Possibly the most under-rated confectionary in the world is
the humble biscuit. For my generation,
I think it was supremely unfair that we were deprived of a great variety of
biscuits that are now available in India, but even with the limited variety
they offered such great joy & happiness – they make it to one of my
favourites.
The reason I think they do not get enough recognition and
respect is the limited association for biscuits with ccelebration &
happiness. Everything from beverages to soft drinks, chocolates etc occupy this
space along with their more premium offerings, and their neighbourhood spaces
of fun, carefree-ness etc.
Biscuits usually are more of a snack or an in-between
regular to be had with tea re-inforced as they became a habit and a routine.
Not for me.
While biscuits do serve the purpose as outlined in their
regular association. For me, its also a
lot of pleasure that comes in consuming them, and this has been re-inforced
with every new occasion of consumption and purchase of biscuits.
Now let me give a brief backdrop of where I am coming
from. For my generation the FMCG or
Consumer packaged goods were a very small limited category with only a handful
of brands present and almost a limited choice offering no variety. Especially
in the case of foods. The only packaged snacks were candies, chocolates and
biscuits. The savoury snacks like potato chips etc. came much much later.
In the case of biscuits however, there were some established
brands and boy, were they good. India, in fact has the cheapest biscuit
anywhere in the world, and no surprises its by far the largest selling brand in
the world too by volume. My favourites
were the Bourbon biscuits which were chocolate-sandwiched biscuits and
absolutely divine – even nnow when I open one, or buy a pack its wolfed down
immediately and rarely does a need arise to store some for later. The other favourite of mine was a biscuit
called Delite which was an orange flavoured biscuit, discontinued for sometime,
and similarly a brand called NICE which is a coconut flavoured biscuit
sprinkled with sugar.
However the real joy was in going beyond this, and that’s
where the limitations began. There were
a few enterprising local companies or bakeries that came out with their own
limited edition of celebration biscuits which were available during festivals,
all of them attractively packed for the festive season, and contained a motley
collection of biscuits of different varieties.
We normally didn’t buy these but received them as gifts, and each one of
them are still imprinted in my memory for the fun times they brought out. We’d be surprised by the variety as well as
the lovely flavours this range of biscuits with have.
As we travelled across India, I discovered cookies (perhaps
a separate post on them) which were artisanal and more locally flavoured, and
of course I travelled across the globe I
started discovering even more- many many
more varieties and fell in love with them (best displayed by the amount of
weight I put on).
These days I go back to my old favourites, but also love
finding out the many many more varieties and brands of biscuits available to
try and test. Unibic and biskfarm are
two new brands that have caught my fancy.
And a surprise is Patanjali which has hands down the best tanginess in
terms of the orange cream biscuit. Then
there is ITC’s sunfeast which has a lovely range of biscuits which are both
affordable and a good variety – I have loved their cream and jelly filled range
including Jim-Jams & fruit flavoured
cream biscuits. And they have a great selection of cookies in their fantasy
range.
But both Parle and Brittannia have managed to retain some of
their old associations established across decades for my generation in providing
some great succour to biscuit lovers like myself. I am grateful to them for
that.
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