The paradox of the pastry: How the biscuit defines human necessity and indulgence

“ The use of this kind of bread on land is general, and some varieties are luxuries; but at sea, biscuits are articles of the first necessity. Fancy biscuits contain butter, eggs, milk, and various flavourings. They are sold in enormous quantities. Sea or ship-biscuits are made of wheat flour, from which only the coarsest bran has been separated. Dough is made up as stiff as it can be worked, and is then formed into shapes, and baked in an oven; after which the biscuits are exposed in lofts over the oven until perfectly dry, to prevent them from becoming mouldy when stored. ”

“ Plain biscuits are said to be more nutritious than bread in the proportion 17of five to three, and are most digestible when light and well browned in baking, so as to turn much of the starch into dextrine. Sea biscuit or ship bread is made simply of flour and water baked at a high heat. In the large cracker bakeries the dough is mixed, rolled and cut by machinery and the cakes travel on through patent ovens until baked, when they drop out into baskets. Those made by hand are, however, considered best. ”

“ Fancy Biscuits can be made at home, and will be found quite equal in taste and appearance to the more expensive kinds sold in the shops. Care must be taken that the oven is not too hot as they will not look well if they are browned; and the flour and sugar used for them must be very finely sifted and thoroughly dry. To make four varieties of these biscuits at once, take one pound of fresh butter and cream it with half a pound of castor sugar, and add two well-beaten eggs. When well whisked divide the mixture into four basins. ”

“ What a volume of blessings and cursings have been uttered on the subject of biscuits—army biscuits!
What a part they take in our daily routine: the carrying of them, the eating of them, the cursing at them!
Could we find any substitute for biscuits? Surely not! It is easy to think of biscuits without an army, but of an army without biscuits—never.
Biscuits, like the poor, are always with us. Crawling from our earthly dens at the dim dawning of the day, we receive no portion of the dainties which once were ours in the long ago times of effete civilisation ”

“ Biscuit sandwiches are generally more palatable to a child than plain bread ones. Besides those made of cold meat, there should be at least one cheese or one salad-and-nut sandwich, and one jelly sandwich. A hard-boiled egg, preferably one that has been cooked for some time in water kept under boiling point, will vary this diet. Of course fruit, such as an apple, an orange, or a banana, forms the best dessert. Occasionally cake, gingerbread, sweet biscuit, or a piece of milk chocolate may be put in the basket for a pleasant surprise. ”

“ Through her bright windows we could see her moving briskly about from kitchen to sitting room; and from the smells that floated out from her kitchen door, she seemed to be preparing for her solitary supper the same homely viands that were frying or stewing or baking in our kitchens. Sometimes you could detect the delectable scent of browning hot tea biscuit. It takes a brave, courageous, determined woman to make tea biscuit for no one but herself.
Blanche Devine joined the church. ”

“ I lay in bed till after breakfast, as the disturbed night had not done me much good; but I enjoyed two sugee biscuits dear Charlie sent me the night before for [96] my chota hazree, with my tea sweetened with sugar, which I had not tasted for many weeks. These sugee biscuits the ladies in this house are buying at five rupees the pound. My longing now is to get a Dhobee and an Ayah; for I feel so weak and helpless, with not a single person to help me, and so unable to do anything for myself. Some kind friend always brings me my meals, &c. ”

“ When they wish to preserve it, they cut it in round pieces, and dry it in the sun or in an oven, in the form of very small cakes. This natural biscuit preserves its bread-like qualities for several years, and far longer than our best ship's biscuits."
From Port Agana, Crozet reached the Philippine Islands, and anchored off Cavite, in Manilla Bay. This was the spot where the Castries and Mascarin parted, to go back to Mauritius separately. ”

“ Indeed, the active life in which all were then engaged, left few without that piquant relish for their food, which the rich citizen in the midst of his luxury might gladly exchange half his wealth for: the greatest of them all, in taste as well as purse, can never enjoy his epulation with so enviable a zest, as those campaigners did their coarse dry beef, and flinty biscuit. ”

“ We eat our meat, not with thankfulness, but with biscuits. We lengthen out the taste of jam—with biscuits. We pound them to powder. We boil them with bully. We stew them in stews. We fry them as fritters. We curse them with many and bitter cursings, and we bless them with few blessings.
Biscuits! Army biscuits! Consider the hardness of them. Remember the cracking of your plate, the breaking of this tooth, the splintering of that. Call to mind how your finest gold crown weakened, wobbled, and finally shrivelled under the terrific strain of masticating Puntley and Chalmer’s No. ”

“ We desired indeed, at that time, to do nothing save eat the breakfast of weevilly biscuits just now served out to us, with good water still sweet from the wells of vanished Grand Pré. When one has hunger, there is rare relish in a weevilly biscuit ”

