Alan2005

My grandparents used to have those when we visited. Though I think that's true for pretty much everybody; the entire market for those square tins was old people expecting a visit from their grand kids.

Atlantic Xpat

I'm with you on the chocolate digestives i.l.o hobnob thing. No-name brand chocolate digestives as sold in Loblaws stores are made in the UK and a reasonable replacement for the McVities variety. Hobnobs can be found at specialist stores at specialist store prices.

Bill_S

Didn't you lot rule an empire once?

I guess any potential invaders didn't know they could have just sacked the biscuit factories and it would have been game over.

jimf

Actually the sailors in the navy survived on a diet of rum, lime and biscuits so you might easily have ended up calling us biscuits rather than limeys.

I don't mind most alternate north american words but cookie rather than biscuit is an abomination second only to the use of the word soccer as far as I'm concerned.

triumphguy

You can get hobnobs in Calgary Co-ops.

Never had one - they came out after I left the old sod.

Oink

They are truly a dunkable biscuit. But the choccie ones is the ones like the best.

triumphguy

I'll mosey on down to the local co-op and try one out with a nice cuppa!

scottandsel

hob nobs are the sas of the dunking biscuit world .... jaffa cakes my fave mmmm although biscuit or cake?????

.. as if i care its how you eat em - nibble all the choccy off then pull the orange bit off, eat the sponge then eat the orange bit last!

iaink

Blame the Dutch (=small cake), and lest we forget they had a beachhead on Manhatten before the English arrived.


Really Im surprised the Luftwaffe didnt focus all attention on the biscuit factories... we would all have been speaking german by 1941.


Where are these chocolate hobnobs of which lucieg speaks? Ive seen all sorts of brit goods here (Penguins, Clubs, Tunnocks etc), but never hobnobs, and especially not the dark chocolate ones.

Alan2005

It wouldn't have been so bad as the germans can make a pretty decent biscuit when they put their minds to it.

Novocastrian

Does the British addiction to sugary tea and dunked chocolate biscuits explain the scandalous state of your average British tooth?

Atlantic Xpat

Jawohl. OK, Tommi Atkins, You vill eat our precisely manufactured chocolate biscuits, mit zee orangey coating und the correct German chocolate, not zat inferior ersatz englander shiesse.

Balsen uber alles, mein freund.

Alan2005

I like those, especially the plain choc ones. They only have 9 in packet though, which I think is a bit stingy all things considered.

Novocastrian

Yea, damn metric packaging.

jimf

My Dutch colleague tells me that a cookie (spelt differently in Dutch) is really a general term which could be applied to any small sweet snack including biscuits, cakes and pastries types. In Holland the word biscuit would be used specifically for a biscuit as in England. The more "fancy" the item the more likely it would be called cookie. It's understandable that in north america they could have latched into the Dutch word and used it the way it is used now even if its not really correct. What is bizarre is how the word "biscuit" in north america is used for scone type cake items which is completely wrong in the sense that biscuit means twice baked ie a hard baked item.

Are they called cookies or biscuits in Quebec? I notice the French labelling on "cookies" always describes them as biscuits.

I'm sure I've seen Hobnobs in Calgary supermarkets.