Lately I've been doing a lot of posts about my initial experiences with various countries' edibles and drinkables. This isn't the case today. I've done at least one about Belgium's wares (see my February 24, 2018 post, about Belgian beverages), and this is another. Also, unlike many of my recent posts, the products discussed here weren't bought at an exotic grocery--these were found at my local Shop Rite supermarket. Anyway, the three biscuit types were all from the Lotus company, specifically the Biscoff, Dinosaurus, and Biscoff To Go cookies.
The Lotus company dates back to 1932. It was started by the Boone brothers--Jan, Emiel, and Henri. Jan seems to have been the chef/cookie inventor, so evidently Emiel and Henri handled the bookkeeping, or marketing, or something. Apparently their initial inspiration was to make biscuits for breakfast, and speculoos for St. Nicholas Day celebrations (on December 5th). Speculoos biscuits are a traditional type of special shortcrust cookies, which are thin, crunchy, and usually shaped like various forms, like an elephant, a farmhouse, or a ship. These biscuits are made in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Luxembourg. However, the brothers' most popular item was their Biscoff biscuits, noted for their caramelized, crunchy, and unique flavor, often dunked in coffee. In fact, the name of this biscuit is a combo of these--the "Bis" is from "biscuit," and the "coff" from "coffee." Other Lotus products include gingerbread biscuits, Breton French butter cookies, French shortbread biscuits, spreadable cookie butter, infant/toddler treats, and cookie-flavored ice cream. The firm boasts about 1600 employees, and is sold in about 50 countries worldwide, including the U.S., much of Europe, Chile, China, and Korea. In the 1950's Lotus started individually wrapping Biscoff cookies, which was quite popular with consumers, but presumably disliked by trash collectors and environmentalists. The website claims that 6,000,000,000 Biscoff biscuits are made annually, and enjoyed on all 7 continents. So unless the Lotus company is exaggerating, scientists in Antarctica also chow down on them, huddled in their bunkers, trying to avoid The Thing's awful tentacles.
1) Lotus Biscoff biscuits: These are roughly rectangular cookies, about 7 cm. by 3 cm. (about 2.75 inches by 1.25 inches), brownish in color, with scalloped edges. "Lotus" is embossed on each one. These were just okay. Crunchy. Not that sweet.
2) Lotus Dinosaurus cookies: These were slightly bigger--about 3 inches by 2.25 inches (about 7 cm. by 5 cm.) chocolate on one side, light yellowish brown cookie on the other, shaped like a stegosaurus dinosaur, obviously. Again, kind of disappointing, as they were alright, but not great. Even with the milk chocolate coating on half of it.
3) Lotus Biscoffs to go: This kind consisted of 7 cm long (about 3 inches) yellow breadstick-like rods which you dip into a small tub of brown cookie butter. The butter itself looks like peanut butter. The rods are very plain by themselves. However, they're pretty decent when dipped. Better than the other two biscuit kinds.
So, in summation, I wasn't dazzled by the Lotus biscuits/cookies. As has happened before, I tend to find European cookies to be less sweet than the kinds I really enjoy. I'm too familiar with overly sugary American style cookies, I suppose. To be fair, since I despise coffee, both as a beverage and a flavor, I didn't dip the Biscoffs in that liquid, since that would have automatically made me hate the results. I would try some of the Lotus ice cream, though. Finally, I did kind of like the Biscoff commercial I saw on the website. It features of bunch of coffee mugs which jump off a shelf and then climb a counter to get at a guy's Biscoffs. They do so in a "World War Z" pyramid-style fashion. It was sort of creepy when I (over) thought about it, in a fun sort of way.
No comments:
Post a Comment