A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweetbiscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two doctors to aid digestion. The term digestive is derived from the belief that they had antacid properties around the time the biscuit was first introduced due to the use of sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient.[1] Historically, some producers used diastaticmalt extract to "digest" some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking.[2][3]
First manufactured by McVitie's in 1892 to a secret recipe developed by Sir Alexander Grant, their digestive is the best-selling biscuit in the United Kingdom.[4] In 2009, the digestive was ranked the fourth most popular biscuit for "dunking" into tea among the British public, with the chocolate digestive (produced by McVitie's since 1925) coming in at number one.[5] The chocolate variant from McVitie's is routinely ranked the UK's favourite snack.[6][7][8]
In 1839, digestives were developed in the United Kingdom by two Scottish doctors to aid digestion.[5][9] In an 1851 issue of The Lancet, London's advertising section offered brown meal digestive biscuits.[10] At the time, it was asserted that grain millers knew only of bran and endosperm.[11] After 10% of the whole grain's coarser outer-bran coat was removed, and because the innermost 70% of pure endosperm was reserved for other uses, brown meal, representing only 20% of the whole grain, remained, consisting of about 15% fine bran and 85% white flour.[12] By 1912, it was more widely known that brown meal included the germ, which lent a characteristic sweetness.[13]
Digestives featured in advertisements for the Berkshire-based biscuit company Huntley & Palmers in 1876, with digestives sold by chemists alongside indigestion powder.[14] Rival biscuit company, Edinburgh-based McVitie's, has Golden-baked their best-selling digestives to a secret recipe developed by Sir Alexander Grant since 1892.[14] A recipe was given in Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book of 1894. In 1889, John Montgomerie of Scotland filed a U.S. patent application, which was granted in 1890. This patent asserted a prior patent existed in England dated 1886. The U.S. patent, titled Making Malted Bread, included instructions for the manufacture of digestive biscuits. Montgomerie claimed this saccharification process would make "nourishing food for people of weak digestion".[15] Despite rumours that it is illegal for them to be sold under their usual name in the US,[16] they are, in fact, widely available in the imported food sections of grocery stores and by mail order.[17][18][19]
A digestive biscuit averages around 70 calories, although this varies according to the factors involved in its production.
Consumption
Plain digestive biscuits with tea, jam and cakes on a serving tray.
Digestive biscuits are frequently eaten with tea or coffee. Sometimes, the biscuit is dunked into the tea and eaten quickly due to the biscuit's tendency to disintegrate when wet. Digestive biscuits are one of the top 10 biscuits in the UK for dunking in tea.[5] The digestive biscuit is also used as a cracker with cheeses, and is often included in "cracker selection" packets.
In the UK, McVitie's digestive is the best selling biscuit, with 80 million packs sold annually,[1] though there are many other popular brands (such as Cadbury’s) as well as supermarkets' own versions.[8] Digestives are also popular in food preparation for making into bases for cheesecakes and similar desserts.[21]
Digestive biscuits with a chocolate coating on one side are also available. The coating can consist of dark, white, or milk chocolate, although white chocolate digestives are quite rare. The chocolate digestive was originally produced by McVitie's in 1925 as the Chocolate Homewheat Digestive. Other varieties include the basic biscuit with chocolate shavings throughout (chocolate "chips" in the biscuit mix) or a layer of caramel, mint chocolate, orange-flavoured chocolate,[22] or plain chocolate. They are manufactured at McVitie's Harlesden factory in London.[23] American travel writer Bill Bryson described the chocolate digestive as "a British masterpiece".[24]
In 2009, the McVitie's chocolate digestive was named as the most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea.[5] The chocolate variant from McVitie's is routinely ranked the UK's favourite snack.[6][7][8] A YouGov poll saw Cadbury’s digestive ranked the second most popular biscuit in the UK after McVitie's.[8]
In popular culture
McVitie's digestive biscuits have become known among fans of the Beatles because they were the cause of an argument between George Harrison and John Lennon during a recording session for the group's 1969 album Abbey Road. The incident was recounted by recording engineer Geoff Emerick in his book Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles.[25] According to Emerick, Lennon's wife Yoko Ono was in the recording studio and at one point helped herself to Harrison's box of McVitie's while the Beatles were in the control room listening to a playback of the song they had just recorded. Harrison became angry at Ono, and his subsequent outburst caused Lennon to lose his temper in response.[26]
↑ Chamber's encyclopaedia: a dictionary of universal knowledge, Volume 2. J.B. Lippencott Company. 1888. p.182. Retrieved 7 April 2011. Digestive biscuits are prepared in such a manner that they may contain diastase, the nitrogenous transforming matter of malt; but whatever quantity of this substance they may contain in the condition of dough is destroyed in the process of baking.
