Eat My Globe

Taking the Biscuit: The History of British Biscuits

Simon Majumdar (“SM”):

Hey, April.

April Simpson (“AS”):

Yeah, Simon.

SM:

Why did the biscuit lose the popularity contest?

AS:

I don’t know, Simon. Why did the biscuit lose the popularity contest?

SM:

Because it can’t take the heat so it crumbled under pressure.

AS:

No….

SM:

[Laughter]

INTRO MUSIC

Hi everybody.

My name is Simon Majumdar and welcome to Eat My Globe, a podcast about things you didn’t know you didn’t know about food.

And on today’s episode we’re going to talk about all delicious things British biscuit related. And let me tell you, a biscuit with a cup of tea is definitely a British staple.

So, we’re going to talk about how biscuits are made, where the word, “biscuit,” came from, and the biscuit’s fascinating histories, with some of my own favorite biscuits.

This should be a fun one.

But just to be clear, we’re talking British biscuits, not American biscuits. So, please, try not to be SHORTBREAD with me.

Oh gah. . .

First of all, let’s start with the two elephants in the room.

The first is, what is the difference between a cookie and a biscuit?

I don’t think the answer is as straightforward, and all of it depends on whether you come from the British tradition or the American tradition. Some people in both the US and Britain may sometimes say that an American cookie and a British biscuit are the same thing. No, they’re not. As a British person and an American person, I can tell you that they are not quite the same thing. As Reader’s Digest said, American style cookies, like a chocolate chip cookie, which can be soft and crisp, are also called cookies in the UK. Everything else that are crisp, would be called a biscuit in the UK. As Atlas Obscura notes, a British biscuit

Quote

“always needs to be crisp.”

End quote.

In fact, American cookies have a very different history than British biscuits. If one looks back to the latter part of the 18^th century, we’ll see that it was the Dutch immigrants to the US that brought the word, “cookie,” with them. According to the Oxford Reference, the Dutch word, “koekje,” was

Quote

“a diminutive form of koek, ‘cake’.”

End quote.

So, there you go. An American cookie is a small cake that can be soft and crisp while a British biscuit always has to be crisp.

But don’t get confused. In the UK, internet cookies are still called cookies, not internet biscuits.

Moving on. The other elephant in the room?

Why do the Americans and the British have such different uses of the word, “biscuit”?

According to Alan Davidson in “The Oxford Companion to Food,” in the US, biscuits mean

Quote

“a soft, thick scone type product.”

End quote.

Which I love. Particularly when they’re covered with sausage gravy in a diner in the southern parts of the US.

Whereas, what we’re going to look at today is the British range of biscuits that are part of the British tradition.

So, let’s look at the origins of the word, “biscuit.” 

In 1740, Thomas Dyche and William Pardon published a book entitled, “A New General English Dictionary,” which said

Quote

“BI’SKET, BI’SCUIT, or BI’SQUET (S.) commonly understood of small cakes made by the confectioners, of fine flower, eggs, sugar, &c. also, the bread carried to sea, is called sea biscuit.”

End quote.

And, looking at our old chum, Merriam-Webster, we see that by now “biscuit” means

Quote

“a sweet baked food that is usually small, flat, and round.”

End quote.

And, according to author John Ayto’s “The Diner’s Dictionary,” the word means

Quote

“twice cooked.”

End quote.

He then goes on to explain that biscuit

Quote

“comes, via old French, bescoit, or biscuit, from a hypothetical Latin adjective *biscoctus.”

End quote.

Which Alan Davidson tells us in “The Oxford Companion to Food”

Quote

“is a word that covers a vast range of flour-based items, generally small in size, thin, and short or crisp in texture.”

End quote.

So, “bi-scuits” or “biscuits” are cooked twice and flour based, and crisp in texture.

So, now that we have those definitions, let’s see how these “biscuits” came about.

Dr. Annie Gray writes that our Neolithic ancestors may have made proto-biscuits over hot stones. And writer Whitney Bard says that the ancient Egyptian navy ate

Quote

“dhourra, a flat, unleavened millet bread.”

