Jubilee Delights & Penguin Musings [By @NLi10]

The above is pretty much what the UK's stores look like this week. Same products, new flag based packaging. Our Queen has been doing her job for 60 years, and shows no signs of wanting to stop - which is pretty impressive as your average person complains that the retirement age should be 60 - and she is 86. This does call for a nice party, but it's hard to combine traditional English values with new product launches so the bunting manufacturers and the box designers have been busier than the R&D people.

The above were very nice mini Victoria Sponges actually, not perfect as it's not fresh cream, but correctly using Raspberry and not over sugaring the mixture. Good call Mr. Kipling - I'm growing to like the direction you are taking with the new recipes.

I had a quick look around to see exactly what products have been floating around since the original coronation that I already wanted to talk about and realised that McVitties Penguin was born in 1932, predating even United Biscuits themselves by 14 years according to the Wikipedia (which was when the inventor of the Penguin and McVitties joined forces). I bought some Penguins a few months back to see if they had changed much since they were the only chocolate bar my Grandparents used to buy for us some 20 years ago. They have not - but I have.

(pic source)

Long gone are the days when I'd P-P-P-Pick up a penguin (the old advert slogans are still the best), and now I drift to Oreos and things with 'new' on the box. The interesting thing is - a Penguin is essentially a milk-chocolate Oreo covered in more milk-chocolate. Is my love for Oreos just a rekindling of my love for the classic Penguin, but in a darker biscuit? Heck - why haven't McVitties released a upgraded Gentoo Penguin with a higher cocoa content and maybe even dark chocolate? A quick google search reveals nothing similar to this.

In Australia they have the Tim-Tam which is essentially a Penguin for warmer climes, and it's possible they have gotten more experimental with that. In the 80 years of Penguin someone must have spotted the link to the Oreo and tried the switch - surely!

So a happy Jubilee to all Brits in the UK and beyond, enjoy the new snacks that we keep finding, but don't forget those that have been around for the 60 years that the Queen has.

By NLi10