Exploring two etymological curiosities this morning.
From the Online Etymology Dictionary:
[Biscuit] ... respelled early 19c. from bisket (16c.), ultimately (1330) from O.Fr. bescuit "twice cooked," alt. under infl. of O.It. biscotto, from M.L. biscoctum, from L. (panis) bis coctus "(bread) twice-baked."
Wonder when the American version of biscuits first appeared?
[Window] c.1225, lit. "wind eye," from O.N. vindauga, from vindr "wind" (see wind (n.)) + auga "eye." Replaced O.E. eagþyrl, lit. "eye-hole," and eagduru, lit. "eye-door." Originally an unglazed hole in a roof, most Gmc. languages adopted a version of L. fenestra to describe the glass version, and Eng. used fenester as a parallel word till mid-16c.
... fenester! Defenestrate! Ha! :)
3 comments:
Hmmm. I thought I might find an answer in The Oxford Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, edited by Andrew F. Smith (who teaches a swell food history survey at the New School for Social Research in New York). To my surprise, there is no entry for biscuits, although there is one for biscuit cutters, written by Linda Campbell Franklin, which dates the arrival of the "soft" biscuit (i.e. not hardtack or sea biscuits) to the early 19th century, when chemical leaveners such as potash and pearl ashes came into frequent use, to be supplanted around the middle of the century by commercial baking powders and sodas. Ms. Franklin does not mention the supplanting of hearth cookery with iron-stove baking, which occurred in roughly the same time period, but I'm betting that that was a factor, too.
Of course, this doesn't explain why we took a term that used to apply to hardtack (which did have to be twice-baked) and carried it over to describe the biscuits we know and love. Hmmph. Give me a moment. (dons cap, squints speculatively at bookshelf)
Jen: Might it be filed under quick breads in general?
Amanda: That's an excellent idea. Alas, the Oxford Encyclopedia (which, contrary to my earlier comment, is actually titled The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America -- sorry, folks) doesn't have a quick bread article, either. It's a fascinating source, the OEoFaDiA, but not exactly a comprehensive one.
I did read the articles on bread (written by Andrew Smith), cakes (written by Stephen Schmidt) and chemical leaveners (written by Sandra Oliver, who is the editor of Food History News, one of my very, very favorite newsletters). All three point to the mid-19th century as the era in which chemical leavener use really expanded, although Ms. Oliver finds the first recorded mention of pearlash use in Amelia Simmons's American Cookery, published in 1796. None of these writers specifically mention biscuits, though.
Now I'm all keen to go to the library. Or maybe seven or eight different libraries. :)
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