eve11 | Guys! Look what I found!

Guys! Look what I found!

I have found a treat to bring to DragonCon!

I suppose this is nothing new for Brits but I live in Western Pennsylvania ;) And our new mega-store has now added "British" to the ethnic foods aisles. So I saw Jammie Dodgers and just had to get them.

Then at the checkout the girl looks at them and says, "are these any good?" and I had to say "I don't know; I'm just getting them because I saw them on Doctor Who". And swear to god, she said "Doctor who?" ie, in exactly the same questioning inflection that is why they named the show that in the first place. She was totally clueless. I think after my explanation, she now thinks that Jammie Dodgers were made especially for the television show. *facepalm*

Other things in the Brit food section I saw what I've never seen in a US grocery store before:
- Marmite
- Some kind of candy bar called a "yorkie" (?) that explicitly claims "not for girls!"
- Portobello mushroom crisps?
- Seriously, you guys buy some kind of cracker/cookie thing called "Digestibles"? (ETA: My bad, it's Digestives, isn't it? That's, um, possibly worse) That is a terrible name! It's like titling a book "Readable!" or naming a car "the new Nissan Basically Drivable".

Anyway, just thought I'd share :D I might have to pick up another few packages for the late-night gaming sessions at the Hilton.

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Oh, cool! You ought to hand on out to every Eleven you see so that they are suitably armed. :)

And digestive biscuit are really quite lovely. (I believe that the inventor thought that the graham flour they contained promoted good digestion, hence the name.) They're like a very rich, buttery graham cracker made with a coarser ground graham flour. The plain ones are very good, and they also make delicious ones coated in chocolate or (my fave) chocolate and caramel. Yum!

You ought to hand on out to every Eleven you see so that they are suitably armed. :)

Oh, that is a fantastic idea! :D

And yeah, there was a whole section of Digestibles. I will have to check them out. It just seems like they are going to be a tough sell (sadly) with that name.

I purchased one of those Yorkie bars as a white elephant gift a few years back. We could not figure out what made it "not for girls."

Be sure to look for Spotted Dick next time you're there.

heh, I think Spotted Dick is something you have to (or can, anyway) make, right? Some kind of cake with raisins in it?

I'd rather NOT make Spotted Dick, thank you very much. =P

AFAIK, it's some kind of pudding (in the British sense) with dried fruit. Somebody brought me back a can/package from the U.K., I think it had blueberries or something of the sort.

Spotted Dick is indeed traditionally a steamed suet pudding with currants (the dried fruit like raisins not blackcurrants/redcurrants/whitecurrants) which is usually served hot with vanilla custard. And, yes, for anyone too lazy to make it, it can be bought frozen or in tins.

Okay, so the only "suet" we use in the US is the stuff that comes in rectangular cakes that you feed to birds in the winter. What does suet pudding contain? I mean, what is it made of, aside from currants?

Suet pudding is a "steamed" flour-based pudding which uses suet (traditionally beef suet but these days also vegetarian suet) as the fat content. The most common traditional sweet suet puddings (there are also savoury, usually meat-based, puddings and dumplings, and even suet pastry) are those with cheap sweeteners, e.g. dried fruit as in spotted dick or golden syrup as in treacle pudding or hedgerow/garden fruits as in summer pudding. Needless to say, these traditional puddings tend to be rather heavy, heh. They're mostly served hot and often with vanilla custard or another milky sauce.

So I'm looking online and it says that most recipes call for packaged versions of suet which are dried and tempered with flour. Is that accurate or would one need to go to the butcher's and get the "fresh" stuff to make these puddings? I'm curious, because I have absolutely no idea what they would taste like, nor what the consistency would be. Gelatine-y? or more like bread or rice pudding?

Edited 2010-07-28 18:18 (UTC)

Yep, the most popular way to buy "real" suet for suet puds for many decades has been the brand Atora which is packaged, rather than fresh, beef suet and presumably is what you're describing. The texture of the boiled/steamed pudding is like a dense and heavy sponge. The pud itself doesn't taste of much besides flour (although it would have a more marked flavour if made with fresh beef suet) and absorbs surrounding liquids well so, for example, makes fabulously tasty dumplings cooked in a wet stew/casserole or soaks up the fruit juices of a summer pudding.

Have you googled to find out which part of the cow suet is? Cos I always think it's fascinating to know where our food comes from, especially old fashioned "everything but the moo" cooking.

