BS: What are Tim Tams?

Subject: What are Tim Tams?
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 05:51 PM

I have seen yet another reference from Oz, to Tim Tams. Could someone please explain what these are?

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Penny
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 06:03 PM

Biscuits. Can't remember which variety they most resemble - I think they're like Penguins in UK, ie a chocolate sandwich with chocolate cream, chocolate coated. Manufactured by Arnotts, available in Sainsbury's in the UK. All that firms biscuits are tasty but expensive.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: The Shambles
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 06:56 PM

Penny you are a mine of information, you haven't failed me yet. I will just have to try harder.

I thought it might have been an Australian relative of John Tams.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 07:13 PM

Nice try, Penny! Here in Colorado we have a Tim Tam Trail as an address, but no clue as to who or what they/it is. Don't think it's a biscuit though. By the way, Penny, have you tried cafe noir? Absolutely incomparable and available at Tesco not sure about Sainsbury. Sorry for the outburst, I must confess I am not Lonesome E.J. but his wife seeking a little diversion.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Elizabeth
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 07:43 PM

They are indeed a very very yummy variety of chocolate biscuit. One interesting variation which mudcatters may like to try is to bite off diagonally opposite corners and then use the bikkie like a straw to drink a glass of port!!!! Mmmmmmmmmm.......The perfect nightcap.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: alison
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 10:54 PM

Yep,

Exactly the same as Penguins....... (I was never very fussed on Penguins.... but over here they don't sell many chocolate bikkies.. probably melt on the shelves or in the car...... so Tim Tams are a bit of a delicacy.)

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Mar 99 - 11:28 PM

We really are separated by a common language. If you serve up a "biscuit" as you describe in my backwards ass part of the world, some old boy, like as not, would be either laughing his buns off or kicking some serious ass!!! We call your things cookies and a biscuit is a quickbread made with flour,eggs,buttermilk,a pinch of salt, and the secrets and loving care of great cooks. Plus I don't think yours will hold up well to the rigors of red-eye and sausage gravy.

Eggs,salt-cured ham,grits,home fried 'taters, biscuits and gravy...what a breakfast...'cept in my case you can skip the grits. Enough cholesterol,salt, and fat to flat stop any heart.

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Alex
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 12:39 AM

Well, catspaw, seems to me that the language got screwed up on the American side of the pond. The word "Biscuit" comes to us from the French and means "twice cooked" or "twice fired" from the old practice of a dual process of making "cookies". What you are describing is more of an oven scone. A wee bit of sugar would make them palatable. As for "grits" I have just no clue of anything you could add that would make them at all palatable.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 01:46 AM

Cats...I'll take some tomatoes with that southern style breakfast.Sliced ripe w/salt and pepper or fried green, long as they are out of the garden.And as for Grits...them as likes em already knows, them as don't, won't...yo colleague, LEJ

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 01:48 AM

Almost forgot...Tim Tam was a Thoroughbred that won the Derby back in the 40's.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 02:02 AM

Leej, you'll understand this and I mean NO OFFENSE to our English brothers and sisters...we did screw up the language I freely admit BUT

Can you imagine offering some good ol' boy a plate of sausage gravy and Oven Scones? Like, uh...let the ass kickin's begin.

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 02:59 AM

Those English..when they call a dog "shaggy" is that a comment on his morals? Reminds me of the Scouse who was driving up the m-road in a lorrie full of scones. Drove spang into a Mankoonian with a boot full of spanners.Stop me if you've heard this one...

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Penny
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 04:31 AM

I think we, where English originated, are now tending to use "cookie" for the homemade variety of what we call biscuit, and "biscuit" for the drier shopbought thing, on the lines of graham crackers or Oreos, which is a very useful distinction. A Tim Tam would be like two rectangular Oreo type things, only not as dark, with a chocolate filling, and a chocolate covering. Would that port trick work with Cointreau, do you think?

I think I will now check the biscuit file on my computer, to see if it has any crumbs left in it.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 07:56 AM

P...P..P...Pick up a penguin. As a conessuer of cholestoral heavy food one of my dreams has to have a full southern breakfast..but grits?I don't know if I'd eat something that's named after an asphalt covering.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From:
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 07:58 AM

As I recall "cookie" is a corruption of the Dutch word for small cakes. So the word comes to the US from the Dutch settlers and that is why it doesn't appear in other English speaking countries.

