What your Favourite Biscuit says about you

2011 was the year I discovered the charms of Twitter and Bettakultcha, so it seems fitting that I should end it with a presentation at Christmas Bettakultcha that’s been researched entirely on Twitter. I love the interactivity of crowdsourcing – simply toss out a question on Twitter and amass a range of reaction from gracious souls in no time at all. Pick the right topic and the research becomes effortless as well as amusing. Whilst this method wouldn’t suit a serious study, it embraces the very essence of bettakultcha, where the audience is entertained by volunteers like me talking about our quirky passions. The catch, not to mention the fun, is in the highly regimented format. Each speaker talks for exactly five minutes, using exactly 20 slides which change automatically every 15 seconds.

I’ll be talking about biscuits – specifically, what your favourite biscuit reveals about you. The idea came to me during a trivial Twitter chat with @robhopesworld when I randomly mentioned custard creams. “Are they your favourites?” he tweeted back. I confess I actually paused before replying. You see, I’d never really considered singling out a *favourite* biscuit before. The more I thought about it though, the more I realised that the biscuit I invariably reach for is the custard cream. Indeed, I find the vanilla flavoured fondant cream, sandwiched between two flamboyantly patterned biscuits to be soothingly familiar and undeniably gratifying.

But here’s the dilemma. My back up biscuit it might be, but seriously, I’m hardly going to offer up a plate of custard creams to a guest for afternoon tea! During my secretarial days, a middle class boss drummed into me the importance of serving Twinings English Breakfast tea instead of Tetley during client meetings. Needless to say, serving custard creams instead of say, a plate of Bahlsen Choco Leibniz, would probably be a sackable offence. So, when I publicly acknowledge my love of the cheap, cheerful, no-nonsense, old fashioned custard cream, what statement am I making about myself? I reckon my choice goes some way to explaining my working class, council estate roots. On the other hand, if I selected the double-barrelled Bahlsen as a favourite, I’d probably be leaping from the Betty Turpin league towards the Michael Bubles of the biscuit world.

The response to my biscuit queries on Twitter has been overwhelming. Fellow tweeps have debated whether or not the jaffa cake is in fact a biscuit at all, whether fig rolls count towards your five a day allowance, why shortbreads are popular among Asians, as well as the critical issue of dunking. The vociferous passion with which garibaldi lovers defend their biscuit of choice hasn’t gone unnoticed. In fact, it makes perfect sense when you consider that the biscuit was named after an Italian revolutionary. Despite the biscuit’s fly specked appearance, devotees have gone so far as to claim that the garibaldi is the Richard Burton of the biscuit world!

Before conducting this research, I would never have dared to celebrate the notion that the humble custard cream might also be worthy of such merits. But it seems the custard cream is an institution too, having been around for over a century. You needn’t take my word for it. In a poll of 7,000 people, 90% backed the custard cream as their favourite biscuit. So you see, the custard cream is actually biscuit vintage gold. It doesn’t need to be pompous because it’s already a classic. This of course means I can breathe a sigh of relief – it seems I do have good taste after all.

@irnaqureshi blogs about being British, Pakistani, Muslim and female in Bradford, against a backdrop of classic Indian films at www.bollywoodinbritain.wordpress.com