A Guide to Writing Sherlockian-Biscuit Habits
Or Why John Would Dunk a Biscuit in His Tea and Not Cover it With Gravy
A reprint of the Reminiscences of enigmaticpenguinofdeath, a Tea-Drinking Englishwoman (who has never knowingly turned down the offer of a biscuit with her cuppa).
I was lacking in Sherlock screencaps involving biscuits, alright?
So from the popularity of my previous post, it seems that there were many Sherlock fans out there across the world who were clearly baffled about how British people drink tea and thus flailing around and having characters get up to all sorts of nonsense with microwaved teabags, sweetened iced tea and goodness knows what other affronts to nature. Hopefully you have now been shamed/educated into how to include tea drinking in your fics more accurately, and may even apply the common sense rules to your own beverage choices in real life – your tea-drinking souls could still be salvageable.
However, I don’t feel that I can leave you all only half way along this journey, for there is another side to the great British love affair with tea. I speak of biscuits.
This guide will follow the pattern of my tea ramblings; being an initial introduction to how the British view biscuits, and then moving on to look at some examples of how biscuits may be correctly and incorrectly included in Sherlock fics. The first section is likely to be primarily written with US readers in mind since you guys are the weird ones with the deliberately obtuse and incorrect language around biscuits/cookies, and I have a solid understanding of where you are going wrong. Other countries have their own ishoos but I’m not as au fait with them. There are other guides on the interweb from ex-pats and biscuit specialists that can probably clear up specific confusion with other locales – get thee to Google!
