 | Right from their first few months of joining the NCOTAASD team the younger members of staff were very good at telling one animal from another. I found it interesting that very stylised representations of dogs, cats or rabbits made instant sense to them. It's a innate human skill to recognise the animals that we share our world with and maybe that's a reason why animal shaped biscuits are such a favourite. A couple of years back we took a look at some South African iced animal biscuits. Due to some technical icing issues we can only guess at, most of the animals appeared to be white slugs. In this review we are going to take a look at the classic animal biscuits from America, Germany and the UK, and we'll be paying special attention to how much they look like animals, and applying our hurriedly dreamt up lion, elephant, and monkey benchmark.
Once again it's Nabisco providing the the US's contribution in the form of Barnum's Animals Crackers (actually it's biscuit hunter Jennifer Courtney once again). Setting aside our modern sensibilities about the caging and treatment of animals, it has to be said that the box looks charming with its pictures of animals in circus cages and a built in carrying strap. Presumably the strap is there for children to bring the whole pack with them to school or something. Inside is a waxed paper sachet containing the biscuits. I'm told that the addition of some cocktail sticks and few cardboard wheels turn the pack into a very useful circus trailer. I wanted to like these biscuits but I find myself struggling with name which seems to have a surfeit of plurals. Then to make matters worse, is referring to a sweet biscuit as a cracker.
The biscuits tasted predictably American, containing high fructose corn syrup and a big bunch of vitamin and mineral supplements to the flour. All very well meaning but probably a better plan would be to find some way of replacing the partially hydrogenated soybean oil. The pack also maintains that it has two servings of 8 biscuits within. I certainly wouldn't be hurrying to try these again, but as far visuals go they performed well. The elephant looked like a proper one, with tusks, the monkey was very convincing, however the lion caused problems. I'm not even sure if this actually is a lion, but I couldn't find one with a mane so I assumed this must be it.
Now to Germany and Bahlsen's simply entitled 'Zoo', in an equally simple bag. We picked up ours in Waitrose. The biscuits are a development of that elder statesman the Leibniz butter biscuit, and should be familiar to Bahslen fans. I'm quite amazed at how much I like these seemingly plain little biscuits. As a child this was exactly the sort of biscuit I didn't like so what is going on? Either my tastes have changed or Bahlsen have actually gone that little bit further to come up with a simple biscuit that has a pleasantly morish taste. Given the 12% butter, complete absence of hydrogenated fat and the whole milk powder this seems like something much more wholesome than the Nabisco offering and I certainly wouldn't have too many qualms about the younger members of staff carrying out a ruthless cull of their numbers, and indeed they have.
An excellent result on the lion, elephant and monkey test establishes that a classic approach has been taken to the biscuit shapes. The animals chosen also lean towards children's petting zoo rather than big game safari, which makes for quite a gentle atmosphere. Throw in such things as a cheerful duck, happy tortoise and hilarious penguin and its difficult not to really really like these.
Now to our final biscuits the simply titled Cadbury's Animals. A great deal of Cadbury's biscuits are made under licence by Burton's and indeed a couple of weeks back we took a look at one of their new ones, which we liked a great deal. It's a shame I can't say the same about these. Cadbury's Animal biscuits used to be one of the finest little chocolate biscuits on the market, and would have easily taken on all comers in both taste and animal shapedness. A distinctive deep wavy texture in the chocolate on the back also differentiated the pale shortcake biscuits from lesser non Cadbury biscuits. However they seemed to be operating in quite a rarified atmosphere only really turning up at parties in my experience. Perhaps it was due to the entire box needing to be opened or their relatively high price, that the biscuits received a make over. Today's animal biscuits are mostly sold in large sacks containing individual bags of mini biscuits. The chocolate is still there of course but much less flamboyantly. The picture on the pack still imagines that the chocolate inside is wavy, but in fact it has a thin grid like pattern. The biscuits have shed troublesome and easily broken limbs with designs that keep the biscuit as little round splodges, but at what price. The monkey for one has acquired scary empty skeleton eyes, making it look more 'walking dead' than 'jolly chum'. The biscuit itself has become oddly darker almost suggesting that there is some cocoa in there although there evidently isn't. Despite my reservations the rest of the NCOTAASD team tucked into them with relish.
When it came to the Lion, Elephant and Monkey test I would simply say that it would have been actually the Rhino, Elephant, Lion and Monkey test, only I couldn't find a Rhino for the Cadbury's biscuits.
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