Jelly Babies! Where are they?

[cbrzychcy]

Dang it!! I'm now really in the mood for English Muffins :/ I'll have to pick them up next time I pop out to the shop and I'll take a picture of me eating one!

[davec]

'Dang it'??

Oh, that's right, you're Texan.

Being a former Hoosier (Indiana), I'm a former dang-it-er. It's just so not northern Illinois, it seems.

[SepticTone]

Dag nab it!

I examined the pic you posted, dave, & I really must admit, respectfully, that that didn't appeal to me in the least. It's too wet, with all that slop on top.

But now I get the idea of US biscuits, thanks. They do look like English muffins, ie: like a bread roll ( Southern English term), or 'bap' or 'teacake' as they're termed here in NW England, cut in half. They look bready.

A crumpet looks & feels like it's made of rubber, really, as it's bendy (I'm thinking quickly on my feet here, btw., you might note), & comes with the soft yielding squishy holes on its upper surface: you don't cut them in half: that's how they come, the holes are part of the process I suppose.

Google 'crumpet' & you'll see. That search also comes up with the term 'Thinking Man's Crumpet', which immediately brought to my mind an image of Joanna Lumley.

Looking forward to your pics of you eating muffins, btw, cbrzy.

[davec]

Yeah, Thomas' English Muffins are pretty much crumpets, perhaps a little less rubbery and glossy. Slightly bready with big bubbly crumpety voids. Now there's a marketing slogan you can take to the bank.

Biscuits-and-gravy is indeed as you describe, bready biscuits quite smothered. And country-style biscuits tend toward the Irish soda bread recipe, which IMHO is a vehicle for anything you care to pour, smear, or dump on it. Really good ones are good only because of a particularly good pork sausage gravy, but most are just filling. I fondly remember them because they fuel me up when I'm going fossil hunting, clambering up and down steep slippery hills with a bag or bucket full of heavy rocks. They're not a gourmet delight. A full English breakfast easily outpaces the typical American country breakfast, and if it were available everywhere here for cheap I'd probably weigh twenty stone. I guess for me they're a comfort food.

Joanna Lumley--The Thinking Man's Crumpet. Dead right. Now let's see if we can connect her back to Jelly Babies...

[SepticTone]

Joanna Lumley--The Thinking Man's Crumpet. Dead right. Now let's see if we can connect her back to Jelly Babies...

Easy.

Joanna Lumley played the 13th Doctor in the spoof 'Comic Relief' charity episode of Dr. Who, in 1999. (Also featured in this episode was Julia Sawalha, who played 'Saffy' in 'Absolutely Fabulous' with Lumley).

Tom Baker ( the 4th Dr. Who), had a fondness for Jelly Babies, & always used to have a bag of them in his coat, which he would offer to nonplussed aliens.

Joanna Lumley's also a bit long in the tooth now, & a bit of a fossil herself, but I wouldn't mind having her set before me on a table, covered in gravy.

[PeterSF]

Just to clear up a bit, davec, like you said, a muffin is the same as a Thomas's English Muffin (except over here they omit the extra 's' that we would use).
A crumpet is quite different, and is rubbery when not cooked, and much chewier than a muffin (the English kind).
There is a scene in the Malcom McDowell film "If...." where one of the senior schoolboys orders his fag (completely different meaning to the septic term, but not "cigarette" in this case) to run down and get some some muffins, and is extremely peeved when he brings back crumpets instead.

Also, crumpets are eaten whole, whereas muffins are sliced horizontally (usually pre-sliced in the packet).

SepticTone: I agree; biscuits and gravy, as pictured, look disgusting, but they actually taste delicious if you can get over the appearance of that white gravy.
I'd forgotten that (the 4th? - EDIT: I wasn't correcting you, I didn't notice you'd already stated that, and I was unsure of my memory) Dr. Who liked jelly babies - Tom Baker was my favourite, although I haven't seen any of the later ones.

Joanna Lumley's also a bit long in the tooth now, & a bit of a fossil herself, but I wouldn't mind having her set before me on a table, covered in gravy.

"Set" is used here in the transitive sense, although Americans might mistake it for intransitive (I think; I could be wrong).
Either way, I concur

[davec]

Transitive? Intransitive? Ermm... I thought 'her set' was the direct object...

[SepticTone]

Transitive? Intransitive? Ermm... I thought 'her set' was the direct object...

OK OK, you've got the linguistic pedant in me going.

But your comments are very funny, nonetheless.

I did mean 'set' in the transitive tense, but perhaps I should have fine tuned my punctuation, as per:

"I wouldn't mind having her, set before me on a table, covered in gravy." Not implying, for example, 'her set of dentures' as the implied object.

As in: " Tone! Set the bloody table before my Mother gets here, you idle sod!" A cry often heard from my spouse in ToneTowers prior to my in-laws arrriving for dinner. Meaning: 'Lay the table'. Oh no, perhaps that clause also might be misunderstood by Americans. I don't know what Americans do with tables, apart from omitting to set knives opposite the forks.

Peter SF is quite correct in his definition of 'muffins' vs 'crumpets'. The two are totally dissimilar apart from both being round; crumpets being made out of rubbery stuff, muffins out of bready stuff. Patisserie Chef's definition.

[davec]

Americans universally set the table, at least when preparing to dine. If we were to lay the table, well, that would be a different kettle of fish altogether--Biblically, it would be to know the table. In either case, it's a transitive useage, with the table as the exceedingly direct object. Wooden appeal to me.

The reason we set the silverware differently is the same as the reason we (all, supposedly) do that stupid choreography with the knife and fork during gustation. Which is both 'historical' and 'none, really'.

Just keep in mind the niggling possibility that anything the Colonies say or do just may be a snapshot of the English past, frozen in time. I do keep seeing surprising little Americanisms here and there when I study old Yorkshire dialect, for example.

[SepticTone]

Sorry dave. I'd had one too many jelly babies & got cynical.