End quote.

By the time of the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans, we begin to see biscuits as something that we might recognize today. The World History Encyclopedia notes that the ancient Greeks made burnt biscuits and other breads to offer to their deities.

However, we only begin to see the “twice cooked” method becoming popular during the times of the ancient Romans. As Dr. Annie Gray says

Quote

“The Romans certainly had a form of biscuit, what we’d now call a rusk and, as the name suggests, it was essentially bread which was re-baked to make it crisp. It kept for longer than plain bread, and was useful for travellers and soldiers’ rations.”

End quote.

Ancient Roman cookbook author Apicius, is thought to be Marcus Gavius Apicius but is now thought to be the work of one of three authors, wrote an anthology of recipes entitled “De re Coquinaria” or “Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome.” For example, Apicius mentions ginger bread, which is

Quote

“A certain biscuit or cake made of must, spices and pepper, perhaps baked on laurel leaves.”

End quote.

In his work “The Oxford Companion to Food” Alan Davidson suggests that

Quote

“a thick paste of fine wheat flour was boiled and spread out on a plate. When cooled and hardened it was cut up and fried until crisp, then served with honey and pepper.”

End quote.

That’s rather lovely.

The Roman Army ate a biscuit known as “Bucellatum.” This is a form of “hardtack” that we will discuss later.

As  the Oxford Reference says it is a

Quote

“twice baked bread issued as part of field-rations to Roman troops.”

End quote.

The Historia Augusta, which was probably written in the 4^th century and was meant to be a biography of Roman emperors, talked about Avidius Cassius, who tried to usurp Marcus Aurelius’ power by declaring himself emperor for three months in 175 CE before being beheaded. But while alive, Avidius Cassius ordered his soldiers who were on the move to only carry biscuit, lard and vinegar, and punished those who disobeyed him.

What a CRUMBY man.  

According to author, Conor Whately, in his book, “An Introduction to the Roman Military: From Marius (100 BCE) to Theodosius (450 CE),” the soldiers had a diet of grain, meat, wine and oil but they could swap out wine and grain for sour wine and biscuit or buccellatum.

Whately further states that this diet was pretty much the same throughout the time of Emperor Marius in 100 BCE through Emperor Theodosius in 450 CE.

Indeed, in a set of Roman laws promulgated by Emperor Theodosius in 438 CE called the Codex Theodosianus, soldiers had to carry rations for 17-20 days including buccellatum. Apparently, they had to eat bucellatum or biscuits two out of three days.

Guido Sala, a professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands told National Geographic that bucellatum did not take up much weight to carry around.

By the 12^th century, Richard I, a king who is also known in Great Britain as Richard the Lionheart, gave his sailors

Quote

“biskit of muslin.”

End quote.

These were, according to the Royal Museums of Greenwich, made of

Quote

“mixed cornmeal, made of barley, rye and bean flour.”

End quote.

During the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588, King Phillip II of Spain sent his ships out from Flanders to invade England. At that time, English sailors, who repelled the Armada, was provided with one pound of biscuits a day.

Now, speaking of pound, here’s a fun fact to bore people with at dinner parties. Do you know why recipes these days abbreviate the word, pound, as L B? It’s because L B stands for the Latin word, “libra,” from the Latin phrase, “libra pondo,” which means “pound by weight” in English. The ancient Romans brought the word and the phrase to Britain when they weighed things to conduct business. By itself, the word, “libra,” means scale, as in a weighing scale. The British kept the word pound from “pondo,” but abbreviated it to L B from libra. I suspect that little fact will make you popular at your dinner parties. You’re very welcome.

Anyway, back to biscuits.

Samuel Pepys, who was born in 1633 and died in 1703, was very well known for his diaries, which followed the Restoration time of London from 1660 to 1669. He was also known as being a naval administrator. In 1667, he began to organize the

Quote

“victualling.”

End quote.

That means to supply the sailors with food, which included, according to Pepys, biscuits and beer.

Sounds rather good.

