TAKING THE BISCUIT

I think it must be all those biscuits. Many of my admirable Scots compatriots were recently horrified to learn that we are the second most overweight and obese nation in the developed world – the Palme d’Or going to the unrivalled kings of consumption, the United States. We Scots surpass in heft the English, the Irish and especially the lean and mean Welsh. I am tempted to cry “Well eaten, Scotland!” although I suppose there are quite a few negatives and the quacks lecture us earnestly about “lifestyle choices” and the dire ill effects on our ravaged bodies.

The lure of the biscuit is very potent. Just as a hapless addict trembles as he awaits his next fix, I confess to wobbling with cupidity at the glorious sight of an unopened packet of McVitie’s Dark Chocolate Digestives, a delectable mouthful in any language. One biscuit soon becomes 3 and closure only comes as 5 disappear down the red canal. After some winter months in London, with biscuit temptations abounding, I tip the scales at a secret figure comfortably in excess of 18 stone. Many summer months in Greece lie ahead and I promise to nibble lettuce, radishes and raw carrots, take some gentle exercise in my local pool, reducing my weight to a more respectable, if still jelly-like 17 stone. Greek biscuits are but a pale imitation of the real thing, though there are other tasty distractions.

The greatest Biscuit in my World

Biscuits, in the sense I rhapsodise over them, are rather a British thing. My biscuits are bis (twice) cuit (cooked) hard bakery products – our American cousins would call most of them “cookies” – first created by the Romans; there are a thousand variations in continental Europe which I will ignore. The British developed this historic product as it kept well and was an ideal food for sailors on long voyages, hence ship biscuits, also known as “hard tack”

 As the British Empire expanded and prospered, commercial companies spotted the market opportunities and made the biscuit more palatable. Arguably the first global brand name was Huntley & Palmers, whose factory in Reading was established in 1822 pioneering the use of metal biscuit tins. From Kingston to Nairobi, from Poona to Singapore, the British colonial settler or official could be seen clutching his biscuit tins with exotic or sentimental pictures upon them and devouring the sweet or savoury contents within, air-tight and impervious to cold, damp, sun or tempest.

                                                

A typical Huntley & Palmers Biscuit tin picture

In Scotland the inventive firms of McVitie & Price and Macfarlane Lang competed and in time merged to form United Biscuits. McVities had invented the iconic Digestive Biscuit and the Rich Tea, invariably proffered if you were invited to “a nice cup of tea”. The United Biscuit brand list is dazzling, taking in traditional spicy Ginger Nuts, wonderfully oat-crunchy HobNobs and toothsome Penguins. My favourite Chocolate Digestives were introduced in 1925 and Britain consumes 71 million packets per annum, equal to 52 biscuits per second. I am doing my bit, Mr McVitie!

The aristocrat of Scottish biscuits is undoubtedly Shortbread. Crumbly and delicious, the ingredient list demanding heroic proportions of flour, sugar and butter gives heebie-jeebies to the dietician. The stalwart family firms of Walkers and Patersons specialise in this ambrosial product.

                                                        

Shortbread Fingers

I must apologise that the above discourse will be in some ways incomprehensible to my numerous and cherished American readership. We are famously two nations separated by our common language. You say “pants” and we say “trousers”: vest/waistcoat, suspenders/braces, coat/jacket – the list is long – and so it is with Biscuits, often rendered as Cookies across the Pond.

But there are still mysteries. Guy Mitchell in the 1950s warbled in his ditty “Pretty Little Black-eyed Susan” I like Biscuits soaked in Gravy. To British ears this sounds unappetising until they learn that in America a “biscuit” is a soft item rather like a scone, in our parlance a type of bread or cake. The clouds of misunderstanding easily disperse. Then we had irredeemably cute Shirley Temple trilling about “Animal Crackers in my Soup”. To us Brits a cracker is a flaky, crisp wafer often eaten with cheese. In America crackers are more widely defined and apparently include hard-baked animal-shaped food for children.

 But in your soup?  Now that takes the biscuit!

Shirley Temple and her Animal Crackers

                                        

SMD

28.05.13

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013