"Kate Dicey" wrote...
> Opinicus wrote:
>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biscuit
>>
>> What do *you* think it is and why?
>>
> Biscuits are thin, flat, and vary from crisp to hard.

Here writes a lady from the benighted kitchens - either great drafty halls
or tiny niches stolen from a trailer house ("mobile home")of the - of the
Scuttled H'aisles who has never met the grandest of pleasures, the ethereal
and ephemeral pleasures of "Hot Biscuits", reared as she seems to have been
on the British appraoch, at best little more than sweetened, flavored
hardtack/ship's biscuit, baked to last for an eternity or a voyage to the
Indies.


> Sweet, pain, or savoury, take your pick!

There's "Biscuitry Fromagic" as earlier mentioned, but otherwise, biscuits
are to be split, buttered and laden with strange or ordinary flavors from
cane syrup vis marmalades up through the haughtiest of berry compotes, but
not ignoring gravy along the way.

> Cookies are thicker and softer, with a slightly chewy texture.
> Scones are light and fluffy in texture, and either oven baked or baked on
> a girdle.

Scones light? Lighter'n what? Door Stops? ....And served near chilled to
boot, the temperature of an Erse' parlor, which even smoky with peat would
give you a bad case of chillbains if not frostbite on the side away from the
dank almost heatless glow of the hearth.

Biscuits are the quintessence of light! Gentler than the touch of fruit in
May Wine, softer than the patch of skin beneath a baby's ear, lighter than a
lover's breath.

While a drover at trail's end of the cattle drive or a freighter at the end
of a long haul might look forward to the harsh bite of whiskey or the sweaty
embrace of a brothel queen, the delight and pleasure of good biscuits
required only a bed of coals and a Dutch oven until the flour ran out or was
outnumbered by the weevils.

......and then there's the rarest of delicacies, since biscuits never lasted
long enough to produce it, the "pudding" made from biscuit crumbs, a dish
which causes bread puddling to blush.

The very height of luxury, like unto serving oysters with caviar, is a meal
in which both cornbread "dressing" and biscuits are on the same menu


> Oatcakes are thin, flat, crisp, and baked on a girdle! They're neither
> biscuits not scones, they are a law unto themselves...

Existing upon a diet of which forced the Scots to slip across the Border in
search of real food.

> Soda breads are heavier than scones, but still delish...

Vaguely reminiscent of biscuits, as if someone had mixed up a really bad
batch, left the dough in a grand lump and throwed it in the oven to
over-bake to a consistency that, jammed under a wheel, it would preserve the
cart from rolling off down the mountain.

Then they're known to put currants in it, which scattered about add no more
flavor and less protein than would have a lively brood of weevils. Currants
make grand jams, jellies and syrups, but speckling them in scones or soda
bread seems affectation.

> And stottie cake is a oven bottom baked bread (traditionally turned over
> half way through cooking) with yeast, and the best thing in the world for
> making sandwiches! Oh, except Chelsea buns...
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stottie_cake
> --

I'll try it, although the brief time required to produce grand biscuits
makes longer work hard to justify.

(;-P) TMO