Taking the Biscuit: How a long-life ration became the quintessential British comfort food
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 977 Ratings
🗓️ 4 October 2020
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Biscuits aren’t just a classic accompaniment to a cuppa: they’re also somehow an edible comforter - very often providing a link to childhood, to family, to happy memories. And of course, giving that all-important sugary pick-me-up.
All of which goes some way towards explaining why, over just one month of lockdown, the UK spent an extra £19 million on biscuits, according to market research firm Kantar; and why baking biscuits helped keep so many of us sane during what's been a tough year.
But there is more to the humble biscuit than comfort. This is a food that helped shape wartime rations, that was front and centre of Britain's factory revolution, that formed the basis for an industry that employed thousands and shaped neighbourhoods - and today, remains a key component of the UK's food manufacturing and trade sectors.
So what's the secret to their success? Sheila Dillon finds out.
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Audio in Bristol.
Transcript
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| 0:57.5 | The sound of opening the biscuit tin, rumbling about for a biscuit and taking it out, |
| 1:02.4 | the joy of dunking a biscuit into your tea and then eating it that sweet taste. |
| 1:07.0 | I think that has quite evocative memories. Things that are safe and warm and comforting and if you live around here of course the |
| 1:16.9 | smell of biscuits being made. |
| 1:19.4 | Bermsie being the industrial where it was we had spice meals and tea factory |
| 1:24.0 | which wasn't quite so nice but of course the smell of biscuits being |
| 1:27.8 | made how lovely the smell of baking filling the streets you know it's one of |
| 1:32.4 | those memories like smell of burning leaves in autumn, |
| 1:35.0 | it takes you back. |
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