Chocolate Biscuits, by Pliny the Elder

Greetings from Pliny the Elder.

My subject for today is chocolate biscuits. Now, in ancient Rome, we did not have chocolate biscuits, although we did enjoy eating cakes that were soaked in honey. And we were none the worse for that! At the present time I am a guest in a house that is hardly ever without a packet of chocolate biscuits in the pantry, though they rarely have any cake.

To be fair, one packet of chocolate biscuits lasts a long time. Sometimes as long as two weeks. This depends on a number of factors, one being if someone should come home late at night, and consume several chocolate biscuits before embarking on a late dinner of blackened fish.

Twice of recent times we have had Chocolate Montes. Montes is pronounced Monties, and not Montays as one might expect if one were familiar with Latin. As they are a flat biscuit one should not in any case expect them to be named after mountains. Chocolate Montes are a famous Australian biscuit, first produced by Arnotts in 1949. The name was chosen because the biscuit in the Chocolate Monte is almost identical to the biscuit in the Monte Carlo Cream, another famous Australian biscuit first made by Arnotts in 1928.

The Monte Carlo Cream consists of two small round honey and coconut biscuits joined together with raspberry jam and vanilla cream. This biscuit is said to be a favourite with the ladies. I imagine this is because they tell themselves they are eating one biscuit, while really eating two.

The Chocolate Monte consists of one small honey and coconut biscuit, covered with semi-sweet dark chocolate. The Chocolate Monte is said to be a favourite with men, and most men feel quite justified in eating two.

The packet of biscuits that was in the pantry in between the last two packets of Chocolate Montes, was the one which disappeared very quickly due to the uncharacteristic depredations of the eater of blackened fish. I believe they were caramel-filled chocolate biscuits. I did not have the opportunity to taste a single one, although I had planned to.

Tomorrow I will be writing about volcanoes. Farewell!