Tim Tam Slam

Australia — Tim Tams created in 1964 by Arnott's Biscuits; the Slam technique is informally attributed to Australian television personality Ian Turpie in the 1980s

Less a recipe than a ritual — the Tim Tam Slam involves biting off the two diagonal corners of a Tim Tam chocolate biscuit (a chocolate-cream-centred, chocolate-covered biscuit manufactured by Arnott's since 1964), inserting one end in a hot beverage (coffee, tea, or hot chocolate) and sucking through the other end so the hot liquid travels through the biscuit's cream centre, melting it from within, then placing the entire biscuit in the mouth before it collapses. The experience — the hot liquid warming the cream filling, the softened chocolate coating yielding while the outer biscuit layers barely hold structural integrity — is one of the genuinely unique sensory experiences in Australian food culture. Tim Tams themselves are Australia's best-selling biscuit; the Slam is a universally known national ritual.

Performed with afternoon coffee or after-dinner coffee; the hot beverage of choice is personal and regional (flat white in Melbourne, long black in Sydney, English breakfast tea for purists); the act itself is social — performed in company and accompanied by instructions to the uninitiated