Two biscuits crossed a busy main road. One of the biscuit was run over. What did its companion say? “Crumbs!” Judging by the contents of boxes that promise biscuity treats, at least one-third must have been victims of road accidents. They should have been custard creams. Instead, they resemble the finds from an archaeological dig at Tell el-Amarna. The fragments are photographed from all angles, the images are fed into a computer programme, and – hey presto! – reconstructions of the original custard creams, as enjoyed by Queen Nefertiti in the comfort of your own kitchen. Goodness, me! All that effort for a quarter kilo of biccies! Now, when this writer makes biscuits just like Mother used to make, he takes a few fistfuls of flour (plain, or self-raising, it makes little difference), a few knobs of butter, a pinch of salt and when the pastry mix is...well..pastry mix that flakes between your pressed forefinger and thumb, a bit of water. A ‘bit', I am afraid, cannot be defined as fluid ounces or millilitres. Nay, this is the Anglo-Saxon throw-all-the-ingredients-together-and-hope-for-the-best school of cookery. Not so much Cordon Bleu, more How Long Is a Piece de Cordon Bleu? Roll out the dough with a plastic milk bottle, and cut out the ‘biscuits' with a cup (the open end, not the bottom). Sprinkle salt or sugar on them. Not caster sugar, for that is for cissies. – no, real crystals of sugar that will make you feel that you are getting your teeth into something yummy. Press the crystals into the dough with a clean tip of an index finger Bake in a hot oven. Never mind gas mark 5 or whatever. The maid burnt the marks off with a bleach-soaked cloth years ago, so no more high tech in this house. The oven must be hot enough for when the gas man comes to read the metre in the middle of June, he says, ‘Cor! It ain't arf ‘ot in there!' when you detect a hint of burning substances in your oven, you know it is time to rescue your so-called biscuits from a fate worse than that promised in the Netherworld or anything conjured up by that Italian fellow, Dante. Leave to cool, as far as your now overheated kitchen will. Later, invite spouse and dependants to partake of the homemade cookie – a once-only experience, in view of the fact that the word ‘biscuit' is derived from the ‘French biscuit', in turn deriving from the Latin ‘bis-coctum' meaning ‘twice cooked'. However, if this author cooked his creations a second time, they would be fit for artists making sketches for works destined to be greater than the humble homemade biscuit. Even so, your writer's spouse has suggested that the biscuits of one's creation be marketed as tiles for pavements, since Zeitoun district is in dire need of proper footpaths. In view of the fact that the Olympic Games are due in London next month, perhaps the same biscuits could be made larger and palmed off to the equipment suppliers as discuses. (Or ‘disci'? – Latinists, where are you when we need you?) Whatever their destination, these biscuits do not crumble on the tray or the plate. In fact, they seem especially unyielding and thwart all efforts to bring upper and lower teeth together, thus biting off manageable chunks for mastication and eventual digestion, and even nourishment for the corporeal form. In fact, the dentist seems to rub his hands with glee when I call to make an appointment. In the meantime, these biscuits do not disintegrate as soon as one looks at them. So what is the problem with the item that is manufactured locally and stacked on the shelves of one's local supermarket? Several theories have been proposed, among them is that which states that shop employees play football with packets of biscuits before they are placed on display. According to another hypothesis, the cases containing two or three dozen packets of biscuits are tossed like basket balls from the factory loading bay to the truck, and thence to the minions that are responsible for supermarket warehouses, so that by the time the customer opens a packet, s/he is showered with a little pile of dust. Nevertheless, I feel that either not enough ‘binding agent' has been used or because the foodstuff is left for too long in dry conditions. Recipes for biscuits usually stipulate a quantity of eggs, which act like glue and should, in this climate, be used generously. Maybe biscuit manufacturers are looking after the pennies, while the dollars go straight to their bank accounts, leaving the consumer with half-hearted apologies for biscuits. Notice that when you dunk a ‘bona fide' plain digestive biscuit in your beverage (not fizzy, please! Ugh!), the portion that was moistened breaks off and forms a little layer of sludge at the bottom of your cup. That must be due to insufficient egg white, or glue. Biscuits never behaved thus in this writer's youth. There may be some truth in global warming after all. The best biscuit option for this country is possibly of the wafer variety imported from Germany. And wafers are hardly dunkable, because they react with the tea or coffee and make the cream- or chocolate filling taste mighty horrible. Indeed, the wafer from the land of Goethe and Leibniz is the BMW of biscuits. Surely, local foodstuff manufacturers can come up with something as appetising at a fraction of the cost, and without the worry of disintegrating in the packaging.
