Cut square and stamped with a proper stamp of the happy union and baked

September 9, 2014 9:34 AM

"Nowadays, we tend to eat biscuits with beverages like tea and coffee. But in the past they were an important element of the dessert course and were dipped into sweet wine." - Food History Jottings (previously) on the strange world of Regency biscuits. (Cookies to you US types.)
posted by The Whelk (25 comments total)

You still get biscotti with Vin Santo in Italy.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 9:56 AM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I was going to say the same as CheeseDigestsAll. I'm afraid translating 'biscuit' to 'cookie' is not enough since the 'we' to which the article refers is: English People.

I did learn about docking biscuits however. Always wondered why biscuits had those little holes in them...
posted by vacapinta at 10:09 AM on September 9, 2014

Bifquits. As in "I fay chap woudft thou paff the bifcuits".
posted by Curious Artificer at 10:24 AM on September 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

Bifquits. As in "I fay chap woudft thou paff the bifcuits".

I know they're tasty, but you shouldn't talk with your mouth full.
posted by chavenet at 10:47 AM on September 9, 2014 [12 favorites]

Gravy or grits always worked for me.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:58 AM on September 9, 2014

I did once have a conversation with a (maybe pretty sheltered) British friend online who had heard something nonspecific about biscuits and gravy and was SHOCKED AND OUTRAGED and I had to explain that neither of those words meant what they thought it meant.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:27 AM on September 9, 2014 [6 favorites]

Though in hindsight I suspect they may have been full of shit because seriously, how can you think about cookies and meat juice and not know that a serious misunderstanding has occurred.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:28 AM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

If the biscuits aren't minty, then what's the point?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:47 AM on September 9, 2014

Awesome! I'm not a freak for dipping chocolate chip cookies into Malbec!
posted by ian1977 at 11:48 AM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Hmmmm...I just might whip-up a batch of vanilla biscotti and finally crack-open that '83 sauternes I've been holding onto.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:53 AM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Hmmmm...I just might whip-up a batch of vanilla biscotti and finally crack-open that '83 sauternes I've been holding onto.

Franzia and Hydrox!
posted by ian1977 at 12:29 PM on September 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

I now need to carve my own custom biscuit print. Sans carving skills.

Actually, what a cool 3D printer idea. Custom biscuit prints. With my monogram! Now I finally have a reason to get a 3d printer.
posted by ian1977 at 12:35 PM on September 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

I can't imagine eating wine with biſcuits.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:46 PM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Franzia and Hydrox!

Manischewitz and Manischewitz?
posted by Sys Rq at 1:01 PM on September 9, 2014 [5 favorites]

sonic meat machine: I can't imagine eating wine with biſcuits.

fome beer, then?
posted by IAmBroom at 1:37 PM on September 9, 2014

I ſee what you did there.
posted by Curious Artificer at 1:59 PM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Franzia and Hydrox!

True story...Wayyyy back in the day, we were invited to a party for my nephew's 2nd birthday. It was a pitch-in. We brought a big bag of White Castles and a bottle of Dom. It was a hit.

Sometimes, I do miss the 80's.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:31 PM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wait. American gravy isn't gravy? It isn't a rich brown sauce composed of jus, demi-glace, and a roux? What is it then? Hair cream? Some sort of floor wax? THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:57 PM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

American gravy can be brown (as you describe.) It can also be yellow (made the same way as brown, only with poultry drippings,) and white (made from milk, flour and fat- usually bacon fat.) White gravy goes on (American bread) biscuits. We have a pallid rainbow of gravies!
posted by headspace at 4:15 PM on September 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

I grew up dipping my mom's biscotti into wine. The little kids just had wine diluted a touch with water or ginger ale. In the summer we sliced peaches into the wine, too. YUM.
posted by mondo dentro at 4:41 PM on September 9, 2014

Also there's red-eye gravy (ham drippings and coffee). Also I guess there are supposed to be people somewhere in the US who call tomato sauce "gravy," but wherever it is I've never been there.

But yeah, dishes all sort of have a canonical gravy that goes with them, and you're just I guess supposed to know which one is which. "Biscuits and gravy" always means cream gravy. Chicken fried steak, if it comes with gravy, comes with cream gravy. "Roast beef and gravy" means brown gravy.

God damn the word gravy is starting to look all kinds of funny.
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:01 PM on September 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Second-generation Italians in Massachusetts and Rhode Island call spaghetti sauce "gravy", and they also sometimes make abominable homemade cracker things that they dip into their homemade wine, so there you go. The whole discussion falls back onto itself.
posted by Curious Artificer at 7:58 PM on September 9, 2014

When did biscuits become cookies in the US? I work in a old Nabisco factory building that was built in 1918 and the sign over the entrance says N.B.C. because back then it was the National Biscuit Company. At some point in the last 96 years, Americans stopped using the word biscuit for cookies.
posted by octothorpe at 8:15 PM on September 9, 2014

Just to be more specific, the proper gravy for southern American biscuits is sausage gravy. White gravy, but made with crumbled sausage.

It is known.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:29 PM on September 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

When did biscuits become cookies in the US?

I don't know but in these Oreo ads, it is referred to as a "creamy-filled biscuit" in 1921.

By 1940 it is referred to as a "creamy-filled chocolate cookie sandwich."
posted by vacapinta at 7:41 AM on September 10, 2014 [1 favorite]