↑ "The Annual Museum of the British Medical Association". Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions. Third. XVII. London: 156. 1887. Retrieved 8 April 2011. A new competitor in this field was Paterson's Extract of Malt, exhibited by the Phoenix Chemical Works, Glasgow; the odour and flavour of this was excellent, and it is said to be rich in diastasic power. Prepared from it was exhibited a series of digestive biscuits, rusks and bread by John Montgomerie, of Glasgow. In making these part of the starch of the flour is changed by being mixed with the malt extract and water and kept for some time at a suitable temperature; the yeast being probably added to another portion of flour and water, to form dough to mix with the above before baking. These biscuits seemed to be appreciated by visitors. Messrs. Hill and Son also exhibited some malted nursery biscuits. Benger's well known digestive ferments were well displayed, together with an essence of rennet recently introduced.
↑ Thomas Wakely, ed. (31 July 1851). The Lancet[A Journal of British and Foreign medicine, Physiology, Surgery, Chemistry, Criticism, Literature, and News]. Vol.2. London: George Churchill. pp.24(IA2)-24(IA3). Retrieved 1 April 2011.
↑ John Saunders, ed. (1848). The People's journal. Vol.IV. London: The People's Journal Office. p.42(IA1). Retrieved 15 April 2011. Professor Johnston remarks that -- "The grain of wheat consists of two parts, with which the miller is familiar -- the inner grain and the skin that covers it. The inner grain gives the pure wheat flour; the skin when separated, forms the bran."
↑ Bell, Jacob, ed. (1857–1858). The Pharmaceutical journal and Transactions. Vol.XVII. John Churchill. pp.276–277. The Parisian white bread is prepared with the finest flour (1re marque), which does not contain any bran. If 100 parts wheat yield 70 parts of this flour, the remainder will consist of 10 parts bran and 20 parts coarse brown meal, this latter consisting of 3 parts fine bran and 17 parts white flour.
↑ Percy A. Amos (1912). Processes of flour manufacture. Longman, Green, and Co. p.14. By allowing the germ and all but the outer, coarser layers of broad bran to mix in with the flour, we get the sweet-tasting brown meal producing the brown bread so much in favour amongst sections of the community.
↑ Smith, Andrew (2013). The Oxford encyclopedia of food and drink in America. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. p.168. ISBN978-0-19-973496-2. Retrieved 28 December 2013. Digestive biscuits, semi-sweet and made with brown meal, can no longer be made under that name in the United States, but the English version is widely available.
↑ Emerick, Geoff; Massey, Howard (2006). Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. New York, NY: Penguin. ISBN1-59240-179-1. Gotham Books, ISBN1-59240-179-1
Emerick, Geoff; Massey, Howard (2006). Here, There and Everywhere My Life Recording the Music of The Beatles. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN978-1-59240-179-6.
A cookie or biscuit is a baked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat, and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, or nuts.
Dessert is a course that concludes a meal. The course consists of sweet foods, such as cake, biscuit, ice cream and possibly a beverage such as dessert wine and liqueur. Some cultures sweeten foods that are more commonly savory to create desserts. In some parts of the world there is no tradition of a dessert course to conclude a meal.
Malt is any cereal grain that has been made to germinate by soaking in water and then stopped from germinating further by drying with hot air, a process known as "malting". Malted grain is used to make beer, whisky, malted milk, malt vinegar, confections such as Maltesers and Whoppers, flavored drinks such as Horlicks, Ovaltine, and Milo, and some baked goods, such as malt loaf, bagels, and Rich Tea biscuits. Malted grain that has been ground into a coarse meal is known as "sweet meal".
