Yes, scones are more like pastries and much favoured, with cream, by delicate women who take bus tours to stately homes.

Biscuits, as in "with gravy", don't exist anywhere else I've been. I was puzzled rather than repulsed. In fact I wasn't repulsed at all, more briefly mystified by a different dialect.

Dialect and accent are one of the reasons to travel. Riding south from Washington to Virginia for the start of the Transam, I was astonished to find that people immediately sounded as though they were picking cotton. I thought that started a lot further south and it took a moment to get used to. While I was getting used to it, I was called across by a group of gents of the advanced age I'm at now. They had names like "Baaahb" and "Cheuk" and "Haynk".

One looked like an elderly Bill Clinton. He told me he was a stunt-rider, that his van was "out back" and that he came into the café each morning because people knew where to find him.

That a man of such years would be a stunt-rider impressed me deeply and I must have made that clear.

Later that morning I saw advertisements for a stump-grinder.

ROTW - rest of the world - USA...

  That reminded me of a man who insisted he heard the TV evening news announce "All the world's news, coast to coast!"

Just for the record, that gravy was in Montana, and it looked like this. (By the way, searching Cycleblaze for "Grampies" and "gravy" produces pages of listings. It seems gravy is a big part of cycling!)

Karen,

I believe shit-on-a-shingle is the real name for chipped beef on toast. We were served that for lunch at least once a week in grade school. I don’t think it was real beef but corned beef in grey gelatinous goo. I would not eat it then and have not eaten it since.

Biscuits and gravy are an abomination. Real biscuits, though, are flaky and buttery and tasty and best with more butter and jam. They are a breakfast bread in my book but I’ll eat the real thing any time.

I’m sorry you didn’t get any cookies, Léo. The experience obviously scarred you. America has much to answer for.

"Shit on a shingle" = creamed chipped beef on toast.

This forum is becoming educational!  

We will all be experts on biscuits and shit on a shingle. 😂

Mike -

You mentioned that ROTW = USA.

I though y'all still referred to this side of the pond as "The Colonies".

Leo, I have lived in the US for 56 of my 60 years and have never heard, nor heard about, the phrase "higher dawn".

Real peanut butter (ground peanuts, maybe salt, nothing else) is pretty good. It barely resembles the popular US brands of "peanut butter" that have a taste, texture, and color very different from real peanut butter.

Higher Dawn is how it sounds to my foreign ears when asked How'ya doin'?

"All the world's news, coast to coast!" is like the North American baseball "World Series" that excludes most of the countries where baseball is popular, such  as Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Venezuela.