Tea and biscuits are perhaps the most British of institutions, and we don’t have take them both very seriously.
We’re spoiled for choice between digestives, custard creams, bourbon biscuits, and Nice, and there’s plenty more besides.
Jammie Dodgers are another regular fixture in our biscuit jars, blending our love for biscuits with our love for sandwiches. They’re dunkable, twistable, and moreish enough that you’ll have to resist polishing off a whole pack in one sitting.
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They come from a prestigious family too. Under the Fox’s Burton Companies banner, they share a stable with Maryland cookies, Party Rings, Rocky, and Wagon Wheels. What an absolute all-star team that is.
But, as with so many things, the truth behind what they’re made of has unsettled some people who dared to delve into the ingredients list.
Despite being a British staple since 1960, it’s fair to say a majority of us haven’t spent long considering what goes on behind the scenes of these shortcake and jam biscuits.
The raspberry-flavoured red jam, as it turns out, isn’t made with raspberries. Instead, it’s apple jam.
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It doesn’t matter if you’ve gone for the apple, blackcurrant, or Really Fruity Strawberry Jammie Dodgers; they’re all using the same apple jam as a base.
Before you pick up your pitchfork and Google the number for Trading Standards, this little detail is clearly included on Jammie Dodgers’ packaging.
If that little revelation wasn’t enough excitement for one day, you might be interested to know the apple jam is a relatively new phenomenon. Before that, according to Lizzie Collingham in The Biscuit: The History of a Very British Indulgence, the jam was originally made with plums as they were cheaper than raspberries.
The same logic applies to the apple jam: it’s much cheaper to produce it with apples than with raspberries.
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Social media users who’ve recently been pointed to the truth of the matter have, of course, taken time from their busy schedules to offer their two pence.
“Every day is a school day,” said one Facebook user.
“Something like this makes one question everything they know and makes their world crash around them,” said another with a taste for melodrama.
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“Well I am flabbergasted. I always thought it was strawberry jam,” said another who doesn’t know their raspberries from their strawberries, let alone their apples. “Good lord.”
Another described the news as ‘most distressing’.
It just goes to show that, even in our age of desensitisation to horrific headlines and global chaos, we’re still an island of sensitive souls.
Topics: UK Food, Social Media, News
Rachael Davis