Exploring biscuits
Elizabeth Chadwick has given me a good medieval source for ‘biscuit’ as a word meaning something taken aboard ship as food. It’s a source I know, but had never actually looked at for food mentions. You can see why I’m so keen to re-examine literary sources for foodstuff. It’s not just the evocative nature of a good picnic scene making a reader’s mouth water, it’s that the actual food mentioned gives evidence for how it was used and when it was used. So we have a food called ‘bescuit’ attested in Old French in the fourteenth century. It makes me happy :).
What I’ll do is accummulate all the information I get sent and keep posting it and recipes and when we all get sick of the subject, write a post that sums it all up. I like this thought because it means we all get to share in the adventure of finding out what biscuits and scones have travelled and tasted like during their history. So please, comment away or email me.
There’s no hurry - the Regency Gothic Banquet is in September next year so it has a deadline, but biscuits and scones are the stuff of leisurely eating and so can take as long as we enjoy exploring them.
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