Milk And Cookies (ie, Biscuits)
Milk and cookies, or as colonials would call it, milk and biscuits. These consumer degustations are extraordinarily popular in Sri Lanka, especially the biscuits, and are available in every kade. You will rarely be more than one kilometer away from milk and biscuits. They’re that important. I rarely consume the stuff so can’t quite tell it apart, but on YAMU we’ve done pretty comprehensive reviews of both.
The Biscuit Challenge
Marie biscuits
First, the biscuits. I don’t even like that they’re called biscuits, that to me is what sailors eat, like hardtack. But biscuits it is. This is a weird market because you have two companies (Munchee and Maliban) selling almost identical products for the same price. Of all the products, only the Munchee Short Cake has 5 grams more, giving you about Rs. 2.50 more value. Besides that the products are superficially the same. When I go into a shop I have no idea what is what, I just ask for the product (say, Lemon Puffs) and the kade lady gives me whatever’s there. But they are quite different.
Personally, I found Munchee to be better. Maliban’s stuff is a bit coarser and less delicate and they use these big grains of sugar. That said, I don’t really like biscuits that much and did not enjoy eating so many of them. If I had to choose, I do like the Munchee Chocolate Cream Biscuit and Lemon Puff. If you’re looking at price, the Marie Biscuit is the cheapest at Rs. 0.35 per gram and the Lemon Puff is the most expensive at Rs. 0.50 per. That cream don’t come cheap.
So anyways, across the board we thought Munchee was better, but that could be subjective. The prices and basic product are essentially the same so it’s really a matter of personal taste. But do check out the full review on YAMU. It’s inordinately well thought out and presented for a cookie review.
The Milo Challenge
The milky line-up
This is the chocolate milk challenge, which to us was synonymous with Milo, or so we thought. In the comments people kept mentioning the Highland bottle. That’s not UHT milk, that is, not zapped to give it a bomb shelter shelf life. Which is kinda unfair, but we tried the bottle and it is indeed the best of the lot. Of the other packets and boxes, we thought Kotmale and Milo were the best. Again, Milo is a malt and technically not milk, but it’s all subjectively one category.
The Kotmale is probably the best value at Rs. 0.18 per ml. The Highland box is cheaper, but tastes just awful. Kotmale and some others serve in floppy bags rather than cartons, which I don’t like. Kotmale also has the straw holes in completely random places, which we learned cut printing costs, but still.
The lesson here is to drink that Highland bottle which I have hitherto been afraid of, seeing it sitting out in the sun at various establishments. Again, the full review on YAMU is inordinately thorough and has more images and things.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, if you want to sit down with milk and biscuits, YAMU would recommend Highland bottle and Munchee, Marie Biscuits let’s say. I personally don’t want to eat anymore biscuits for a while, but I could use another glass of chocolate milk.
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Grew up on Maliban Marie, growing out of them now. They make the base for chocolate biscuit pudding which I wont ever grow out of (the home-made variety). Munchee have a low calorie Munchee Light Marie now.
Grew up on Maliban Marie, growing out of them now, but they make the base for chocolate biscuit pudding which I wont ever grow out of (the home-made variety).
The extraordinarily high per capita biscuit consumption in Sri Lanka owes a lot to the CARE school nutrition programme of the 1960′s. Biscuits made by MUnchee were distributed in schools, free. This was the rise of Munchee biscuits.
There is a mention of it here:
http://www.muncheelk.com/our-history
I believe most of the biscuit types mentioned above were made by Maliban and Munchee copied them. For decades Maliban made the better biscuit but Munchee caught up in the 1990′s or so (in my opinion).
My grandmother used to have metal biscuit tins (she saved the tins for baking cakes in) emblazoned with Huntley & Palmers Cream Crackers.
Don’t know if these were sold here but this is also interesting:
http://www.art.com/products/p14500754145-sa-i6748876/english-advertisement-for-imperial-ceylon-biscuits-made-by-huntley-and-palmer-depicting-a-picnic.htm
Reading this revived my extraordinary fondness for Lemon Puff biscuits.
You’re right. Munchee only became a substantial player after the success they had with their Super Cream Cracker. Since then they’ve pretty much been making lighter versions of Maliban’s biscuits or copying international brands. (e.g. Oreos to Kalo) Didn’t they have some poison scare or something recently?
I totally agree with you on the biscuit challenge! Munchie is selling a far better quality product with better quality ingredients!