“ On placing a biscuit by my side when seated upon deck, it would actually be put in motion by some invisible machinery, and if thrown on the hot coals in order to destroy the living works within, and prevent the biscuit from walking off, it would make an angry sputtering wondrous to hear! ”

“ What though the biscuit be hard, and one's bed like the biscuit! The wholesome healthy appetite one possesses, both for biscuit and sleep, makes up for all that; and one ought to be happy if he isn't. ”

“ Did she, then, while the seamen slept, steal the water from the cask to preserve the existence of those committed to her fostering charge, and far more precious to her, in her sight, than her own life? There can be no doubt she did so. She discovers that she is not observed. There is a small tin pannikin near her, and several pieces of biscuit. She crumbles the biscuit, as well as she can with her weak fingers, into the pannikin, and then pours upon them a few drops of the precious fluid. She looks at the water with longing eyes, but will not expend even one drop to cool her parched lips. ”

“ During the last two nights, when all was still, and the starving sailors were slumbering, or attempting to slumber, Dominick Rigonda—the youth whom we have just introduced to the reader—had placed a small quantity of broken biscuit in the hands of his sister and little brother, with a stern though whispered command to eat it secretly and in silence. ”

“ All the time I was washing out the block-house, and then washing up the things from dinner, this disgust, and envy kept growing stronger and stronger, till at last, being near a bread-bag, and no one then observing me, I took the first step towards my escapade, and filled both pockets of my coat with biscuit. ”

“ Thirty-two dozen would make 384 biscuits; and, now that I had eaten eight of them, there remained exactly 376; which, at the rate of two per diem, would last for 188 days. True, 188 days would be a little over six months, but as I had not a clear confidence about the length of the voyage being only six months, I perceived that I must go on short rations, of less than two biscuits a day.
What, thought I, if there should be another box of biscuits behind the one I had emptied? That would secure me against all chances, and make my mind easy at once and for ever. What if there should be another? ”

“ Such was our first meal, and the best we had, during our stay upon the raft.
15 The biscuit had fallen into the sea, and was with difficulty recovered.—Trans.
An order, according to our numbers, was established for the distribution of our miserable provisions. The ration of wine was fixed at three quarters a-day.16 We will speak no more of the biscuit, it having been entirely consumed at the first distribution. The day passed away sufficiently tranquil. We talked of the means by which we would save ourselves; we spoke of it as a certain circumstance, which reanimated our courage ”

“ Many of them lived almost entirely upon biscuit, others on their own private supplies, and some paid extra for better rations from the ship. This marvellously changed my notion of the degree of luxury habitual to the artisan. I was prepared to hear him grumble, for grumbling is the traveller's pastime; but I was not prepared to find him turn away from a diet which was palatable to myself. Words I should have disregarded, or taken with a liberal allowance; but when a man prefers dry biscuit there can be no question of the sincerity of his disgust. ”

“ She held up a thick, square, brownish cracker, and said: "Look well at that. You have never seen anything more important to human lives. That is the free American biscuit. It is distributed at ten every morning to every school-child, to every teacher, in the region under German rule. None have had enough to eat. There are no biscuits distributed on Sundays and vacation days. Those are hard days for the children to live through. They beg desperately to go to school, even when they are sick, so they may not miss their biscuit. ”

“ Sift three cupfuls of flour, add a teaspoonful of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, two eggs well beaten, a tablespoonful of melted lard, and a cupful of sweet milk to which has been added half a teaspoonful each of soda and cream of tartar. Work to a smooth dough, roll out half an inch thick, cut into circles with a biscuit cutter, and bake on buttered pans. ”

“ Add the flour by degrees, then the sugar and flavouring, and moisten the whole with the yolks of the eggs, which should previously be well beaten. When all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated, drop the mixture from a spoon on to a buttered paper, leaving a distance between each cake, as they spread as soon as they begin to get warm. Bake in rather a slow oven from 12 to 18 minutes, and do not let the biscuits acquire too much colour. In making the above quantity, half may be flavoured with ground ginger and the other half with essence of lemon or currants, to make a variety. ”

“ The variety of biscuits and crackers in market is utterly bewildering. These are among the standards: Boston, SODA, BUTTER, OYSTER, SUGAR, FRUIT, MILK, ENGLISH ALBERT, WATER, CREAM, GINGER, LEMON, OATMEAL, CARAWAY, VANILLA, and dozens more kinds of biscuits, crackers and wafers at various prices; besides GINGER and LEMON SNAPS and JUMBLES, and even DOG BISCUIT. There is also CRACKER DUST, for frying oysters, fish, etc. Some of the above come in handsome tin packages. ”

“ Beat up the whites to a stiff froth with the wire whip, and then immediately add them to the other ingredients; gently mix the whole together for five minutes. Add now ten ounces of well-sifted flour; carefully incorporate it with the rest for four minutes. Butter well, and sprinkle with powdered sugar, six biscuit-molds five inches long by three inches wide and two inches high. Equally divide the preparation into the six molds; lightly dredge the surface of each with the powdered sugar, arrange them carefully in a pastry baking-pan; place in a moderate oven to bake for forty-five minutes. ”

