johnpalmer

...I couldn't help but occasionally wonder what the heck a "jelly baby" was. These played an occasional part in some of the old Tom Baker Dr. Who episodes, and every now and again, I just wondered.

Recently, I found UKGoods.com, and found that they sold them. But I needed at least $20 to place an order. So, I ended up having to fill my cart with additional items.

How the heck do you decide what the heck to buy? Well, I was curious about candies, so I restricted myself to sweets, but even then, how do you know what's just plain boring stuff akin to what you can get at a supermarket here in the US, and what's interesting?

I saw a Mars bar, and knew that those are different from what we get in the US so I ordered one of those. And "Fruit Pastilles" which sounded interestingly different. And jam tarts, because if I didn't read of British kids snacking on jam tarts when I was young, I probably should have.

But then my eye landed on something that I just had to buy because it's so indescribably British that I couldn't *stand* it.

"Jammie Dodgers".

You see two words like that paired together, and you just *know* that there's no way on earth anyone in the US could have produced such a thing. I don't know if it's genetic, or a bit of culture that has broken into the collective unconscious; I don't know if it's a strange chip that's implanted in the heads of infants. No one in the US could possibly have come up with *anything* that they would even *dream* of calling "Jammie Dodgers."

I'll have to have them some afternoon... with tea.