Biscuit nostalgia

Did you see Nigel Slater's documentary on the 'Great British Biscuit' over the holidays? I caught up with it last night and oh what a joy. I really didn't realise how much or how many biscuits make up my history. My Mum was a great home baker and I didn't think I had been exposed to the shop-bought biscuit that much. But I was wrong when I think about my own great British biscuits. Garibaldis, digestives, pink wafers, iced gems, rich tea, fig rolls, Pppppenguins, Clubs, Tunnocks, Jacob's cream crackers. The list is endless.

I associate Penguins with starting school. My Mum gave me one every day to take to school. Which colour would I get? Think the green wrappers were my favourite. Then she thought they became too expensive and I was bereft of my Penguin.

I associate Party Rings with..well...parties. The colours were just splendid. It was beyond my experience to see these colours on something you could actually eat.

I associate iced gems with little miracles of colour too and a treat. Lovely tiny little kisses of colour. Do you pop it whole in the mouth or bite the top off?

I associate Clubs with visits to my Auntie Ivy's. And in those days the chocolate was laden so thickly on them that I agree with Nigel Slater: you really could carefully bite off all the chocolate and be left with the biscuit within untouched. You'd find it difficult today.

Pink wafers....well they were pink and had a sweet, almost perfumed smell and taste.

I associate Tunnock bars with walking in my teens. My Mum suddenly started buying them from Morrisons and introduced me. We would have them on picnics.

I associate custard creams with taking them apart and scraping off the cream with my two front teeth.

Garibaldis were the moreish biscuit for me. Have one and you are done for. You have to break off the whole row and start on the next.

Bourbon biscuits were always disappointing. Chocolate biscuits but not quite chocolate somehow. Bit malty? They had a strange almost stale taste that to me didn't go with how they looked. Bourbons would definitely be my last biscuit remaining in the tin.

At tea times in my Mum's elderly people's home, the care staff bring round a biscuit tray of pink wafers, fig rolls, custard creams, digestives and a few others. Pink wafers are definitely the most popular. It's somehow very comforting, civilised and reassuring to see that tray.

I'm off to the supermarket. I may linger in the biscuit aisle.