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?

@WalkingaroundJardine@LostInTheColonies@nothingsforgotten

Thank you all. It's interesting how times change (or perhaps it is regional/country changes?)

I grew up in Queensland on the Darling Downs and I guess I was at Brownies in the early 1970s. How times change! I used to love Lamingtons, and my DM made them, but I don't think I did for my kids. They always felt like a bit of a faff to home make! I still make Anzac biscuits because they are pretty simple.

I'm feeling nostalgic now and might dig out a recipe for Lamingtons. I'm UK based now and I've never seen them here.

After reading so many comments about the dire, awful selection of cookies and biscuits we have in the US compared to the UK, I had a look in the cookie isle of my supermarket this morning. It's not quite the post-apocalyptic scene you might have been led to expect.

I'm not a big cookie person, but I do love the Tate's and Pepperidge Farm ones in the third picture.

It always felt like a weird pyramid selling scheme thing when cookie selling season came round in our city. Also I was confused bc the cookies felt and tasted more like our biscuits. But they couldn't be biscuits because they're served with wallpaper paste gravy in the US.

I feel it's no accident that when my best American friend came to the UK she fell in love with Hob Nobs and still requests them as gifts. Infinitely nicer than any fundraiser cookie!

@Greywitch2 I've been meaning to try lamingtons, there a coffee shop in Marlebone that does them, and this recipe looks so good:

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/02/fish-curry-lamingtons-coconut-peanut-rice-yotam-ottolenghi-coconut-recipes

@CheeseSandwichRiskAssessment Goodness - they are fancy! 😁

Traditional lamingtons are much more like this. They are really just sponge rolled in chocolate icing and coconut. I've seen people put jam in - but that's not how we had them as kids.

We moved from London to Chicago 9 years ago and my daughter is now a girls scout member and loves to sell cookies. She's now the cookie connect in our neighborhood 😂. As we approach cookies season they start asking when cookies will be available.

It's fun supporting her and her troop but it's also work for parents to organize the orders and help deliver the cookies etc.

The girls now sell using their online accounts since covid so we share her link or bar code, and then as a troop they also setup at various locations eg grocery stores, games, offices etc to sell. They use their share of the proceeds to find activities for the troop and also try to do some charitable activities in their local community each year.

I like thin mints, samosa and lemon ups and hate trefoils and dosidos. Others are just ok to me. Some of the names vary based on location, there are 2 bakeries that serve different areas of the US so some names will differ based on which area/bakery you fall under.

My 9 year old daughter enjoys girls scout and went to her first sleep away camp with girls scout last year for 3 days and she loved it so much that this summer she is going for a week.

As for posts about why the girls are not baking the cookies, girls scout sell a lot of cookies annually about 200 million boxes, there is no way girls can bake enough to meet the demand and also there is no way to maintain consistency. Besides parents already have enough to do supporting the sales, I'm not interested in having to bake cookies. My daughter sold over 400 boxes this past cookies season, there is NO way she or (should I say I) will bake that many cookies.

I normally eat them hot out of the oven with a knob of Kerrygold. We don't have sausages for breakfast too often, but I love sausage gravy.

No way!

There are sooooo many more. Where were you shopping?

Your comment about graham crackers reminds me of the inadvertently hilarious Paul Hollywood version of s'mores.

I just realized that I left out possibly the very best way of eating a biscuit. A ham biscuit is food of the gods.

The only place she's shopped for American cookies is in an airport vending machine.

She's also wrong about donuts, the US does basic ones well, it's the UK that has infinite weird varieties like topped with a snickers but can't manage a single good one.

@CarolinaInTheMorning

Fried chicken on a biscuit with hot honey and pickled red onion. 😇