So making it with beef suet does not make it taste like beef (even the sweet puddings)? The wiki page said that it was something like the fat from around the kidneys and liver or something like that. Well, I'll have to see if the British aisle has this strange ingredient. I find this amusing because it's something that sounds entirely unlike pudding that is called pudding served with something that sounds entirely LIKE pudding, that is called custard.

it's something that sounds entirely unlike pudding that is called pudding served with something that sounds entirely LIKE pudding, that is called custard.

Yes, you've got it! It's dense sponge, made with a heavier than usual fat, often served with a vanilla sauce roughly the gooey consistency of USian milk puddings!

Yes, cow organ fat, heh, and, no, much like lard the flavour is fatty-neutral (although I suspect fresh suet would have more flavour than pre-packaged). Beef dripping otoh is super yummy tasty. /confusing the issue

When Yorkie bars were launched they were the chunkiest mass-produced chocolate bar. For years their advertising featured macho lorry drivers. When their market share declined they changed their advertising to semi-ironic (because women consume most chocolate in the uk afaik), and sometimes quite funny, ads with the "not for girls" tag. :-)

/dull but informative

I think after my explanation, she now thinks that Jammie Dodgers were made especially for the television show.

The whole story, but especially that bit, just made me laugh like a mad woman. Seriously, tears are running down my cheeks right now.

And we have Digestibles in Canada. I love putting them in milk and mashing them up into an oozing sweet cookie paste... (that's not normal just so you know, I'm just a freak like that)

Wow, and here I've been totally missing out on the Digestibles up until now. My spell-checker doesn't even know what that word is; it's underlined it in squiggly red.

You should have seen the girl's face when I tried to explain that Jammie Dodgers were an integral part of the plan for saving the world. *sighs*

...I've only just noticed your icon. Is it yoinkable? Because it's awesome.

(my icon space is slowly but surely being completely taken over by Eleven)

indeed, it is by

queen_lothariel and I grabbed it off an icon post. :D

I think Digestibles might be digestive biscuits, which as far as I can tell are somewhat akin to Graham crackers.

Jammie Dodgers in the grocery store! That is exciting. I'll have to be on the lookout as well.

Yeah, the "British" sign in the International aisle threw me for a loop there; it's definitely new. Right next to "Indian" and on the other side of "Hispanic". Of course, this is our giant suburban mega-mart; you can also get sushi, prepared rosti & crepes, and there's an entire section devoted to crazy cheeses. Also food network stars show up there every once in a while. But Jammie Dodgers! Exciting! I think I'm gonna do as

penwiper337 suggests and hand them out to every Eleventh Doctor I see at D*C :D

Oh, you should! That would be adorable.

I think I'll get one of those stadium-hawker boxes and a big pin/sign that says "TARDIS self-destruct buttons: Don't land in Dalek ships without one!" Price: (something outrageous), free to anyone wearing braces and a bow tie.

Yorkies are good! A Brit pal 'o mine sent me one and I was man enough to eat it.

I was curious, but as I'm trying to lose weight and not have junk in the house, I passed. After all I'd just bought a whole package of ~~cookies~~ biscuits. ;)

I'm in Fiji at the moment, and the supermarkets tend to put the biscuits and cordials in the same aisle. Sometimes I just stop there and stare at the sheer Britishness. (Also, lemon-barley cordial, wtf?)

Digestive biscuits sound unpleasant, even if they apparently aren't.

omg, what is cordial about lemon-barley? {8-0

Actually, I'm not sure what a cordial is; I thought it was like a shot-sized glass of something alcoholic and somewhat sweet? I could be completely wrong.

Cordial, from what I can tell, is kind of like a juice concentrate, and kind of like those flavor syrups you can buy for making Italian sodas and things. It's juice and stuff boiled down into a thicker liquid which you can then mix with water to make sodas and things.

I was sure it had alcohol as well, but apparently not.

Also, here, Sprite is called lemonade, and the nearest thing to normal lemonade is something called lemon squash, which is sort of like fizzy chemical lemonade.

My Dad found Jelly Babies at World Market, once. I liked them a lot at first, but now I only really like the black currant ones. I LOVE black currant. (Thank the gods I live in NYC and can get international foods.)

Jelly Babies! You'd have to get the right paper bag for them too. I suppose here in the US you could substitute SourPatch Kids but it wouldn't be the same.

Now I'm sitting here trying to think what the hell would be in an "American" international foods aisle overseas. All I can see in my mind is a whole shelf full of TastyKakes and peanut butter.

I have heard that Twinkies and Hostess cakes are not available in the UK, but I do not know if that is true.

