I have a question for Americans...

[FriendlyNeighbourhoodAccountant]

...and I'm too embarrassed to ask the Americans I know in real life as it's a strange question and kinda pointless.

What's the deal with girl scout cookies?

Are they the same types of cookies every year?

Are they only sold at certain times of year or are they sold all year round?

What types can you get? I know on Friends they've mentioned thin mints, The Office has mentioned Shortbread.

Are they actually nice or do people buy them to help the girl scouts?

Can you buy the same kinda cookies in supermarkets or are they literally just sold via the girl scouts?

when I lived in the US I bought some from my neighbour’s daughter. The mum posted on our neighbourhood Facebook page and then you could go to the website and order them. The girl then dropped them off at my house.

They were nice enough, but nothing amazing. I think $5 a box. I was aware that really I’m supporting the Girl Scouts etc with that money, rather than buying a quality pack of biscuits I want myself. To me it was like sponsoring someone for charity or something. I think there’s definitely a nostalgia element though for older Americans and it was actually quite nice to have the neighbour come round with the little girl and drop them off.

DH used to bring them home from work occasionally too. So I guess parents sell them to unsuspecting work colleagues

Saw an advert on FB for our local group selling the cookies and they’re $6 a box.

They're made in Ontario by a company called, Dare.

Here in Canada it's Girl Guides, not Girl Scouts. As pp said, $6 p/box.

It's guides in the UK too.

They have always struck me as a huge scam as an expat. But people here genuinely seem to like them and I don't find it hard selling through the boxes I have. I think it's totally ludicrous.

Here in Canada I buy around 3-4 boxes with 12 boxes of cookies in each so that's 216 dollars roughly, which we then sell for what we paid for them. The girl guides keep the money between the wholesale cost and what we sell them for, although obviously they get the money from us and we have to recoup the outlay. The cookies sell for 6 dollars (about 3.80 GBP). I like the current ones but can take or leave some flavours.

I really hated selling them initially but people genuinely seem to like buying them. I once had a whole box of them on the train and someone stopped me and bought $30 worth and acted like I was doing them a favour.

The girl guides here seems hugely inefficient and it's actually quite expensive when you work it out per year and it's all run by volunteers.

What I'm blown away by on this thread is that AMERICANS DONT HAVE LOADS OF BISCUITS VARIETIES IN SHOPS !!!!

What do you dunk in your tea ?!?!?!

Americans drink coffee :)

They put gravy on biscuits, actually.

(sounds weirder than it is!)

Are the chocolate coated mint ones like viscounts? If not, how do you make a mint biscuit? They are the only ones that sound nice!

I love Viscounts - ate one yesterday

<irrelevant>

You ate one? But they come in packs of 6..

Dh (fucker) ate the rest and left me one

😂

I’ve had these either bought for me and sent to me or I collected them when I visited. I also bought some too. I’m in England but my best friend lives in Delaware (it’s pretty boring there trust me, so this is a highlight in their year, I’m not even kidding!). It’s a charity thing and no the children do not bake them.

As far as I recall these were sold door to door. It was approx 24/25 years ago so you do the math!

My best friend is American and yes it’s once a year. It was definitely big business then.

The Samoa ones and mint crisp were nice. And yes they used to be less sweeter than they are now apparently.

Incorrect, tea drinking is very popular in major cities especially New York and I introduced my best friend’s two daughters to tea drinking when I visited. They’re impressed as it’s a very British thing to do. They did or do sell rubbish tea like Liptons unless that’s improved.

There are recipes online for thin mint dupes.

Absolutely!

Also this:

The Girl Scouts sell so many millions of boxes that the baking of them is contracted out to major national bakers like Nabisco (formerly the National Biscuit Company).

They have to be uniform from coast to coast and year after year, so having the scouts bake them isn't practical.

@LaurieFairyCake
It's a different dunking culture. My understanding is that doughnuts may be (quickly!) dunked in coffee and cookies in milk. That would be common.
When I visit the States and want a cup of tea, I typically ask for hot tea or I might get cold tea over ice or queried hot or iced if I don't specify. But, I digress ....
Biscuits, are warm and scone-like and served with white gravy. Another distinction I've noticed: white gravy and brown gravy. As a Canadian, if I order "fries" (chips) and want gravy with them, then I ask for brown gravy on the side (asking for gravy with fries is a dead give-away I'm Canadian, btw). Again, another conversation.
Here, it's not uncommon to dunk cookies into coffee, but I don't typically see cookies dunked into tea. It would be something done at home, either way. And very uncommon for an adult to do in public.
Cookies are also dunked into milk, but again, likely at home and more likely by kids.

I looked at the Girl Guides site and it appears we only have two varieties of cookies: mint and choco/vanilla sandwich (one row of each in the box). As previously posted, chocolate and vanilla are by far the better of the two. And $6 a box is steep, but the money supports their activities. I generally buy a box when I see the girls selling them outside the grocery store. Nostalgia.

So are cream filled Jesuses a thing or was that just on Friends?

I think that is just a Friends thing

The biscuit selection here is definitely much behind the UK. Its basically chocolate chip in crunchy and chewy varieties, oreos with different flavored fillings, graham crackers which are like bad digestives, and a few sandwich style cookies with chocolate based fillings.

Now if you ask about donut varieties, then the US wins hands down

Real American donuts are more like churros than Krispy Kreme which is why they work dipped in coffee, which needs to be black and very hot (imo).

White gravy seems to be a popular internet meme topic but it's only a thing in the south. I don't understand why people go on about it.

Excellent question... I always wondered about house size and number of bedrooms.
Children always seem to share but the houses look huge!

I used to LOVE Samoas! I hope they haven't changed them!