36 Fun Facts About Biscuit

The chocolate sandwich biscuit called the Bourbon takes its name from what?

A dynasty of French kings: the House of Bourbon also lent its name, probably via a Kentucky county or a New Orleans street, to bourbon whiskey.

Samuel Pepys's Royal Navy rations gave each sailor a pound of ship's biscuit a day and a gallon of what?

Beer: the ship's biscuit was so hard that sailors often soaked it in beer, water or whatever liquid was to hand before eating it.

Which biscuit has currants pressed between two thin oblongs of dough, earning it the nickname 'squashed fly'?

The Garibaldi is named after Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian revolutionary who made a popular visit to Britain in 1854.

Which oat biscuit did McVitie's launch in 1985, adding a chocolate-coated version two years later?

The Hobnob, a flapjack-digestive hybrid of rolled oats, sold so fast that the chocolate version followed in 1987; its ancestor was a Victorian bake called the Colchester Priory Biscuit.

The baroque swirls stamped on a custard cream are said to depict which plant?

Ferns: the swirls are said to echo the Victorian fern craze, though the biscuit itself dates from 1908 or 1913.

Which Berkshire town, home of Huntley & Palmers, was nicknamed 'biscuit town', with its football team the 'biscuit men'?

Reading's biscuit-making ended in 1976, when Huntley & Palmers stopped production in the town.

McVitie's traces its name to a biscuit maker established in 1830 on Rose Street in which city?

Edinburgh's Rose Street bakery grew into McVitie & Price, where Alexander Grant created the McVitie's digestive in 1892.

The Jacob's biscuit factory in Dublin was among the buildings seized by rebels during which event?

The Easter Rising garrison at Jacob's saw little fighting, since British troops never stormed the factory, and its commander Thomas MacDonagh was later executed.

Which Jacob's bar ran the 1970s jingle 'If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our…'?

Club started out as the Club Milk in Dublin just before the First World War, advertised with playing-card clubs, each bar wrapped in foil and then paper.

Physicist Len Fisher's work on the best way to dunk a biscuit earned him which tongue-in-cheek award in 1999?

Ig Nobel Prize: Fisher's team found that a biscuit dunked in a hot drink can release up to ten times more flavour.

Speculaas, the spiced Low Countries biscuit, is traditionally eaten around whose early-December feast day?

Saint Nicholas, Sinterklaas in Dutch, gives the season its name, and a speculaas 'suitor's doll' was once handed over as a declaration of love during the festivities.

Which Indian biscuit did a 2011 Nielsen survey rank the world's best-selling biscuit brand?

Parle-G: Parle baked its first biscuit in 1939, and the brand's G stood for glucose until a later campaign recast it as 'Genius'.

The rows of tiny holes punched into a Bourbon biscuit are there to do what while it bakes?

Let steam escape: that stops steam building up inside, so the biscuit comes out sturdier.

The Empire biscuit, Scottish jam-filled shortbread under icing, shed which nationality from its name in the Great War?

German biscuit became an awkward name after 1914, so bakers rebranded it for the Empire; it descends from the Austrian Linzer Augen, which has cut-out 'eyes' in the top layer instead of icing.

New Zealand's Afghan biscuit, iced with chocolate and topped with half a walnut, gets its crunch from which cereal?

Cornflakes give the crunch, and in 2020 New Zealand biscuit maker Griffin's dropped the Afghan name for its version.

In the United States the word 'biscuit' means a fluffy quick bread closest to which British bake?

A scone is the nearest British match, which is why Americans say 'cookie' and 'cracker' for what Britain calls biscuits; Canadians sometimes call the bread a 'tea biscuit' to tell them apart.

Carr's of Carlisle lost which honour for its water biscuits in 2012, put down to 'changing tastes'?

Its royal warrant had been on the packaging since Jonathan Dodgson Carr won one in 1841, so the firm promptly swapped the royal arms for the coat of arms of Carlisle.

What does a Jaffa Cake do when it goes stale, a point that helped a 1991 VAT tribunal rule it a cake?

