I’m not generally a great biscuit eater, but this cold weather has changed that. And if the biscuit has chocolate on or in it, all the better. Luckily there was a packet of Petit Écoliers in the cupboard to indulge in.

These are a truly French biscuit. They’re made by LU, a company that goes back to 1846 and which today is owned by Nabisco, which in turn is owned by Kraft. But back then, in Nantes, it consisted of husband and wife team Jean-Romain Lefèvre and Pauline-Isabelle Utile. I bet you can see where LU comes from now!

Originally they made fancy biscuits which they packaged nicely and sold to be given as gifts. Over the years as the company passed down through the generations, it morphed into large-scale biscuit production.

LU had an astute eye for advertising, commissioning top artists of the day to paint pictures that they could use as publicity. One of the most famous of these is Firmin Bouisset’s Petit Écolier (little schoolboy), which he created in 1897. It’s a painting of his own son eating a petit beurre biscuit, made, of course, by LU.

However, it wasn’t until 1983 that the Petit Écolier biscuit arrived on the scene. This is a petit beurre biscuit topped by a slab of chocolate that has the famous painting moulded onto it. It comes in milk, white, dark and extra dark chocolate, all equally delicious. They’re a very popular after school nibble for hungry kids off the school bus. There are plenty of cheaper imitations of these biscuits, but none of them have the little schoolboy picture on.

Ruadhri had a couple today after we came back from playing and ice trucking on the frozen lake. (No school today since the school buses were all cancelled again because of the weather.) We used the sledge to haul wood across from Ragondin Island over to the far bank where we can collect it with the tractor. Here’s Ruadhri with a load.

We messed around too, taking it in turns to tow each other. Here’s Rors pulling me! He deserved his Petit Écoliers after that!