By 1805, we begin to see the production of these biscuits becoming more mass produced. We also begin to see the biscuits being formed with holes throughout – this allowed the moisture to escape making the production of “ships biscuits” easier to manage. This is why the “digestive” and many other biscuits that we still have today still have these holes.

And, as I found out by reading the pages of Histories of the Unexpected, biscuits made post-1805 have 34 holes. Now, I don’t know if this is still true but, apparently, at the time, the number of holes symbolize the number of British ships involved in the famous Battle of Trafalgar. For those of you who may not be familiar with it, the Battle of Trafalgar is one of the most famous battles in British history. It’s taught to everyone, well at least when I was in school. It was a naval battle between Britain versus France and Spain during the time of Napoleon. The Admiral commanding the British fleet was Lord Horatio Nelson, a hero then and now, missing one arm and one eye. And if no one has yet guessed it, Trafalgar Square in London, a very popular tourist spot with a very large pillar of Nelson, is named for this battle. Fascinating stuff.

But back to biscuits. As I said earlier, biscuits were getting mass produced by the 19^th century. As Historic UK explains, mechanized mass production gave the appearance that the food was not adulterated because people did not touch the food during the food making process, and only did so when they were boxed and ready to be distributed. And this mechanized mass production made biscuits very, very popular.

There are two other elements that helped popularize biscuits in the 19^th century.

The first would be the beginning of the popularity of tea as a drink in Great Britain. I did an Eat My Globe podcast episode on the history of tea, so do make sure you try to check it out. But let me talk a little bit about its history here.

The very first mention of tea in Great Britain was found in a newspaper published in 1658 that said,

Quote

“That excellent and by all Physitians approved China Drink called by the Chinese Tcha, by other Nations Tay, alias Tee.”

End quote.

It was being sold at a coffee house in the city of London.

According to the UK Tea & Infusions Association, a nonprofit trade association, it was the Portuguese princess, Catherine of Braganza and Bombay, where, at the time, Bombay in India was a Portuguese territory, who was a

Quote

“tea addict”

End quote.

and who began the tea craze in England. She married Charles II of England in May 1662, and brought her tea drinking ways with her to the royal court, and soon enough, the people of nobility and other wealthy people in England began to follow suit.

Tea, at the time, was under a monopoly by China. However, by the 1800s, the East India Company had performed probably one of the greatest corporate heists in history when they smuggled tea plants out of China and brought them to be planted in India.

This allowed tea to be one of the most popular beverages in Great Britain, as it remains today. This is a very simple explanation of tea. But again, if you want to hear more about this fascinating story, please do go and check our episode on the history of tea at Eat My Globe dot com forward slash tea where I go into so much more detail about my favorite drink in the world.

Anyway, one of the other products that helped the biscuit become so popular was sugar. Now, again, we have an Eat My Globe episode on the history of sugar, so do go and check it out to get a more detailed history. But again, as a quick reminder, sugar was initially only used by the elites, but as you know now, is now available to everyone.

Mimi Goodall from the University of Oxford tells the story of Queen Elizabeth I’s visit at the home of the Earl of Hertford in 1591. The Earl had gone all out with the food and served the Queen and the guests over 1,000 dishes. Goodall says of the dishes,

Quote

“The most impressive and curious of them all were statues made from sugar. Guests marvelled at a virtual menagerie: ‘Lions, Vnicorns, Beares, Horses, Camels, Buls, Rams, Dogges, Tygers, Elephants, Antelops, Dromedaries, Apes, and all other beasts’ had been rendered in the powdery sweet stuff.”

End quote.

While sugar was a luxury in the late 16^th century, by the 1800s, sugar had become democratized and available to anyone, including to servants who wanted to add a spot of sugar to their mug of tea.

So, how did this once elitist food stuff get from the noble plaything to something that was common?

I won’t. . . Sorry, this is one of my. . . one of my wife’s jokes. Sorry, I won’t. . . SUGARCOAT the story.

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

Anyway. Sugar cane was one of the main commodities that helped catalyze western European colonists’ domination of countries around the world. It was first domesticated in Papua New Guinea around 8,000 BCE. From there it spread eastward to the Pacific Ocean and then to the Indian Ocean.

