Thursday, October 06, 2011

One plain, one fancy

Our lovely French houseguest has gone, leaving us with promises to meet again and the world's biggest pile of biscuits and chocolates. I get a shock every time I open the pantry.


Among the haul is a tin of assorted biscuits, similar to the Sampler tins we used to get at Christmas. We never had bought biscuits when I was a child and these were a special festive treat. But they came with rules: whenever the tin was opened I remember someone (Mum?) reciting the mantra: "one plain, one fancy". Shortbread, Dundee biscuits (the round ones with sugar crystals on top) and Krispies were most definitely in the 'plain' camp, while pink wafers, custard creams and anything chocolate were 'fancy'. I think this rule was invented to stop us eating all the good ones first - there was nothing more disappointing than prising open the lid to find there were only boring ones left.

I thought everyone's family obeyed these sorts of rules, then I met the Boy Wonder, whose family operate under the assumption that if you don't eat all the good ones first, someone else will beat you to it. It's just as well we don't have bought biscuits very often or there would be (even more) robust debate in our house.

Do you have 'rules' about biscuits? What do you judge as 'plain' and 'fancy'? Pin It

9 comments:

  1. I have serious biscuit - envy. That jammie dodger in the middle has my name on it! :-)

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  2. In my house it is other way around.We offer and offer (worst tahn greek) even if people do not ask.Tradition:)) I ma sure your cookies will find users:))

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  3. I think the saying "survival of the fittest" evolved in our household when we were eating :-)

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  4. this cracks me up. When my brother and I were at school and making our lunchboxes in the morning, we were allowed to choose either two "ordinary" (read plain) biscuits, or one "good" (read fancy) biscuit for playlunch. Such a dilemma!!!

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  5. Yours is a brilliant rule and I fully intend to apply it if we ever get assortments of biscuits. Or the 2 plain or 1 fancy rule - that's quite a good one too. I don't think we had rules - maybe because I'm an only child? I remember we had those boxes of biscuits but I just don't remember there being any issues with them. Maybe I was an amazingly good child and didn't just snaffle all the fancy ones but I find that hard to believe.

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  6. In our home, the best ones always went first.

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  7. that is such a great rule! i might have to adopt it in our house! don't remember any rules about biscuits growing up but the hors d'oeuvres were always divided up equally...plate of cheese puffs or shrimp or something placed down..."how many can we have mom"..."there are 4 each"...now i have to remind my hubby (used to a free for all) that we have to SHARE EQUALLY...funny these things!

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  8. We rarely had bought cakes but we did have bought biscuits especially the selection boxes at Christmas. There was no rule about whether you ate plain or fancy so of course we all ate fancy first and we didn't get another box until all the plain ones had been eaten. So we then had to eat plain or do without.

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  9. I like the idea of your rule! I don't think we really had mixed boxes of biscuits like that except rarely. I got (not all) of the ones without nuts, along with my brother who doesn't really like nuts, and my mum did rather well - she likes nuts. More applicable to chocs than biccies though!

    Fancy for me is anything with chocolate, anything with a drizzle, anything not biscuit coloured (pink wafers), filled ones (except custard creams, which are boring) and plain is all the boring ones!!!

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Hello - thanks for stopping by. If this was real life I'd make you a cup of tea and open the biscuit tin, but in lieu of those things, let's have a chat anyway...