
Universalpsykopath tugs our coat and says: Tell us about your feats of deduction and the little mysteries you've solved. Alternatively, tell us about the simple, everyday things that mystified you for far too long.
( , Thu 13 Oct 2011, 12:52)
« Go Back | See The Full Thread

It's what the name means - first they are baked, then they are dried in a hot oven to go hard. These are the ones that go soft over time.
Cookies, on the other hand, are only cooked once, so they should be slightly soft. These are the ones that get harder over time.
Easy.
( , Mon 17 Oct 2011, 17:15, 1 reply)

They're cooked once. The cooked twice comes from the word 'biscuit', french for cooked twice, or thereabouts. No modern biscuits are cooked twice.
Cookies are eactly the same thing as (English) biscuits. It's from an old dutch word , kokje or something. Americans call it that because biscuits over there are something else.
Digestive biscuits in America are called Graham crackers. they're not allowed to call them digestives, because it is seen as a claim that they have medicinal properties, which they don't. They're called digestives because when they were invented, it was considered impolite to call them anti-flatulence biscuits. Probably still not a great marketing line.
By coincidence, I was reading all this on the bog, in my QI general book of ignorance this morning.
( , Tue 18 Oct 2011, 9:03, closed)
« Go Back | See The Full Thread