As the Crow flies ! - holes in biscuits !!!

A close up photo of a Crow flying   !!  -  Heard the expression - “As the Crow flies !!” and ever wondered why biscuits  have holes on them ?

 

The need for nutritious, easy-to-store, easy-to-carry, and long-lasting foods on long journeys, in particular at sea,  was a permanent search.   Then came biscuits that all of us love so much ! 

A biscuit, in many English-speaking countries, including Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa but not Canada or the USA, 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.  While most  English-speaking world,  calls it a "biscuit" – it is  a "cookie" or a "cracker" in the United States and sometimes in Canada. 

Other than the most popular Marie & Milk biscuits – there are slightly poorer cousins of Salty and Sweet & sour.  Parle web claims that   India’s first and the original sweet and salty biscuit Monaco was launched in 1939 and years later came Krackjack in 1972  !!    

The expression ‘as the crow flies’  is an idiom for the most direct path between two points.  In geometry, a geodesic   is a curve representing in some sense the shortest  path (arc) between two points in a surface, or more generally in a Riemannian manifold.  The meaning of the expression is attested from the early 19th century, and appeared in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist (1838)

 

Before we close, some trivia on biscuits that we eat and not on what the rich desire – the Gold Biscuit.  In old movies, one would see ransom money being carried in suitcase containing gold biscuits – but they would weight so much that it would be too difficult to carry, leave alone tossing that suitcase when cheating the villain.   A gold bar, also known as gold bullion or a gold ingot, refers to a quantity of refined metallic gold that can be shaped in various forms, produced under standardized conditions of manufacture, labeling, and record-keeping. 

 

Here is a Crow advertising for a holed biscuit.  The primary reason for the holes is that they allow air to pass through during baking, preventing them from swelling further. Manufacturers first spread flour, sugar, and salt on a sheet-like tray which is then placed under a machine before the baking process. This machine then makes holes as desired in the dough.

 
Interesting !
 
With regards – S Sampathkumar
3^rd Sept 2024