A question for our European members

I was at a European market and bought some Biscoff spread, which is sold as Europe's alternative to peanut butter. It looks a bit like peanut butter. I get home, open it up and can't really place the flavor. I read the ingredients and it is made from ground up cookies: :lol3::lol3:

http://www.biscoff.com/biscoff-spread/

So my question is, do you have peanut butter there and do people like it?

OMG! I'm in Canada, not Europe...just wanted to say that ground cookie spread/butter sounds..really really good! I would love to get my hands on this.

Can't say I've seen it or even heard of it

I've never heard of it, but l've just Googled it for the UK and someone said it's not sold here yet.

I love peanut butter,  and often have it on my toast for breakfast with sliced banana

I've never seen or heard of Biscoff either! ANd I have lived all over Europe, in the East as well as the West.Sounds weird. As for peanut butter, yes, you can get it in any proper supermarket here, though it is not particularly popular, and most of my French friends never buy it. I do make peanut butter cookies occasionally, and also use it for satay sauces, which people like, though they would not make them themselves. For spreads, kids here would go for the many different chocolate/hazelmut mixtures you can get.

I've never heard of Biscoff, either. Nutella is the most popular spread here, I'd think. Peanut butter has never really caught on. I suspect that most of the people buying it are ex-pats.

When I first moved to Germany it was almost impossible to get decent peanut butter, but now there's a small selection from the UK in most supermarkets. Lidl, a box store chain, has its own brand which isn't at all bad, but it's not available all the time.

I think it is funny that none of you have ever heard of it and they are marketing it as "Europe's alternative to peanut butter". :lol3:

Do they have other nut spreads there? I know Nutella is popular, but what about the alternatives to peanut butter that are becoming popular here: almond, cashew, hazelnut, sunflower seed etc. I love almond butter and would buy it instead of peanut butter, but it's so expensive.
Never heard of Biscoff either, but any excuse to eat more cookies sounds good to me! :lol3:

There are store brands of hazelnut and chocolate spread ("generic Nutella"), and many health food stores carry other, expensive nut spreads. Nutella is pretty inexpensive in Germany (but you're not allowed to take it home in your carry-on, so put it in your checked luggage!)

I Cant say I really pay attention I dont go for nutella because its quite expensive around £2 for a very small jar of it 

I go for a store brand chocolate spread which is just as nice to be honest

Nutella is the most popular brand here of spread, but there are many other store own-brands, and some all chocolate, some all hazelnut. I am not sure about almond butter - tahini paste is of course available and so is pesto, based on sesame seeds and pine nuts respectively. But both used more for dips or in cooking than as spreads.

When we lived in Holland decades ago the stores carried pinderkaas, peanut cheese. Which was, of course, peanut butter. Things are different abroad, regardless of which way you're looking.

I've never been a big fan of Nutella. :dk: Since I bought the Biscoff to have on my english muffin for breakfast, I don't see myself eating much of it. :lol3:

I LOVE Nutella. And Biscoff is quite nice, too (if there's a Trader Joe's in your area, they have their own brand; they call it cookie butter, if I remember correctly). And I eat an inordinate amount of peanut butter, too (it's fast and easy!). I don't think they had any of that in Japan, but I've never been to Europe so I can't answer that one :tongue2:.

I've just had a look at the Amazon site for Germany, and it offers Lotus Spekulatius-Creme from Belgium; the jar says "new". There's another brand of it, Belgium Treasure, too.

Spekulatius are traditional Christmas cookies, and there are a lot of different brands.

jcat said:

I've just had a look at the Amazon site for Germany, and it offers Lotus Spekulatius-Creme from Belgium; the jar says "new". There's another brand of it, Belgium Treasure, too.
Spekulatius are traditional Christmas cookies, and there are a lot of different brands.

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Hmm, the Trader Joe's cookie butter says "made with Speculoos cookies". Speculoos = Spekulatius?

We can get Speculoos chocolate, with bits of cookie in it. I think there is a similar ice cream too.

When we lived in France (1972), peanut butter was extremely rare.  If you found it in a French store, it tasted "burnt" and just generally not good.  You could find it a little more in Geneva, probably due to the large American community there, but it still wasn't common.  Dottie went to Germany on one long weekend and used her Army dependent's ID to get on one of the bases there and bought a big jar of peanut butter and brought it back to the college.  It might have lasted a week...
 

Willowy said:

Hmm, the Trader Joe's cookie butter says "made with Speculoos cookies". Speculoos = Spekulatius?

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Flemish/Dutch is very similar to German, and the cookies originated in the "Low Countries".

mrblanche said:

When we lived in France (1972), peanut butter was extremely rare.  If you found it in a French store, it tasted "burnt" and just generally not good.  You could find it a little more in Geneva, probably due to the large American community there, but it still wasn't common.  Dottie went to Germany on one long weekend and used her Army dependent's ID to get on one of the bases there and bought a big jar of peanut butter and brought it back to the college.  It might have lasted a week...

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A friend sent me a whole case of crunchy Skippy peanut butter when I was an exchange student, and the customs officials thought that was weird, but I was really dying for some decent peanut butter. The German stuff in those days was pretty much "natural peanut butter", meaning overroasted ground peanuts and difficult to spread. It wasn't until the 90s that you could get English peanut butter in Germany, so the situation in France was probably the same. It also used to be next to impossible to get maple syrup or marshmallows, but now you can get both here.

Rosiemac said:

I've never heard of it, but l've just Googled it for the UK and someone said it's not sold here yet.

I love peanut butter,  and often have it on my toast for breakfast with sliced banana

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I love peanut butter (dip apples or celery in it, peanut butter sandwiches since I dont like jelly, peanut butter and Saltines, etc), but I'd never heard of anyone having peanut butter on toast before until my BF made me some one morning. I couldn't believe I'd been missing out for so long!