Whilst having breakfast I was studying the wrapper of a pack of what are inexplicably called over here "English Muffins".
I have to admit that until I arrived in the US I had never heard of them yet on:-
http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/EnglishMuffin.htm
I read
"The popularity of the English muffin reached its zenith in Great Britain during the years preceding World War I."
That is way before my time (Oh do shut up delusioned hooligan).
hence the old nursery rhyme:-
Have you seen the muffin man, the muffin man, the muffin man?
Have you seen the muffin man who lives in Drury Lane?
So what are they?
Best described as a sort of hybrid cross of real english crumpets a.k.a. (in middle England) "pikelets"
see:-
http://www.greatbritishkitchen.co.uk/cg_muffins.htm
and "tea cakes"
both of which to me are vastly superior to US style English Muffins especially tea cakes when toasted.
We did though find quite authentic crumpets in our local
"Trader Joes"
Anyway the point of all this is that the pack contained a half dozen muffins as could clearly be seen yet for some very odd reason the bakers considered it essential to mark the packet "6 count".
To be fair the manufacturers of plain paper napkins annotate their packets "100-count" but if that is to be taken as an instruction to open the packet and verify the number they have another think coming!!
It got me thinking though because for many years in the UK I was involved with selling heating equipment which necessitated the frequent preparation of competitive quotations,I employed a young man who had been trained as an estimator, and in accordance with, as I discovered standard quoting practice, he insisted on writing things like
"to supply 55 in number widgets"
Hence the title of this topic
John Fowles
So endeth today's cullinary and business lesson Boys and Girls