“ Mother says that cakes and biscuits and all kinds of pastry are nicer and lighter if the flour is sifted twice, or even three times. I added now a tablespoonful of lard and a half teaspoonful of salt, and mixed the biscuit with milk. The rule is to handle as little as possible, and have the dough very soft. Roll into a mass an inch thick, and cut the little cakes apart with a tin biscuit-cutter. They must be baked in a very hot oven.
No little housekeeper need expect to have perfect biscuits the first time she makes them. It is very much like playing the piano. One needs practice. ”

“ Put the salt and baking-powder in the flour and sift well, and then rub the butter in with a spoon. Little by little put in the milk, mixing all the time, and then lift out the dough on a floured board and roll it out lightly, just once, till it is one inch thick. Flour your hands and mould the little balls as quickly as you can, and put them close together in a shallow pan that has had a little flour shaken over the bottom, and bake in a hot oven about twenty minutes, or till the biscuits are brown. If you handle the dough much, the biscuits will be tough, so you must work fast. ”

“ Proceed in the same way with the second portion, but instead of the ginger add the grated rind and juice of an orange, and if needed, a tablespoonful more flour. To the third division add half a teaspoonful of vanilla flavouring, and ornament the top of each biscuit with a little pink and white icing after baking. If the biscuits are made stiff they will keep their shape well in the baking, and may be cut into various fancy patterns such as ivy leaves, stars, diamonds, etc. Ivy leaves with the veins put on in white or pink icing are very pretty. ”

“ When taken out of the first oven the ware is termed "biscuit." It is now ready for glazing. Of course, in such ware as jasper or unglazed stoneware, basalt, and similar kinds, the "biscuit" state is the final one, the object being completed.
The Dipping-house.—In the illustration (p. 57) it will be seen that the ware in its "biscuit" state is dipped in liquid glaze in a very deft manner, after which it proceeds to the "glost" oven to harden this glaze on its surface.
It is here that great care has to be exercised in keeping the pieces from coming in contact with each other ”

“ I have now by me the bottom of a Chinese punch-bowl, which was plainly glazed, when it was raw, or a soft biscuit; for the ware wants a great deal of being burnt, it being of the colour of coarse whited-brown paper. But the same body, when exposed [326] to a proper degree of fire, turns to a chinaware of a very good colour—a demonstration that it had not, as our ware in England hath, the great fire before the glaze was laid on. I don’t point out the advantages of painting and glazing on a soft biscuit, as they are very obvious to anyone, ever so little used to pottery. ”

“ The flower pieces are drawn with feeling, and the coloring follows that of nature as closely as the medium will allow. In the figure pieces the attitudes are, as a rule, expressive, and suggestive of life and motion. Many of Thorvaldsen’s works, and some of those of Bissen and Jerichau, have been reproduced in biscuit statuettes and bas-relief medallions. While lacking the warmth of terra-cotta, the porcelain biscuit is sharp in outline and soft in color. ”

“ We first baked our ware to a soft biscuit, which would suck, then painted it with blue, and dipped them with the same ease; and the glazing grows hard and dry, as soon as it does in the delft-ware. Large vessels may be dipped raw, as the Chinese are said to do it. But the proper thickness of the glaze is not so easily distinguished this way, as when the ware is biscuited; for, the raw body being of the same colour and consistence with the glaze, when the latter is dry, ’tis hardly possible to determine the limits of either; a thing very easy to be done when the body is hardened by biscuiting. ”

“ The next division consists of biscuit china, fragments of services ornamented in relief, the favourite pattern being the Mayflower. The hawthorn is represented quite after nature, with its thorny branches and blossom. About a dozen of the moulds for stamping these flowers were also found quite perfect; they are of biscuit, three inches by two and a half in diameter. Fig. 408 is interesting, being the original mould of a biscuit cup which has its exact counterpart glazed. These pieces form a history in themselves. ”

“ The ware being thoroughly dried, is packed into saggars and burnt in the furnace to biscuit. Patterns for flat, or nearly flat surfaces, are put on by printing the pattern from a copper-plate with an ink composed of oxide of cobalt, oxide of iron, or other colouring matter, mixed with oil. The impression is taken on soft paper, and is applied to the surface of the biscuit, and slightly rubbed to make the print adhere: the biscuit is then soaked in water till the paper may be stripped off, leaving the print or pattern behind12. ”

“ Friends of all kinds, and in all kindness, come and bring their futile, barren consolations, and make offers of unneeded, unacceptable service, as unpalatable as the offer of the Grand Duchess in 'Alice in Wonderland,' who, declaring that she knows what the thirsty, gasping little girl wants, tenders her a dry biscuit. The dry biscuit of conventional service is put to the lips of the choking sufferer, and cannot be swallowed. ”