The Bluestocking - Best Pub on the Internet

[EdithStourton]

Welcome to the Bluestocking women's pub. Excellent (if sometimes wilful) gerbil bar staff, varied cocktails, splendid cakes, cracking Sunday roasts...

Voted Best Pub for the umpteenth thread running, join us for conversation about tractors, units of measurement, films, wildlife, and even, sometimes, women's rights.

Just keep Glenda off the gin.

Any men, you can trot along to the Staunch Ally just up the road.

I separate and eat the creamy side then ditch the non creamy side! Unless I'm dunking in tea then I don't separate.

Bourbons, custard creams, lemon puffs and other "sandwich" biscuits, except Jammie Dodgers because it doesn't work.

Instructions for eating :

• Separate the two halves. Points if one half comes away completely without any filling on it.
• Eat the plain half.
• Lick the filling off the other half. No tip of the tongue half-heartedness, total tongue usage (much easier as a lion).
• Eat the other half.
• Try to restrict the biscuit eating to a single biscuit.
• Fail.

Number one in an occasional series on official biscuit-eating. Next time: Jaffa cakes, which may be classified as cake for VAT purposes, but are actually biscuits.

I’m not particularly fond of cream (or rather, fake creme) filled biscuits.
Jaffa cakes otoh … they’re not really either biscuits or cakes, they’re their own thing. Might as well argue about whether scones are cakes or bread. Sultana with cream and jam - cake-ish, cheese scone with soup takes the place of a roll.

It doesn't work with Jammie Dodgers? Hmmmm. I mostly agree, though you can produce a sort of split-level island of jam+biscuit if you separate the two halves very carefully.
More experimentation needed clearly!

Here's a photo of Myrtle stalking her prey, in this case a lemon puff which has become separated from the packet😋

I hadn't thought about scones like that but you are, of course, correct.

Neither bread nor cake.

Or indeed breadcakes.

But I'm stopping there because otherwise I will start a long discussion about northern words referring to soft bread rolls, also called baps, where I grew up.

I love that post!

In my experience it is extremely difficult to separate the top of a Jammie Dodger from the bottom. There is something about the hole affecting the structural integrity of the biscuit, meaning it breaks every single time.

Also the jam is very sticky and stops the biscuit from separating cleanly.

On top of that, and this maybe a controversial opinion, they're not actually very nice.

all of the roll-type-things quite different from blaas

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaa

Supermarkets solve the bread/cakes dilemma by calling them 'baked goods'.
I've also seen 'breakfast goods' for croissants etc.

And I recently saw a fine example of what we disapprovingly call 'notions' in Ireland:
a sign saying VIENNOISERIE!😮
I responded [not out loud of course!] with the standard Irish response to 'notions' - 'Huh - 'tis far from [x] ye we reared!'

Also charcuterie, which is just 'notions' for cold meats. Pronounced 'mates'

'Tis far from 'charcuterie' ye were reared'😄

Hello Deano, I hadn't read your post before I posted mine - two bits of Hiberno in a row, eh?

Of course you separate them...(Unless you're stuck in a Principal Teachers' Network Meeting and you have to pretend that you're sophistimicated. I hear.)

Yep, as I said on the first page of this iteration of the Bluey, I forgot to swap to my Bluestocking moniker and instead had (a mistyped version of) my Puzzles thread user name.

Marie, the bit of your story I most wish was true was that I have a basement, whether or not poor old DP was tied up in it. It could all be a bit Faro's Daughter, I suppose, but I mostly would appreciate more storage space. Although a Georgette Heyer riff is also fun.

I used to be able to use my teeth to scrape off the top layer of chocolate of After Eights...Don't think I can quite manage it with the crowns...

I mean, the V shape in the middle of my broken teeth made them look a bit unsightly, but it had its uses.

They can be too chewy.

Fox's golden crunch creams are the best for separating and/or dunking.

You can get a short of mash up of a jammie dodger and a cream filled biscuit. Probably called a jam cream. Their two halves can often be separated successfully. You then have the novelty of a plain with a hole in it, and another biscuits from which you can lick the cream then the jam.

I don't think you can pry apart the sides of a jammie dodger without power tools. Perhaps a band saw?

I've heard in Australia the bit of a supermarket that sells laundry stuff is called Manchester! Or possibly the bit that sells towels and bedding? Or both?

I have so many questions. Do they call it the Manchester section, just the Manchester (like the Butcher) or wot? Does it predate supermarkets?

I think one of the sad things about everything being sold at department stores, then supermarkets and, now, the interweb is that the language has become a little more impoverished. I know what a haberdashery is and I'm aware of the existence various mongers, ostlers, wrights so I could look them up. I can tell my sprogs too. But their kids (if they have them), other kids will be less and less likely to. The words will circulate within smaller and smaller numbers of people until eventually Dickens will sound like Shakespeare, who will sound like Chaucer, who will sound like Beowulf.

I wonder if Beowulf will ever come back into fashion as a boy's name?

Oh Lord. So few people nowadays understand the word 'haberdashery'...

It's just occurred to me...stupidly....Beowulf must mean White Wolf?

Seemingly not.

https://www.behindthename.com/name/beowulf

In Slavic, proto-Slavic, beo is 'white'. As in Beograd, etc.

I was definitely ready to roll - I went to a park, a café, the cinema, put for dinner, around the shops and home on the bus on my first day.

I think I'll go to the big park today, maybe pick some wild garlic to have with dinner.

Weary, we had an excellent haberdashery for years, but it shut down in 2023 and I fear no one will open one again.

If anyone could ask an AI to draw a picture of a bee wolf? 😁 Is it a bee that hunts wolves? In packs a swarm? Or a bee/wolf hybrid?

I would never have thought of it as an alternative name for a bear, although I can see how it's applicable. To my ears it's a bit Pooh bearish. Not how I imagine the contemporaries of the composer of Beowulf would have seen actual bears. It, to me, demonstrates how different, alien even, our mind sets must bee.

Not aimed at the people who make sangers out of batch bread (or even Vienna loaf) and slices of haslet.

Lemon puffs are best with tea- but they're not as 'puffy' as they used to be.
Dislike custard creams, bourbons, jammie dodgers - bleurgh! and plain digestives too
But- home made choc chip cookies: now we're talking. Especially watching them spread out in the oven. Mmm

My German grandmother called corduroy Manchester.

I discovered Jammie Dodgers late into adulthood - we didn't have them when I was a child. I thought they were lovely and also fun to dissect😄
But I agree with..... who was it? --who said that the jam is a bit tart. Now a Jammie Dodger with strawberry jam would be yum.
Would it be as gummy, though?

Last time this came up on another thread, somebody told me there are all pink JDs,and sent a link - unfortunately they Did Not Deliver To Your Location, so I have not had the pleasure of discovering them.

I agree about Lemon Puffs being less puffy. Maybe we could sue under the Trade Descriptions Act. I wonder is NC available after the current tribunal?😁

Ooooh amazing Deano and Marie, you are both making me want to go to Ireland to bask in the culture, scenery, language, wit and liveliness of all of the Irish people. I have never been to Ireland but one day perhaps, one day. Also my maternal grandfather was born in Dublin, although I'm pretty sure he was not Irish.