See, not missing much there, IMO. Tastykakes, on the other hand, are an entirely different story. We did not buy junk food very much when we were kids, but when we got treats, it was to split a pack of Butterscotch Krimpets. Mmmm, I'm just sitting here thinking of how the icing splits apart when you separate the cakes out. Krimpets put all of Hostess' line to shame. Of course YMMV (but you'd be wrong)

I have never seen Tastykakes. I'm only familiar with Hostess, Little Debbie and Drakes. (Drakes' is dreadful, imho.) I am intrigued by the idea of a Butterscotch Krimpet. I looooooove butterscotch.

Edited 2010-07-28 18:58 (UTC)

hm, I thought they were national but they might be just a Philly/Northeast thing, or at least only sparsely available outside that area. Luckily, you can order them via the interwebs. The two I am most familiar with are the kandy kakes (leftmost at the top) and the butterscotch krimpets (second to left). They are both awesome.

ETA: I've never heard of Drakes' though

EATA: I bet you could find a place that sells tastykakes in New York. It's not that far from Philly.

Edited 2010-07-28 19:05 (UTC)

Yeah, I think Drakes' might be a New York/Long Island thing.

Do you have Entenmenns? (I think I'm spelling that right... There are a lot of 'n's.)

You know what, I recognize the logo, so I have seen Tastykakes, then. I'll have to try them next time I do. ^_^

Yeah, if you like butterscotch, try the butterscotch krimpets. They are extremely stupidly simple, but very yummy. Yeah, we have Entenmann's; my dad is partial to the big danishes that they sell.

ETA: I'm not so partial to the banana tastykakes though; but the other ones are good.

Edited 2010-07-28 19:17 (UTC)

(I could also be romanticizing them a bit too, of course. But I remember them being yummy as a kid, although I haven't had one in years. And also some folks note that butterscotch krimpets don't taste much like butterscotch, but they are still pretty good in my memory.)

Edited 2010-07-28 19:33 (UTC)

The most sought-after British foodstuff by US Who fans used to be Jelly Babies, heh. /old school

Yeah, they didn't have any of those, but I'll be on the lookout. I can't pass up any opportunity to try and explain international fandom to clueless register clerks :D

If you see Caramac, you might try it... it's a saort of caramel-flavoured-and-coloured chocolate, not my favourite in itself but appallingly moreish.

And I do love that icon :)

I will keep my eye open for it. But in the US, anything with "mac" in the name is most likely some kind of macaroni and cheese product. And I use the term "cheese" loosely, as it's most likely processed cheese powder ;)

ETA: I love this icon mainly because he looks about nine in that shot, lol.

Edited 2010-07-28 12:14 (UTC)

Processed.... cheese... powder.....

I'd boggled about cheese in a spray can when I heard about it, but this idea may be even worse :(

I've had both Marmite and Yorkies and I'm not a fan of either. Marmite is too bitter for me and Yorkies are too milky. I've found both in Indian food markets. Marmite is actually sold at the grocery store in Florida but I haven't looked for it in New York because I have no desire to eat it ever again.

Marmite is kind of frightening. I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to try it after knowing what it is. ;)

this is clearly a popular post!

firstly - realy jammie dodgers are not necessarily as good as the non-brand name version, but they are good. i hope you enjoy them.

secondly - it tickles me that 'british' is a type of ethnic food.

thirdly - i love 'doctor who?' brilliant.

fourthly - yorkie is kind of delicious in a really horrible way. too sweet, too much.

fifthly - digestive biscuits are some of my favourite things. wiki says: The term 'digestive' is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties due to the use of sodium bicarbonate when they were first developed.

So is 'jammie dodger' just the name of the kind of general cookie, kind of like how some people now use "kleenex" to refer to any and all tissues? I don't mind if they're not great; I think I'm going to be handing most of them out to Eleventh Doctors at DragonCon as TARDIS self-destruct buttons ;)

I did read where the name came from, but that does not negate the fact that it is rather awful. I mean, "soda biscuits" would work better, and from what I understand they taste a lot better than traditional soda crackers (saltines). My hockey team agreed last night that the name "digestive biscuit" is wholly unappealing. I'm going to have to go buy some now just to see what they're like.

I'm bringing, hehehe, Jelly babies. Perhaps a exchange of sweets is needed at the con?

Sounds like a good idea! And oooh, I've never had a jelly baby before :D Hopefully I won't have to explain them to clueless grocery clerks.

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Guys! Look what I found!

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