Myself, I am a Tim Tam hater. Being a traditionalist, I prefer Arnots Chocolate Granitas (For you Poms: similar to MacVities chocolate bisquits. For you Yanks: similar to chocolate covered Graham crackers--the kind with chocolate only on one side). These are not so expensive. Those damn Tim Tams, and Monte Carlos and the lot have replaced them on the shelves of all my local shops.

Murray

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 08:18 AM

Give me a packet of Chocolate covered HobNobs and a big mug of mashed tea any day...you can keep yer oreos, ring-dings and Suzie-Qs. And whoever invented the Twinkie had an extremely perverse sense of humour.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 11:24 AM

I freely admit that we in the states are arrogant nabobs who have modified the language. And I do love English slang and such...We serve "Toad in the Hole" about once a month, more because I love the name and the kids go "OOOOO" than anything else. So please do NOT be in anyway offended by anything else I say.

I think you have to live on this side of the pond to appreciate the biscuit discussion here. As I said before, I can't hardly see myself saying to some up holler' good ol' boy, "Siddown here Billy Bob and have yourself some of this Sawmill gravy over a plate of OVEN SCONES." If I threw in something about kidney pie, that would simply be preliminary to LET THE ASS KICKIN' BEGIN !!!

Not that we don't eat some truly weird stuff over here without a second thought!!! LORD KNOWS WE DO! So I don't mean to repeat myself, which I've done, but I think every country has some dishes that would best be served with a garbage disposal.

BTW, regarding what we call biscuits....They are available in cans that pop open when struck on the side of a counter. Then you just bake them. In our sorry day and time, these are quite popular...but not to a true biscuit lovin' country boy. A comedian (Jerry Clower) said the most depressing sound in the world is that "Whoomp" sound the pressurized can makes when your wife strikes it against the counter and you realize you're not getting home made...no, you're having "Whoomp Biscuits."

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 11:58 AM

Strange food from around the world:

here in Brazil(especially here in the northeast) there is a delightful dish called Galinha Cabidella, which is chicken stewed in a sauce of its own blood, vinegar and herbs...it is truly disgusting. They have a fondness for boiled chicken feet as well which I have never really got my head round. They just love their boiled bananas with cheese and honey, which actually is quite delightful.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 06:43 PM

Murray,

Do you mean Chocolate Wheatmeals (not Granita's)?

I'll tell you guys a story I was taught in primary school about William Arnott, the founder of Arnott's biscuits, who make Tim Tams etc.

I grew up in Maitland, NSW, Oz (120 miles north of Sydney) where Arnott's Biscuits first started in the 1880's, I think. The company was doing well for a number of years and then a big flood wiped out the factory and Wm Arnott had to go bankrupt. He was a good Baptist and he told his creditors that even though he had been legally cleared of his debts by paying the percentage decided by the bankruptcy court he would pay them all back in full as soon as he could.

He moved his factory to Newcastle, 20 miles away (where I live now) and started making a profit again. (By the way, he diversified his product at this stage and started making ship's biscuits because of the shipping trade here in Nukes.) When he had enough money made up he paid off his previous creditors in full.

Now there is no Arnott's factory here - it moved to Sydney sometime later, but there are streets named after him, etc, and it is still considered to be an important part of the local history.

When I hear about people eating Arnott's biscuits all around the world it brings back the stories I have heard of Wm Arnott and his company.

A few years ago there was a big controversy about whether to let the Canadian(?) company Campbells buy into the Arnott company, and probably take it over. There was an amazing national response, an outcry really, almost as if someone had offered to buy the rights to all the kangaroos or koalas in the country. It seems that Arnott's, like Vegemite, has become a bit of a national icon.

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From:
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 08:28 PM

Helen, They used to have chocolate granitas; but they might have changed the name. I'll look out for that. Make sure you are not confusing them with Weston's "Chocolate Wheatens" ;-}

Speaking of different terminologies: Although I have been in Australia for 25 years, and lived in England for a few years before that, I still can't get used to the expression "Eat your tea."

The first year we were here, we invited some people over for tea and brewed some for them with some bikkies on the side. Of course they came with their bibs and appetite expecting an evening meal. Whenever I was invited out I was in the habit of saying, "Do you mean tea or tea?

Murray

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: alison
Date: 20 Mar 99 - 11:36 PM

Hi,

Yes we used to say "eat your tea" (or "your tea's ready").. meaning "sit down and have your evening meal" in Ireland.

And Alastair... mentioning chocolate hobnobs to those of us stuck at the far side of the world is just not fair!!!!

