Digestive roundup

To be able to cover yet another human need, except from better and more impressive effects in games, we’ve taken a closer look at one of life’s absolute necessities: digestive biscuites.

Digestive biscuits have always been an essential part of a computer user’s life and not in the least his/hers survival. Who doesn’t remember the first day of a LAN where you eagerly spring out of bed at 8:00 am; pack your stuff and head off to your friends where you won’t sleep for another 37 hours? During this time you forget most essential biological functions. You usually get by without food for hours if you have something to snack on. This leads us to today’s review.

Digestive biscuits originally came from the tea sipping England where people looked for an appropriate biscuit to dip in this exquisite beverage. It all started in 1839 when Alexander Grant who worked at McVitie, tried to make a biscuit that would help people’s digestion, the name Digestive comes from the word digest. It quickly became popular and eventually became the bakery’s foremost livelihood. Hundred years later, the semi-sweet biscuit got a successor that was dipped in milk chocolate. This variant is however not that common though.

We have chosen to look closer at 6 different Digestive biscuits. When buying the biscuits, we realized that this is a real tangle that we could help our readers unravel, from Coop’s low cost biscuit to McVities more expensive original. Is there a difference that justifies the more expensive price and most of all, is there a kind that is more suitable as LAN snack food?

In order to test our biscuits as thoroughly as possible, we have chosen the following equipment.

Test system
Knife	Global GTF-30
Glasses	Rejmyre Vine glass and Rejmyre Beer glass
Plate	Focus 26cm
Biscuits	Coop Digestive Euroshopper Göteborgskex Digestive ICA Digestive Lu Digestive McVitie’s Digestive
Cheese	Castello Ananas Creme Bonjour Garlic Camembert Danish blue cheese
Beverages	Staropramen Granat (nr 1609) Gambrinus (nr 11489) Samichlaus Bier (nr 11616) Duck Pond Pinot (nr 23030)

I have mainly chosen to rely on a knife from Global, glass from Rejmyre glassworks and a plate from the Focus series. The cheeses I have chosen are relatively easy to find in stores, in Sweden. The beverages are also rather easy to find, with Samiclaus Bier as an exception as it can be hard to find in stock.

I will test all the cheeses with each type of biscuit. In the beginning we had more biscuits, but for different reasons they were removed; Göteborgskex Digestive without sugar didn’t taste much hence they didn’t fit the tests. Lu Digestive with rye was too expensive: 13.90 SEK for only 225g (61.78 SEK/kg). Göteborgskex Digestive with olive oil had a totally different taste and the tests were often hard to interpret or sometimes even unsuccessful. Lu wholemeal had on the other hand the right price, but they were almost impossible to eat because they crumbled very easy.

The beverages are used to enhance the experience and even if they might worsen my judgment, it applies to all biscuits so it can’t be considered a disadvantage.

Castello Pineapple is a cream cheese that you can find in any shop with a large assortment. This particular sample is purchased at ICA Maxi. It is a cream cheese that is very soft and fruity with a pineapple flavor. Not a big challenge, kind of like playing Counterstrike on one of Kinc’s compressor cooled X1900 Crossfire systems.

The biscuit from Coop fails on the spot, but it’s not surprising considering its price. The biscuit is gooey, soft and not particularly tasty. It lacks taste and the only positive is that it’s fairly solid and doesn’t crumble that much. The biscuit seems to absorb fluids particularly good, so good that I used it when I accidentally spilled some Staropramen.

If we look at McVities biscuit, it suited the Castello cheese superbly. Its biscuits have a distinct taste that works well with the cheese and gives a pleasant experience. However it’s not that durable and it crumbles fairly much. It wasn’t good at absorbing beer either.

Göteborgskex are sweeter than the two previous biscuits. Pretty solid, but they crumble much. As I mentioned, it is a very sweet biscuit, which doesn’t work to well with this already sweet and moist cheese. It’s a bit too much. It also has bad absorption capacity.

Euroshopper is along with Coop the cheapest biscuit of the bunch and to my great surprise, quite excellent, considering its price. It’s very neutral and balanced, but unfortunately maybe a bit too neutral. It doesn’t taste anything, just cheese. The absorption capacity is clearly acceptable.

ICA is also part of the cheaper group and they get the job done. They are really good. A bit sweet and combined with the already sweet cheese, it’s a bit too much, but not to serious.

Lu is a real disappointment with this test. These are very delicate and spicy biscuits that don’t work well with this kind of sweet cheese. A cheese that is a lot spicier than Castello is probably needed.

Those that stand out here are McVities, Lu and Coop. The first one in a positive way and the other two in a negative way.

Crème Bonjour Garlic is a creamy, spreadable cheese that you can find in most food stores. Its garlic flavor that isn’t to strong demands a rather neutral biscuit in order to function. We bought this cheese at ICA Maxi.

Coop continues in the same spirit with an experience that isn’t at all pleasant. It can’t handle a simple cheese like this one.

McVitie’s biscuit doesn’t work with this cheese as well as it did with Castello’s. A bit of a disappointment even if the cheese is cheap. The two don’t match and it tastes more like creamy cheese and neither garlic nor biscuit.

