Soggy biscuit origin11/9/2023 For longer trips, the biscuits - made only of flour, water, and salt - were baked four times and prepared six months in advance so they’d be sufficiently dry for the journey and wouldn’t spoil. Called hardtack, the hard, flavorless biscuits kept well aboard their ships, though were purportedly so durable that they were also used as postcards. As part of their rations, soldiers in ancient Rome received biscuits, and, in 1588, biscuits were introduced to Great Britain and included as part of rations for sailors in the Royal Navy. The word biscuit comes from the Latin “biscotus,” which means twice-baked, and in medieval times probably resembled what we now know as biscotti. The history of one of America’s earliest and most iconic baked goods actually begins in Europe. The humble yet delicious biscuit has a complicated and storied journey in America, one intertwined with enslavement, war, gender stereotypes, and economics. A journey from Europe to Southern kitchens So ubiquitous were freshly baked biscuits - at our table and the dinner tables of most other Southerners I knew, as well as at gas stations, restaurants, and drive-thrus - that I never really thought about why biscuits were synonymous with the South, much less considered that they are one of the most foundational baked goods in America, as old as the country itself. We’d pluck them from the basket, slather them with butter, and take a bite. They were brought from oven to table with no delay, swaddled in tea towel-lined baskets so they stayed warm, and it was always a race to see who could unwrap the fabric first to reveal the steaming mounds nestled inside. I grew up in the South, where biscuits were a mainstay at most meals.
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