-rush can be achieved by rapidly consuming the 'purified' coloured icing.
Lovely
Hal |
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Mike Jones
Bakers Iced Zoo Review |
Hello Nicey
Many thanks for the evocative trip down Biscuit Memory Lane that your review of Bakers Iced Gems provoked. I grew up in South Africa, and despite having dabbled with several dangerous drugs in adulthood (such as blue Smarties and double espressos), I have never quite been able to
recapture the combined chemical high and sugar rush brought on by those luridly-iced confections. I also recall that we used to ink or pencil-in features on our favourite animals prior to consuming them, and I am pleased to report that ingestion of quantities of felt-tip and
pencil lead seem to have done me no great harm at all. Sadly my memory of South Africa's fauna is not quite as well-developed, but I may have an idea regarding the pink slug/whale/fox hybrid thingy. The clue was in your comment that the icing appears to dress to the left, so to speak, and that perhaps you had this biscuit upside down, and lo and behold, after inverting my monitor I could make out the shape of a squirrel or possibly a beaver or other large-tailed rodent.
I hope that this is of help, and wish you all the best in your biscuity crusade. I'm off to PC World now to by a new monitor.
Cheerio!
Mike
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