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 12:05 AM

My dad used to get up some Sunday mornings before the rest of us and make homemade biscuits, but even though we had some Southern ancestry, we never had the grits etc. to g with them. In fact, they were delicious and our favourites with butter and sugar oin them!

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 06:49 AM

You're right, Murray. I was thinking about the competition - Westons. It's just so hard to keep a mental catalogues of all these chocky treats

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Pete M
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 05:52 PM

OK OK if no-one else will, I'll ask!!

I gather that by "Grits" you Good ol boys don't mean nasty sharp bits of stone stuck in your shoes, but something that may or may not be edible depending on which side of the MD line you wuz raised. Any expalnation gratefully received and probably used against you in futuire :-) Pete M

By the wat in NZ a bit of grit is frequently refered to as a bit of metal; as in mettalled road. hey ho!

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From:
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 08:29 PM

I will let a true southerner answer the question about grits, except to say they are a form of porridge; but they are used as a starch base (like rice). I happen to like them. They (or one form) are/is refered to as "hominy grits", but I think we Mudcatters should call them "harmony grits"

About Arnots. Another thing that annoys me about them is those up-market bisquits all come in a rectangular package with a plastic tray. That tray is very noisy and it is hard to sneak a bikkie when your partner thinks you are getting too fat and should lay off them. Those good old fashioned round packages were nice and quiet. You could keep a package in the bottom drawer of your desk and quietly reach for one as the need arrose ;^}

Murray

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 09:20 PM

Let's see if my memory serves me well. Hominy Grits (more commonly called Grits) are a corn product.

The corn kernels are dried and then soaked in water and lye. This removes the outer shell of the kernal and leaves you with the bleached white germ of the corn. You rinse them thoroughly and this product is called Hominy. It can be cooked right away or it can be dried for storage and later reconstituted with boiling water.

If you dry the hominy and then grind it, you get Hominy Grits. The grits are about the consistency of cream of rice and when cooked with water they bear a strong resemblance to cream of rice. Grits are a traditional side dish for Southern USA breakfasts (they also appear at other meals). Some eat 'em plain with perhaps a little butter. Some stir them into their eggs (sunny side up or over easy).

Like rice or potatoes, they are often used as the carbohydrate side dish or as a vehicle for another flavor. My Betty Crocker cookbook, for instance, suggests a grits and cheese dish.

Some folks eat 'em as hot cereal like cream of rice.

Hope this is helpful to them Northern Yankees and other foreigners NOI (this is humor) (see the Xenophobia thread).

Roger in Baltimore (just South of the Mason-Dixon line)

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Banjer
Date: 21 Mar 99 - 09:35 PM

Grits...Properly pronounced Gree-ets here in the South is simply ground corn cooked in water. They are delicious served with lots of butter and fried eggs and bacon, a cholesterol lovers dream!!! Cheese can also be added to them. Tim Tams???? And you laugh at Grits? When I first saw the term Tim Tams I thought it was a type of head covering worn primarily by lads named Tim....Go figure...

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 04:37 AM

G'day,
Alex, it must be 45 years since some primary school teacher gave us the "twice cooked" origin of biscuit. I still walk down biscuit aisles in supermarkets muttering "twice cooked" to myself. Dammit!

Isn't a cookie something you get from Mudcat? Otherwise it's something you hear about in American (U.S.) TV shows.

I'm also a Tim-Tam hater. The weather here is wrong, you get your fingers covered with sticky chocolate. They're also much too sickly sweet for me.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From:
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 06:44 AM

So whose laughing at grits? I really like them--especially with eggs and bacon.

Roger, from what I remember of their tast and texture, your description of how they are made sounds right.

Alan raises an interesting question. How did the security cookies get that name. There must be something symbolic in passing someone a cookie.

Murray

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 07:46 AM

There may have been something more than symbolic! During WWII, the brilliant chemist George Kistiakowsky (who was also at Los Alamos and developed the shaped charges needed for implosion) invented a technique to turn High Explosive into a flour like consistency that could be smuggled through the lines for use by the underground. The "flour" could also be used to make cookies, cakes and breads and that's how it often was carried in. Even better(?), these things could be eaten safely and the HE "retrieved" later.

Brings new meaning to the phrase .."Shitfire."

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 07:51 AM

hahahahahahahahaha you made that up...you maust be kidding!!!!! Hahahahahahahahahaha

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 07:59 AM

NO!!! Documented and TRUE!!! Look up George Kistiakowsky and you can read all about it. He was a brilliant chemist and his work on the Manhattan Project was critical to it's success. He was perhaps the only man in the world capable of making implosion work, which was key to the plutonium bomb.