Porridge is a food made by heating or boiling ground, crushed or chopped starchy plants, typically grain, in milk or water. It is often cooked or served with added flavourings such as sugar, honey, fruit, or syrup to make a sweet cereal, or it can be mixed with spices, meat, or vegetables to make a savoury dish. It is usually served hot in a bowl, depending on its consistency. Oat porridge, or oatmeal, is one of the most common types of porridge. Gruel is a thinner version of porridge and congee is a savoury variation of porridge of Asian origin.
A biscuit, in English-speaking countries such as Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa, is a flour-based baked and shaped food item. Biscuits are typically hard, flat, and unleavened. They are usually sweet and may be made with sugar, chocolate, icing, jam, ginger, or cinnamon. They can also be savoury, similar to crackers. Types of biscuit include sandwich biscuits, digestive biscuits, ginger biscuits, shortbread biscuits, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-coated marshmallow treats, Anzac biscuits, biscotti, and speculaas.
Semolina is the name given to coarsely milled durum wheat mainly used in making pasta and sweet puddings. The term semolina is also used to designate coarse millings of other varieties of wheat, and sometimes other grains as well.
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of common wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or bread flour, is high in gluten, with 12% to 14% gluten content, and its dough has elastic toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and thus results in a loaf with a finer, crumbly texture. Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour.
Post Consumer Brands is an American consumer packaged goods food manufacturer headquartered in Lakeville, Minnesota.
A rusk is a hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread. It is sometimes used as a teether for babies. In some cultures, rusk is made of cake, rather than bread: this is sometimes referred to as cake rusk. In the UK, the name also refers to a wheat-based food additive.
McVitie's is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name is derived from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888.
To dunk or to dip a biscuit or some other food, usually baked goods, means to submerge it into a drink, especially tea, coffee, or milk. Dunking releases more flavour from confections by dissolving the sugars, while also softening their texture. Dunking can be used to melt chocolate on biscuits to create a richer flavour.
Groats are the hulled kernels of various cereal grains, such as oats, wheat, rye, and barley. Groats are whole grains that include the cereal germ and fiber-rich bran portion of the grain, as well as the endosperm.
The Bourbon is a sandwich biscuit consisting of two thin rectangular dark chocolate-flavoured biscuits with a chocolate buttercream filling.
Rich tea is a type of sweet biscuit; the ingredients generally include wheat flour, sugar, vegetable oil and malt extract. Originally called Tea Biscuits, they were developed in the 19th century in Yorkshire, England for the upper classes as a light snack between full-course meals. One of the best-selling biscuits in the British Isles, the biscuit is also popular in Malta and Cyprus. The plain flavour and consistency of rich tea make them particularly suitable for dunking in tea and coffee.
Farina is a form of milled wheat popular in the United States. It is often cooked as a hot breakfast cereal, or porridge. The word farina comes from the Latin word for 'meal' or 'flour'.
Brown bread is bread made with significant amounts of whole grain flours, usually wheat sometimes with corn and or rye flours. Brown breads often get their characteristic dark color from ingredients such as molasses or coffee. In Canada, Ireland and South Africa, it is whole wheat bread; in New England and the Maritimes, it is bread sweetened with molasses. In some regions of the US, brown bread is called wheat bread to complement white bread.
Hobnobs is the brand name of a commercial biscuit. They are made from rolled oats, are similar to a flapjack-digestive biscuit hybrid, and are among the most popular British and Irish biscuits. McVitie's launched Hobnobs in 1985 and a milk chocolate variant in 1987. The plain variety is manufactured at Tollcross factory in Glasgow, and the chocolate variety is made at the Harlesden factory in north-west London.
Malt loaf is a type of sweet leavened bread made with malt extract as a primary ingredient. It has a chewy texture and often contains raisins. It is usually eaten sliced and spread with butter for tea. Malt flour is sometimes used to supplement the flavour.
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