Cookies & Biscuits ~ Oreos & Digestives

I tell myself to stand in a corner before drafting a post with instructions to repeat 100 times: "I will not write about politics, I will not write about politics, I will not write about politics.................

So...

Husband's son-in-law, in his weekly column in the newspaper he edits made mention, some weekends past, of Oreo cookies (biscuits to any passing British readers). I quote:

....A century ago a chocolate sandwich cookie was created that’s been a staple in my diet since childhood.
In 1912 in Manhattan, New York, the National Biscuit Co. made the first Oreo, and cookie monsters all over the planet are now snorking down about 25 billion of the habit-forming lil’ beggars a year.

There are two really cool things about Oreos:
1. They are addictive, but subtly so. Really. Think about how many times you’ve sat down with a package of Oreos and a glass of milk to watch a TV show or read the paper or play a video game. It’s almost a mystical moment when you look down and suddenly realize: Oh, I just ate a whole row!

2. Oreo eating is ritualistic and individualistic; there are a dozen methods of devouring the combo of chocolate wafer and white goop inside........ Of course, dunking an Oreo into whatever liquid is at hand is extremely popular.

I have my own, similar, longtime attachment to a biscuit (cookie to any passing US readers) - McVitie's Digestives and the de luxe version: Chocolate Digestives. McVitie Price, Scottish biscuit makers established in 1830, were originators of the Digestive, created by one Alexander Grant in 1892, and so named because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The biscuits are grainy, coarse textured, semi-sweet and crisp.

The choccy version, created in 1925, has one side of the biscuit coated with milk or plain chocolate. Wikipedia reports that "Over 71 million packets of McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestives are eaten in the United Kingdom each year, giving an average of 52 biscuits per second."

The loss of Digestives was almost as devastating as the loss of Marks and Spencer incurred by my emigration across the pond. There are thousands of cookie varieties here, surely I could've found a substitute? No. I find American cookies far too sweet. But...last Christmas-time I spied some familiar red cartons on the cookie shelves of (sorry!) Walmart.....McVities' Digestives, both plain and chocolate!! I stocked up! We make a point of shopping mainly at the other supermarket in town, but I will enter Walmart's doors to re-stock Digestives occasionally, and in each town we visit when away from home, if we happen to wander into a Walmart to use the loos, I'll make a detour to check the cookie aisle for stray Digestives.

There aren't as many ways of eating Digestives as the son-in-law finds for devouring his Oreos. They can be eaten plain or spread with butter and/or cheese. Dunking (in a proper cup of tea, with milk, not lemon) has to be carried out very carefully, and preferably in stereo: two biscuits, undersides together, even then it's an art to retrieve them without losing a piece in the tea and having to fish it out, all very inelegant!

I will not write about politics....I will not write about politices....I will not write about politics...