One of the vile and unnatural afterbirths of the “Starbucks Generation” has been biscotti. Does anyone really eat this crap, or do they just stick it in the junk drawer for later use as a doorstop or paperweight? How did this detritus of the day old bakery come to be a “gourmet” coffee shop item? Personally, to me it tastes like a hunk of 13 year old bread that someone rolled around in flour and turpentine. People gives others big cans of biscotti for Christmas fer chrisake! Look, we didn’t want your fruit cakes and we sure as shit don’t want you god damned biscotti!
Along with this goes a host of other “gourmet” foods. I think the word gourmet has turned into a synonym for “taking regular food and adding a bunch of crap that’s not supposed to be in it, thereby making it taste like shit.”
I love biscotti. I will take all big Christmas cans of biscotti off of anyone’s hands. My grandmother, grandmother in law, and an aunt make wonderful biscotti, but it is always the straight-up classic Italian anise-flavored, so if I have to set foot in a Starbucks to get some yummy crunchy chocolate/almond/macadamiam/whatever biscotti, so be it.
However, that will be all I get inside of Starbucks, because , on principle, I refuse to pay more than a dollar for a cup of bustass.
Right on man, whose bright idea was that? “Hey, let’s take a perfectly good cookie, and bake the crap outta it so it’s hard as a rock!” Pass me an Oreo anyday.
Actually, according to my coffeeshop-owner friend, the technique is to let it dry out for a few days. She hates it that way too, so she serves her homemade biscotti FRESH, and it’s yummy – no broken teeth.
Good biscotti is to starbucks what a nicely aged cheddar is to cheesy poofs. Sometime I will make fresh pistachio biscotti and send it to you Demo. Then you can see why it’s actually a good thing. BTW, it tastes better if you eat it while watching wrestling.
Yep, I’m with Vix. I’ll take an Oreo. Granted, Oldscratch, I’ve never had fresh biscrappy, or whatever. BTW, that wrestling comment you made…watch your back dude.
sugaree, did mine eyes decieve me, or did you call coffee “bustass”? Huh? Does coffee make people fart now too? I just thought it made you have to piss like a racehorse.
Demo,
You need to give homemade biscotti a try. A friend of mine learned how to make it and offered me one with coffee. I didn’t want it, since the other experiences I had with biscotti resulted in near dental encounters. Hers were just heavenly. Not all hard and dried out- absolutely awesome. I suspect the crap they push off on you at Starbucks is a mass produced crap. It’s the same with homemade vs. canned clam chowder. Not even the same ballpark.
Nope, I’ve made biscrappi for Xmas gifts. Homemade sucks ass equally. (And that is NOT a reflection on my cooking skills. The recipiants scarfed it down like the psychos biscotti-lovers are.)
Well, Demo, I take bustass from a comedy sketch from WDVE in Pittsburgh, where it’s supposed to mean that once you have your caffeine, you can really start to bust ass at work. But now that I think about it, although it doesn’t lead to farting, coffee is a sure cure for constipation.
Now, now, we’re talking cookie maintenance here. I love, purely love, the hard-as-rock German anise cookies my grandmother used to make. Sure, the softer versions are luscious, but it took years to find the exact sneaky technique to make them sublime.
See, wimps dunk. The softer versions are accessible to all. But gnawing offa hunk and then carefully, politely taking a swig of [beverage of choice} to wash it all down is an art! A mouthful of sawdust(bicotto) discreetly moistened in mouth with a slug of coffee, wine whatever is an alchemist’s dream.
The flavor blooms; dross is turned into gold. Hey, my favorite gingersnap in the world is a dark, scary hunk of molasses, fresh ginger, dried ginger and black pepper; baked to the consistency of Portland cement and swooningly perfect with cold milk. (Coffee is puritanical; wine is gilding the lily.)
Fear not hard, crunch cookies; they’re just fodder to be tamed.
Well, from what i’ve heard (not sure if this is true or not), biscotti and other dry italian cookies were created for sailors to take on sailing trips. The cookies last forever if kept dry. I like them, but not that much. But, they are better when dipped into a liquid.
I agree with Veb on this one, though I have been eating biscotti and drinking espresso since the ripe old age of 2, probably earlier. Just like Zweiback toast, biscotti is given to children to chew on while teething, and, in my family at least, espresso(diluted with milk) was given to children in their bottle. I nice chocolate almond biscotti and espresso, that is the ultimate breakfast. mmmm. Oh, and I’ll have to try it while wrestling is on, thanks oldie!!