Biscuits: Relic Of The Gastronomic World of Yesteryear

Now don't get me wrong, only a man crazy enough to take a shit in his
sleeping wife's handbag doesn't like biscuits. I'm not suggesting in
anyway that I have a problem with the beautiful diabeties inducing,
artery clogging, little cakey death bombs but my overall grudge is with
the makers.

They have got plain fucking lazy.

If you think back to your hazy gay days of youth, cycling feverishly
back like a speed demon on your Raleigh Chopper in time for your Nan's
visit, knowing full well that old people always travel with a constant
endless supply of biscuits to entice children to put up with their TCP and piss
stenched, false teeth manoeuvring monologues about the war.

You'd often burst into the room like a vaudeville performer with grubby nails and grass stained
knees and tuck into the mound of confectionary delight offered on your
Mums finest China plate, only to be slapped all the way to the kitchen
sink and ordered to wash your filthy digits in honour of the delectable
delicacies.

But if you grab down the fluffy clouds of reminiscence from the edges
of that mental picture, you will recall with clarity, the sweet
butter cream filled joy that seductively glanced up from the plate is
still the same array of biscuitty badness we know and love today!

Biscuits have had what must be the most laziest marketing, the most devolutionist design arc, the most bland re-branding and slumber-some sales campaigns in the history of commerce.

Nearly all of your Nan's beloved treats were most probably the same
biscuits that adorned her mother's best china back in the late 19th
century.

You'd only have to take a look a look at some of the names to work out
how old some of them are as they're named after old revolutionaries and
ancient relics.

The 'Garibaldi', a failed Italian revolutionary and the 'Bourbon' from the
French and Spanish aristocratic family are the elder statesmen of the
biscuit world. The former has been on the side of cuppa for 150 years
and the latter a mere baby at 100 years or so. The other contenders for
the Great Grand-Daddy of the biscuit empire are the 'Nice' biscuit
first introduced around 1895, The 'Custard Cream' and
'Digestive' around 1876, 'Ginger Nuts' dating back to
Colonial times but the winner by a mile is the 'Rich Tea' which
dates back to the mid 17th century would you Adam and Eve it.

So, all have been dunked into the steaming hot brew of a billion men and
women over 260 years of wars, depressions, victories and disasters
without the merest hint of change in recipe or form.

“But you can't change the classics!!” I hear you cry and I quite
agree but what really pisses up my chugger is the fact that these giants
of the snacking industry have not offered us up anything of equal awesomeness since?

In the 60s and 70s there came 'Jammy Dodgers' and 'Party Rings', fine
additions, then came the luxury bars like 'Penguins', 'Wagon wheels' and the
like but they couldn't really be called biscuits as I feel they ventured
into the technical territory of Chocolate Bars.

The 80s brought some derivatives of the 'Digestive' and the 'Hob Nob'
assortment that remain firm family favourites but that's still 20-30 years
ago.

These companies must have thousands of employees, which must lead one to
believe that there are all sorts of executives, sales, design and
marketing people all employed at great cost, but what could they
possibly have to do all fucking day long?

The meetings must simply involve 10 besuited and bewhildered brainstormers, sitting round a
conference table, looking down sheepishly, whist dunking their very own product
into their cups of tea, nervously waiting for someone to shout
“Eureka!” and then excitedly pipe up with the new ground
breaking, global market conquering, pant shittingly awesome biscuit ever known
to man ....but the problem is, no-one has for 30 years.

Why has none of these companies or any other for that matter given us
this century's 'Bourbon' or 'Custard Cream'. The ideas seem endless but i
guess with everybody buying the same old same old and not standing up
for their evolutionary biscuit rights, we have lost our way somewhere but
hopefully with the new technologically savvy youth of today, surely
someday we are destined to find our way back.

A 21st Century taste revolution that starts with only one bite awaits
the plucky contender that sends us racing proudly into the future, to a
brand new world, with brand new possibilities, with a brand new biscuit worthy of the crown to this heavenly kingdom of bakery.

The Gauntlet, my snacking friends of be-crumbed chin, is thrown down to you.

Now onwards in my quest .....”Dear Mr McVities,.....