In O.E. gingerbrar dates from 1299 and is from the O.F. ginginbrat and meant "preserved ginger". "Bread" in various forms such as brot, brede, etc dates earlier than this and meant any "piece of food".

Common or folk usage had come into play by 1352 and gingerbrar had become "gingerbread" by aural association. It meant any piece of gingered food at this time, and a specific meaning of "spiced cake" does not arise until the 15th Century. The further refinement to a spiced biscuit does not come until relatively recently.

So, depending on how old the story of the gingerbread man is, he is probably cake rather than biscuit but could be anything, even a bit of meat spiced with ginger.

In the US, a cookie is the same as a biscuit (Oreo, Chips-Ahoy, Toll-house)
A biscuit here is what they put bacon and egg-like sustance on and sell as a breakfast sandwich at McDonalds.

They have gingerbread COOKIES here, as well as gingerbread, which is generally more that 3/4" in thickness.

Wasn't PrinzHilde the Jellyman's aide-de-camp (in TBOE)? Isn't his purpose to set up more about the Jellyman for the next NCD? If not, who is the Jellyman's aide-de-camp in TBOE?

For some reason I can never remember his name, and I can't find it in the book without a lot of searching each time. Are you trying to get into the special features?

If you haven't already done so, check out the Nextian Chat section of the forum, which is much more active these days…

It was not Prinz. Also, I think you are looking in the wrong book's forum....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

I thought the Gingerbread cake/biscuit debate was settled with the following definition:

A cake goes hard when stale, but a biscuit goes soft.

Though this could depend on the baker and the quality of the gingerbread, I usually experience the cake staleness.

It's certainly not valid to define it as bread from its name - think of sweetbreads.

Welcome Ian.

that is my view also - see earlier post in this thread.

I think that we had a long involved debate in Nextian Chat at sometime in the past on this subject, but like most debates in that little pool of anarchy and random musings, it had nothing to do with the topic heading and so I can't (be bothered) to find it at the moment.

Help yourself to pie. Sweet to the left, savoury to the right unless you are looking the other way. It easy to tell the stale pies: they are green, except for the Torta Verde, the green tomato pie, and the Key lime pie, which are possibly stale if they are not green.

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

Thanks Skids, I've been around here for a good few years now but haven't shown my face much. In fact, last time I was here they were still serving cakes...

I had a thought that the hard/soft staleness could have been Jaffa Cake-related, but I think it still holds ok.

Cakes are still available, but as mrs. SkidMarks and I live within the borders of the Borough of Wigan we felt that we ought to introduce pies to the menu.

See my earlier post at the bottom of page one about the Jaffa Cake connection.

(For those that don't know, people from Wigan are known as pie-eaters. You don't need to know why, but it has nothing to do with eating pies.
However, the area does produce vast numbers of delicious meat pies from Hollands, Dawsons and Yates-Greer to name but three.)

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

Aahh... Sorry, I completely missed that one. After a few years of browsing around message boards I've developed a bit of a 'signature filter' and must have assumed that the bottom paragraph was a pithy quote from something I wouldn't get and ignored it. One for the calibration book.

My apologies. This embarrassment may mean I don't post again for another 18 months.

I lived with a guy from Wigan and he mentioned pies. He couldn't believe I didn't understand the link, despite repeating "Pies! Wigan! Wigan Pies!" over and over.

C'mon, SkidMarks, now I want to know why you're known as pie-eaters!