Through that spread, it arrived in India and China, and finally coming to the attention of western Europeans. The Portuguese first mass produced sugar cane in the island of Madeira, and then they went on to establish sugar plantations in their other colonies such as Brazil. Other European superpowers of the time started to establish their own sugar plantations in their own colonies in places like Haiti and other islands of the Caribbean where it became a vital part of the triangular slave trade between Europe, Africa and the New World. Mass production in sugar plantations made sugar a more common commodity.

Now this again is a very simple version of how sugar became one of the world’s great commodities. If you want to hear more enthralling details of this barbaric trade and the impact it had on the world, I really do suggest that you go to the episode of Eat My Globe episode on the history of sugar so go to Eat My Globe dot com forward slash sugar. Do give it a listen.

But for now, let’s just say that in 19^th century Great Britain, tea and biscuits, which were then made with sugar, became something that the British began to love. One could even say that tea and biscuits made life BUTTER.

AS:

[Laughter]

SM:

Oh gah. . . Oh dear.

As I mentioned earlier, biscuits in Britain were being mass produced at this point. Consumers then started storing them in decorative tins to keep them fresh. The concept of the “biscuit tin” was created by a great British biscuit maker called Huntley & Palmers in 1842. I still remember my mum and my nana storing her needlework in biscuit tins after we’ve finished all the biscuits, of course.

So, let’s look at some of these biscuit manufacturers and then let’s look at some of my favorite biscuits.

Peek Freans, currently an internationally known brand that produces biscuits and other sweets, was founded by James Peek, a tea importer, in 1857. Later, Peek merged with George Hender Frean. Peek Freans, as it began to be called, started in the area of greater London known as Bermondsey, just south of the Tower Bridge.  Bermondsey became known as “The Biscuit Town,” according to The Londonist. The Londonist also noted that Peak Freans originally created biscuits like “The Pearl” and “The Marie,” the latter of which is now known as the “Rich Tea” biscuit. It is not a biscuit I choose very regularly because, well, I’ll tell you about that later on. The factory in Bermondsey no longer exists, but apparently, an old part of the factory has been converted into the “Peak Frean’s Biscuit Museum.” So if you want to do a food history tour of London, this might just be a fantastic place to visit.

Another famous British biscuit maker is McVitie’s. In 1839, Robert McVitie started his biscuit company on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. McVitie’s is often identified as the originator of the digestive biscuit. However, I should note that legends have persisted to this day that Scottish doctors invented digestives to help with digestion. We have no historical evidence to the legend of this, but we do know that in 1892, an employee of McVitie’s, Alexander Grant, did create a digestive recipe that is still very popular today. I love it. It added a new ingredient – bicarbonate of soda, which helps with digestion. McVitie’s then created other digestives including the chocolate digestive in 1925, wonderful, the Hobnob in 1985, beautiful, and the milk and dark chocolate versions of the Hobnob in 1987. Even more beautiful, particularly the Dark Chocolate one. Fantastic.

They are all favorites of mine, particularly the “Choccy Dige,” as we call it, and the “Dark Choccy Hobnob,” as they were known in my family, and I suspect a lot of other families too.

Other biscuits too were great to have in a biscuit tin, something my mum and baba treated us kids to at Christmas time. This was a selection of biscuits in a decorative tin, like I mentioned earlier, but with a themed Christmas design. It was filled with a range of biscuits, so that everyone in the family could have their own biscuits.

So, here’s some of the biscuits that I liked.

The Jammie Dodger – This is a jam filled sandwich of two biscuits. And it became so popular that in Great Britian, if you call each other a “Jammy” or “Jammy Dodger” it means that they are really lucky, which, according to Time Out, apparently stems from people referring to the Jammie Dodger workers as Jammy because they were so lucky to work with the jam. I still use this term when I’m in the United States, which you can imagine causes some confusion.

The Rich Tea – This is part of many British comedian’s jokes, which we’ll explain in a few moments.

