If you’ve ever encountered a biscuit in the USA, you’re encountering a round buttery bread-like thing that may have a buttermilk tang to it. Something similar to a scone, yet different because of the tang of the buttermilk. Something quite different from a scone in many ways, because scones originated as a bread product, while biscuits did not.
Of course, if you’re in the UK, you know that a biscuit is a flat-ish somewhat sweet thing that looks suspiciously like what we Americans call a “cookie”. It is entirely unlike an American biscuit. But here’s a secret: They both came from the same place.
In the beginning, there was ship’s biscuit or hardtack. Both Americans and British called it biscuit in 1776, when colonial independence happened. But then there was independence, and the flow of cooks — and cooking information in general — largely stopped between the US and UK.
So here’s the thing with hardtack: It’s hard. If you search this blog’s back archives you’ll find my attempt to make hardtack according to the American Civil War . Eating it required soaking it in soup or coffee or whatever for a significant amount of time. Coming up with a more edible version of ship’s biscuit became a desirable thing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, a project that occurred during much of the 19th century, accelerating in the late 1800’s. Finally, by 1900, each side of the ocean arrived at their solution to ship’s biscuit being too hard to easily eat. On the American side of the Atlantic, those pesky colonials added baking soda, buttermilk, and fat to the basic ship’s biscuit recipe of flour and salt in order to arrive at the buttermilk biscuit. Meanwhile, on the UK side of the Atlantic, the British added a lesser amount of leavening agents as well as often other substances like egg and sugar to the basic ship’s biscuit recipe of flour and salt in order to arrive at, well, British biscuit — which look suspiciously like American cookies.
Wait, American cookies? What about them? It’s not a case of Americans calling biscuits cookies — we had cookies well before the British had biscuits that were cookie-like as vs ship’s biscuit (hardtack). We got cookies from the Dutch a hundred years before the British had biscuits that were cookie-like. The first reference to “cookies” on the soil of the USA is from 1703, when a reference in New Netherlands to a celebration talks about distributing cookies to the celebrants. Yup. We had cookies before the Brits had cookie-like biscuits.
Now, some claim that US biscuits are actually the same thing as UK scones. No. UK scones originated as a bread product made with baking powder and eggs rather than as a derivative of ship’s biscuit and are often sweet rather than savory and sometimes incorporate fruits. We eat scones here in the United States too, but they are not biscuits in either the American or UK usage. Scones are… scones.
And biscuits are biscuits. Not the same biscuits on the two sides of the Atlantic, but originating in the same place, with hardtack “ship’s biscuit”, with the same purpose, to make that “ship’s biscuit” actually edible without the need for a hammer and chisel. Americans spent a century after independence trying to make hardtack ship’s biscuit edible until finally arriving at the modern buttermilk biscuit in the late 1800’s, and the British did the same, but arriving at a different end product, and never the twain shall meet.
- Badtux the Culinary Penguin
As a bayou boy in south Alabama, the biscuit was all purpose, for breakfast, snack, dinner. Put red-eye or white gravy on them, always lashings of butter. Take some to the beach with yellow rat-trap cheese for lunch. Out in the country, leftover biscuits are usually the only dessert, again buttered and heaped with mom’s jam, honey or molasses. Like little pancakes or waffles. But cheese biscuits rule.
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Hard to go wrong with cheesy biscuits. I’m trying to replicate my grandmother’s recipe for biscuits, which was *not* cheesy, but thus far not having much success.
My grandfather took one of my grandmother’s biscuits to work with him with butter and a sausage patty for lunch every day. It was a stout working man’s lunch.
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Interesting and tasty entry. Thanks.
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Ah the simple but often elegant biscuit. I use a recipie from a “Boston School of Cooking” cookbook. My copy was printed back in 1936. It makes a simple and filling product with only a few ingredients. Always a treat to have a fresh baked biscuit with our meal. Thanks for the reminder, I think I’ll make some tonight.
w3ski
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I don’t take the time to bake biscuits, when we have soup or chili I make up baking powder biscuits on the stovetop. Flour, salt, baking powder, a bit of oil or other fat, mix it with a bit of warm water and cook them up in a pan. You can add honey or raisins for a dessert biscuit. Really it’s a kind of bannock, just cut up into biscuit shapes.
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Absolutely a bannock. Nothing wrong with that. Biscuits however are a baked product. Indeed, the word “biscuit” originates in a French term that meant “twice baked” (because ships’ biscuit was baked first, then slow-dried in a low temperature oven to dry them further for long-term storage).
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Yeah, that’s right, good distinction and I had forgotten about the etymology. But I tell my wife they’re biscuits and she’s happy.
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I’ve made hardtack. It really does last a hell of a long time.
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I’ve made hardtack too. It lasts a long time, but man is it hard to eat.
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Sweet crunchy things here are mostly “biscuits” and not just the shortbread types. When the recipe is more complicated, with inclusions such as chocolate chips, nuts, etc, then they get labeled as “cookies.” There’s not a hard-and-fast distinction in all cases, and I’m noticing more Americanisation in the labeling of such food. The Empire might be in decline in many ways, but it’s cultural influence remains strong. F’rinstance, I’m noticing a lot more people calling each other “buddy” instead of “mate” these days, but that’s another rant.
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