Göteborgskex suits this cheese well. A surprise considering the fact that the biscuit is pretty sweet, but it works well as a flavor enhancer.

Euroshopper continues to impress. Despite the low price it tastes really nice and it delivers a nice symbiosis together with the cheese.

ICA gives a neutral, but at the same time meaningless result. It delivers the cheese, but it neither enhances nor disrupts its taste.

Lu works better with this cheese, but instead of enhancing the experience it almost dominates the flavor of the cheese. As I said before, this cracker will probably need a more spicy cheese.

Göteborgskex and Euroshopper are considered the winners of this test, while Lu gives a somewhat divided impression. Only Coop performs poorly.

Camembert has a significant amount more spice and flavor than the two previous and is probably the first proper test subject. This cheese is bought at Konsum City in Kalmar.

I’m seriously thinking of throwing away the rest of the biscuits from Coop. They get stuck between your teeth and they aren’t particularly tasty. With this cheese it’s like … I don’t know what, but not enjoyable.

I get a more enjoyable experience from McVities and they taste absolutely delightful. ‘nuf said.

The sweet biscuits from Göteborgskex work very well with this cheese. They become a great flavor enhancer and taste really good. They also neutralize the strong taste which some of you might fancy.

Euroshopper looses some ground here, but not that serious. They still deliver more than expected and handle the Camembert almost as good as the two previous. Its taste is a bit to weak for it to function.

ICA is as we have said before, a neutral biscuit which actually works surprisingly well. It makes the Camembert taste soft and delightful. It seems as though the biscuit absorbs some of its taste, or you rather might say, neutralizes it.

Lu’s biscuits give us an extravagant experience. The flavor almost chokes you. Wow!

Lu is, with out a doubt, the winner of this test, but only if you like a lot of flavor otherwise you should go for McVities.

Danish blue cheese is much more than just a cheese; it’s a lifestyle for some. Its special manufacturing process, taste, smell and looks have given it a number of fans. Its taste is strong and clear and it’s going to be tough for all contestants.

Coop’s biscuits already have three strikes and would have been counted out if this was baseball, but because it isn’t, they get another shoot, unfortunately, they still fail. This cheese is a lot harder than the previous and thus harder to spread on the biscuit. So far so good, but then you have to eat it and it all falls into pieces …

In the previous tests, McVities has proven that they have experience and that they know who to make a biscuit that suits creamy cheese. In this test, it also shows that their biscuit suits blue cheese. We can only bow ourselves in respect to the Scottish biscuit kings.

Göteborgskex gives a divided experience. Blue cheese isn’t according to me, a particularly sweet cheese and when eaten together with this biscuit it gives a different experience. I really don’t know what to think, but it doesn’t work.

Euroshopper continues to impress. They are ok and there’s not that much to complain about, even if they’re not superb.

ICA’s biscuits worked very well together with this type of cheese. The cheese tastes a lot and it feels delightful, but once again the biscuit doesn’t help much, it just delivers the cheese.

Lu started of badly, but it seems that there’s a reason why they exists and this is it. When we got some more flavour in our tests, Lu showed that this is what they’re aiming for and that this is indeed a gourmet biscuit.

Once again its McVities and Lu that shows off. The others vary in their performance, but they don’t fail with an exception for Coop.

Now, what do we have to say about all these biscuits? We have compiled a simple summary based on our previous comments, but we must also give you an overall picture.

Coop and Euroshopper are the cheapest, but you can’t compare the two. Before you start eating Coop’s biscuits, they seem to be hard and solid, but they become gooey when you eat them and they don’t taste much. They don’t seem to fit the context, but they are on the other hand firm and have an excellent absorption capacity. In other words, almost perfect biscuits for LAN-parties.

The products from Euroshopper are actually someone else’s products, but with the Eurosohopper name and even if I can’t say whose, they are with out a doubt, a good choice. They are cheap, tasty, firm and with an approved absorption capacity. The earlier comments are based on our expectations and that is why they sometimes are so positive. I would have chosen these biscuits instead of Coop’s; they are similar to ICA’s and Göteborgkex as well, but cheaper.

ICA’s biscuits are cheap and work with almost everything, but are on the other hand not the best at anything. Because they crumble, they might not be the most suitable biscuits for LAN-parties but on the other hand, they taste a lot better than Coop’s. An alternative for the cheap when throwing a a tea party.

The biscuits from Göteborgskex are sweet and could enhance the effect of a good cheese, but could also worsen the effect of the wrong cheese. The price is relatively high and the biscuits don’t perform accordingly, especially not with sweet cheese, but they are generally a decent biscuit that doesn’t taste that bad.

Lu Digestive is the spiciest of the bunch and is probably, together with McVities, the biscuit that you, without any problems, can eat dry.

McVities is the original and has the best quality. These biscuits are supreme, but also, together with Lu, the most expensive. If you’re inviting someone over for tea, this could be the right biscuit to serve, but I doubt it suits a LAN-party.

For LAN-parties NH recommends:

Now you know what biscuits to choose for your next party, regardless if it is a LAN-party or not.