Hobnobs are a kind of cookie sold in England. (Perhaps other parts of the world as well, but not America.) They are made by McVities, which is now owned by United Biscuits. Hobnobs come in several varieties:
They are all delicious. Wonderful. Magnificent. And horribly addictive.
In 1999 I was living in London with several other American students. One day one of my flatmates brought home a package of Hobnobs and invited us to taste them. He kept going on about how incredible they were. Every single person I saw eat one went through almost exactly the same reaction, which goes something like this:
(eats cookie) Hmm. Not bad.
A few minutes later: (sees package sitting on table) Oooh. Those are good. I want another.
Then: Wow! Those are incredible! What are those things?
And finally: Oh. There's no more Hobnobs.
The six of us living together went through about one package a day while we were there. We all had our favorite varieties. I like the plain ones, no chocolate, nothing, just wonderful oaty goodness.
They don't make cookies that good in America. We wrote fanmail to McVities, even sending them a Polaroid of all of us sitting there displaying our Hobnobs. We explained that we were Americans, who weren't used to such luxuries on a daily basis, that we had come to depend on Hobnobs for basic sustinence, wasn't there any way this divine product could be marketed in America? No response. Not even a postcard.