Sorry...not a catspaw joke!

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 08:02 AM

No, our threads never go off on tangents. Biccuits, cookies, grits, bombs.....sure, right on point here!

Simply amazing!!??!!??!!??!!!!

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 08:42 AM

I don't know about a new meaning to 'shitfire'but it makes me wonder where 'implosion' came from!?!

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 04:55 PM

Talking of exploding arses * my God! how do we get from biscuits to Hiroshima hemmaroids?* there's the tale of the south american guy who used to smuggle rare snakes and reptiles into the states by swallowing them.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: The Shambles
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 05:51 PM

What sort of snakes were they Arse Vipers?Sorry.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AlistairUK
Date: 22 Mar 99 - 05:55 PM

GROAN!!!!!

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 03:18 AM

What I want to know is: how did we get from talking about *chocolate* biscuits to talking about shit? Is it because they are both brown and sticky?

Which brings me to my favourite riddle:

What's brown and sticky?

[I'll give you some time to think about this one]

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: AndyG
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 06:24 AM

Errrm...

A Stick ?

AndyG - :)

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Banjer
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 06:45 AM

That's easy....Molasses is brown and sticky...may not be the correct answer but it works!

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Penny
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 11:41 AM

My friend Brian Arnott, no relation, used to work in the Arnott's factory, and has never heard of the port sucking trick. He fell about at the suggestion. I have tested them for porosity, sucking air, and I think I prefer the chocolate around Penguins, or better still, plain chocolate rich teas. Tim Tams are a bit too fatty in the covering area, wrong texture.

Thanks for the the grits information - I have seen a packet somewhere near here, but wasn't quite curious enough to buy. It sounds like polenta. I'll see if I can find it again. Top shelf, near the Camargue rice, I think it was.

As to the good ol' boys reaction to oven scones, if they had grown up calling them that, they would have the strong reaction to calling them biscuits, wouldn't they? But the packet ones sound dire - and almost timewasting. How long can it take to mix up and roll out a soda dough?

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Penny
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 03:56 PM

Would it help to know that they are not pronounced scones to rhyme with stones, but sconns to rhyme with ? what - one of them rhymes with on, anyway.

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 07:09 PM

AndyG - you're right, it's a stick. I like that riddle because the answeris in the question but you have to think laterally about the meaning of the word "sticky".

The only trick I've heard about sucking liquids through Tim Tams is to suck hot coffee through them. The port sounds like more fun.

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 07:11 PM

I forgot, there has been a TV ad in the last year for Arnott's which shows a nun, looking very guilty, sucking coffee through her Tim Tam - the message being that it's one of life's wicked little pleasures which are hard to give up.

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 11:25 PM

Lemme' get this right...Y'all suck coffee and port wine through a cookie? Ya know we need an exchange program!!! I'll send some grits, a great biscuit recipe, and a can of whoomp biscuits for the lazy...will trade for Tim Tams and an oven scone recipe.

catspaw

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Helen
Date: 23 Mar 99 - 11:51 PM

Okay, catspaw, I'm in. Let's do it.

He, other Oz 'Cats, let's all send him a packet of Tim Tams. This could develop into a very *sticky* new form of chain letter, I think.

Helen

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Alice
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 12:11 AM

hmmm. weird food names? and then there's Dr. Pepper. (anyone from the that other country, Texas, care to share our American recipe for that... and the times on the clock that you drink it...)

alice in montana

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From:
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 02:56 AM

Penny, I would say "scones" rhymes with "prawns"

I thought "Shitfire" was the name of one of those firms that act as corporate axmen.

I've gotta stop reading this thread. I was in our local grocery today and I looked on the shelf for chocolate granitas. Of course they weren't there and for a weak moment I said, "Maybe I will get some Tim Tams" (There were plenty of them.) I resisted! Health 1, Arnots 0

Murray

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: alison
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 07:54 AM

Well if we're sending things....

Can I get a bar of Galaxy chocolate from home please...... this Aussie stuff just doesn't come close.... **grin**

Slainte

alison

Subject: RE: What are Tim Tams?
From: Penny
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 04:46 PM

Murray, I speak as I was taught, but either way, it doesn't sound particularly over lady-like.

And I can't find the grits I saw in the shops! Searched everywhere, almost, even in the American food store in the new mall down the road. (And nothing in there seems especially attractive, being over-produced. Nothing basic.) Could I, over influenced by catspaw, have hallucinated them? Or was I in the budgerigar section, and nowhere near the cereals?