I recently met a former colleague over a cup of tea at a new-age, fancy cafe where masala chai is sold in a kulhads, in air-conditioned environments, for truckloads of money which can easily buy a month’s worth of tea leaves at home. But despite the small fortune that I paid, what I really missed were Marie biscuits.
As a child, Marie biscuits were synonymous with tea, though I was not allowed to have tea. But come 6 p.m., I would eagerly join my parents for their evening cup of tea. I would quickly gulp down my “health drink”, which was rewarded with precisely two Marie biscuits which I would dunk in my parents’ tea before gobbling up the soft, tea-soaked medals that these biscuits were.
Marie biscuits were also my first partners in crime when it came to donning the culinary hat. After asking our maid to chop some onions and tomatoes, I would make Marie toasties and try selling them to my neighbours. Sadly, no one seemed to be interested in buying these home-made delicacies, and that was the end of my entrepreneurial journey, aged just 10. When I was in the mood for something sweeter, I would run creative experiments with a layer of butter and a dollop of chocolate spread sandwiched between two Marie biscuits and relish this sweet, buttery, and salty concoction of mine. Years later, I realised that sea-salted chocolate tastes similar, but is not very friendly on my pocket.
