You know, a thought has just struck me. When the jolly swagman wasn’t jumping into his billabong he was probably dunking his bush biscuit in his billycan.
“Dunking,” the questionable art of moistening biscuits by a quick immersion in one’s tea, is not normally regarded as one of the social graces.
Screams of “Yuk” can follow the sudden sludging of a biscuit into the saucer by a dunker who is less than adept
The debunked dunker may not suit the Cafe de Paris but he’ll do me.
Yet dunking has a colourful past. Seafarers washed the weevils by dunking their ship’s biscuits in their rum and water; troops dunked their biscuits in mess tins.
A little softening is not an unsociable thing when you’re expected to eat culinary cardboard.
The habit has persisted; many people are secret dunkers. Some are bold enough to dunk in public and they cover a broad spectrum and sometimes their mouths.
Sadly, dunking is still regarded as disreputable. You can coil spaghetti in a maelstrom of sauce; you can churn your chop-sticks among the sweet and sour and nobody turns a hair or a head.
But dunk and you are socially undone.
Dunking seems to go with old dressing-gowns, late middle age, chipped saucers and dissipated males. It is anathema to manners and plain filthy.
That’s what they say.
For those of us loathsome enough to indulge it has a certain soggy grandeur.
It requires judgment and accuracy, aiming the biscuit towards the cup of tea; holding it in perfect balance between thumb and forefinger, breaking the surface of the fluid cleanly and withdrawing the biscuit quickly so that it doesn’t disintegrate into a molecular mash.
Down, dunk, return, bite, slurp, swallow. Down, dunk, return, bite, slurp, swallow.
Say it several times with your mouth full and you’ll notice it has a fine rhythm about it.
Some biscuits by their very shape are dunkworthy; the rectangular coffee biscuit is easy to handle but has a quick absorption; the gingernut is hardier and keeps a good shape; the wheatmeal improves with moisture in its subsoil.
The darker side of dunking is the man who does it with his hostess’s home-made biscuits.
The biscuits in the best silver tray have been designed for their taste, shape and crispness. The hostess has spent ages poring over her recipes. This is her piece de resistance, her reputation lies on top of a paper dolly and with the taste-buds of her guests.
The air is full of a pleasant murmuring. You must try one, and they have such beautiful texture and I could NEVER make them like yours, Vanessa.
Now enter the despicable dunker. Amid a frozen silence, the glares of his next-of-kin, the shock of the hostess, he takes a biscuit ‘twixt thumb and forefinger and down, dunk, return, bite, slurp, swallow.
Terrible scenes of pas- slon and despair.
The afternoon ruined. Her cooking reviled.
“Walt in the car,” hisses his wife.
How would YOU like to be married to HIM, my dear?
This cheers the hostess a little. It’s not so bad. Not too much harm done. Everyone is eating biscuits and whinnying with praise and delight.
She even pours tea again with a shaking hand, the colour coming back to her face.
He won’t be back, will he? Don’t let him come near me.
No, he won’t be back.
But I wouldn’t be sur prised if, near midnight, when his watchful one has retired, he’ll settle himself in his dressing- gown by the telly.
His old face will take on its customary look of unbridled dissipation.
The gingernuts will spill at his elbow, the tea glimmer and steam in its cup.
He will take a biscuit in the thumb and forefinger.
So play it again, Sam.
Down, dunk, return, bite, slurp, swallow!
Max Fatchen