Bourbon Biscuits – This is pronounced “Bourbon” rather than the “Bourbon” of the American whiskey drink. This was a great favorite of mine. A slender biscuit of chocolate cream sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits. Gorgeous.

Garibaldi Biscuits – This is a biscuit stuffed with dried currants. It was made by Peek Freans and it was known in Britain as the “squashed fly biscuit” because the currants kinda looked like squashed flies. It is not one of my favorite biscuits, but its fascinating history is worth looking at. It is named after Guiseppe Garibaldi, an Italian military man who conquered Sicily and Naples that led to the unification of Italy. The British working class loved him because they thought they should also be allowed to vote, and the middle and upper classes also loved him because he was against the royalty in continental Europe. So, in 1861, a biscuit maker called Johnathan Dodgson Carr, who worked for Peek Freans, created a biscuit to be named after this Italian General Garibaldi. Interesting.

Ginger Nuts – This is one of my favorites too. They’re not made with ginger nowadays. They’re like ginger snaps in the US. As John Ayto notes in his book “The Diner’s Dictionary: Word Origins of Food & Drink,” in the 18^th century, the British called ginger flavored biscuits as gingerbread nuts. For example, in 1775, Joseph Jekyll wrote,

Quote

“We beg the receipt of your gingerbread nuts.”

End quote.

Later, gingerbread nuts got shortened to “Ginger Nut.”

But my favorite biscuit of all time was also one of the rest of my family’s favorites. This meant many a fight over the biscuit tin.

I would yell at my siblings and proclaim, I KNEADED that. Oh stop it.

Anyway, as I was saying, my favorite biscuit is known as the “Custard Cream.” This is a sandwich biscuit that is square in size with a custardy style filling.

Now, there are two claims to the origin of these biscuits. It was either created in 1908 or 1913. The biscuits themselves are designed with fern leaves. In 1920, Peak Freans advertised these delicious biscuits by saying

Quote

“Far and away the most popular of all the cream sandwich biscuits.”

End quote.

That shows that I’m not the only one to love these “Custard Creams” but they are very special biscuits.

Now, before we go. I wanted to tell you about one of the rituals of eating biscuits with tea. It is known by everyone in the U.K. as dunking.

For those of you who don’t know, dunking is to hold a biscuit into a cup of tea and eat it while it has that beautiful taste of biscuit and tea combined. The British Medical Journal describes this method as holding a biscuit

Quote

“firmly between thumb and index finger (the universal dunking grip) before being dunked into a standard cup of tea as far as the fingertips.”

End quote.

See? There have even been scientific studies on the subject. For the record, the British Medical Journal study in 2022 concluded that 

Quote

“Biscuit dunking has a beneficial effect on tea cooling and should be encouraged, and the oat biscuit was the best at achieving this when compared with the digestive, rich tea, and shortie.”

End quote.

And speaking of rich tea, as Peter Kay, one on Britain’s best loved comedians, calls them

Quote

“‘one dips’ and ‘bad for dipping’.”

End quote.

That is because, as the British Medical Journal has proven, rich tea has a dunk break point of 21.3 seconds, which is when the British biscuit fell apart compared to the oat biscuit’s dunk break point of 34.3 seconds.

Although, in fairness, in an earlier scientific study conducted by the Institute of Physics in 2016, where they used robots to do the dunking, they concluded that the McVitie’s rich tea won because

Quote

“Its compact structure means it can hold its shape a bit easier than the looser, oatier biscuits.”

End quote.

Sadly, my beloved “Custard Creams” were not part of these studies.

Now, I think it might be time for me to go and conduct my own scientific experiments.

See you next week folks.

OUTRO MUSIC

SM:

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Thank you and goodbye from me, Simon Majumdar, we’ll speak to you soon on the next episode of EAT MY GLOBE: Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know About Food.

CREDITS

The EAT MY GLOBE Podcast is a production of “It’s Not Much But It’s Ours” and “Producer Girl Productions.”

[Ring sound]

We would also like to thank Sybil Villanueva for all of her help both with the editing of the transcripts and her essential help with the research.