Book review: The Biscuit: the History of a Very British Indulgence by Lizzie Collingham
I love a biscuit and I love well-written social history, so I was pretty keen to read The Biscuit: the History of a Very British Indulgence by Lizzie Collingham. It’s a fascinating book that had me frequently spouting interesting nuggets at anyone who happened to be around.
Collingham tracks the history of the biscuit from its Roman Empire beginnings as twice-baked bread, to being a culinary centrepiece for the super rich of the 17th century, to becoming a factory-made staple of every British household (and indeed much of the rest of the world). There are recipes dotted throughout, several of which I bookmarked.
The definition of biscuit is fairly wide here. In one chapter, Collingham explains how wafers and waffles can trace their origin to unleavened bread. In the first and second centuries CE, Jewish bakers began pouring unleavened batter into tongs to create thin wafers decorated with animals and flowers for Passover. Soon after, Christian bakers copied the idea but replaced the designs with their own religious imagery. As the practice spread of churches handing out wafers at Easter, over centuries they became a staple at bakeries, especially after sugar and spices spread to Europe and became part of the wafer recipes.