It goes hard: stale cakes harden while biscuits soften, and the ruling that Jaffa Cakes are cakes kept them free of VAT.

Fox's Biscuits, maker of Party Rings and Rocky bars, began in 1853 in a terraced house in which Yorkshire town?

Batley's Fox's, started in a terraced house, was bought in 2020 by Nutella maker Ferrero.

Arnott's, the Australian firm behind Tim Tams, was founded in 1865 in which New South Wales city?

Newcastle is where Arnott's started, and the firm's Tim Tam is named after a horse that won the Kentucky Derby.

In Spain, which plain biscuit is traditionally laid on top of a bowl of natillas custard?

Marie biscuits were created by Peek Freans in 1874 to celebrate Russia's Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna marrying into the British royal family.

In 1891 a London salesman persuaded McVitie's to make which plain biscuit smaller to suit southern tastes?

Rich Tea biscuits went into the chocolate groom's cake Prince William chose for his 2011 wedding.

In Shetland tradition, a decorated shortbread cake was broken over whose head?

A new bride had it broken over her head at the threshold of her new home; shortbread was so costly it was kept for weddings, Christmas and Hogmanay.

The Abernethy biscuit, a surgeon's digestive aid, is flavoured with which seed prized for fighting flatulence?

Caraway and sugar turned a plain captain's biscuit into the Abernethy, named after a surgeon who blamed most disease on poor digestion.

Tunnock's, maker of the red-and-gold foil Caramel Wafer, has been based since 1890 in which Lanarkshire town?

Uddingston is where Thomas Tunnock bought a baker's shop in Lorne Place in 1890; the firm is still in family hands, and in 2022 it wrapped the local rugby posts like Caramel Wafers.

Which Nabisco biscuit was launched as a copy of Sunshine's Hydrox, first sold in 1908?

Oreo: the Manhattan factory complex where Nabisco first baked it now houses Chelsea Market.

Bahlsen's Leibniz butter biscuit is named after a philosopher whose only link to it was living in which city?

Hanover is where Bahlsen is based and where Leibniz lived, and naming foods after famous people was common practice when the biscuit launched in 1891.

Jammie Dodgers turned up repeatedly in Doctor Who during the era of which Doctor?

The Eleventh Doctor's run made the biscuit a running gag; off screen it is a linzer-style shortcake that Australia's Arnott's echoes with its Raspberry Shortcake.

Walkers Shortbread, sold worldwide in tartan boxes, is baked in which Speyside village?

Aberlour's original village shop is where Walker's has long tested every new product before wider sale.

Which prime minister admitted in 1924 that McVitie's boss Alexander Grant had given him a Daimler and company shares?

Ramsay MacDonald's old friend Grant also gave £100,000 towards the National Library of Scotland.

McVitie's bakes its chocolate digestives at a factory in which London district?

Harlesden is home to McVitie's biscuit works, and the firm, then McVitie & Price, made Princess Elizabeth's wedding cake in 1947.

Crawford's biscuits trace their start to 1813 in which Scottish port?

Leith's Crawford's later opened a large factory in Liverpool, before United Biscuits took the firm over.

Len Fisher's dunking maths leaned on Washburn's equation, which describes which process in porous materials?

Capillary flow draws tea into a biscuit's pores, where it melts the sugar gluing the starch grains together, so the biscuit softens and falls apart.

United Biscuits was formed in 1948 when McVitie & Price merged with which other Scottish family baker?

Macfarlane Lang's merger created United Biscuits, which bought America's Keebler in 1974 and sold it for $500 million in 1995 after failing to crack the US market.

In Dickens's The Pickwick Papers, lawyer Solomon Pell lunches in court on an Abernethy biscuit and what?

A saveloy: when summoned, Pell thrust his biscuit and saveloy into his pocket among his legal papers and hurried off.

Which Scottish university had a Tunnock's Caramel Wafer Appreciation Society from 1982 until it disbanded in 2016?

St Andrews students kept the society going for 34 years; the bar, officially the Milk Chocolate Coated Caramel Wafer Biscuit, has been served around six million times on one airline's routes.