Biscuits: An Indian Love Story

What is the item we all have consumed most during the lockdown (other than broadband)? Well, India in any case, is the largest biscuit-consuming nation in the world and we just raised the bar even higher. Less than a year ago (August 2019), the makers of India’s most favourite biscuit said that the economic conditions had deteriorated so much that they were struggling to maintain the sales volume of even Rs 5 pack of Parle G. And in April this year, amidst lockdown, Parle G recorded its highest ever sales!

Baked left-over breads were the first biscuits - we now call them rusk

Have you ever wondered about the history of this humble yet indispensable snack?  The word ‘biscuit’ came from a French word (bis-qui), which, in turn, had originated from a Latin word (biscotus) – it basically means ‘twice baked’. There is no doubt that at least since the Roman times, people had been baking the left-over bread again to preserve it. This is what we call rusk today. This was handy for the soldiers and long-distance travellers.We know for sure that since the time of the Crusades (1096-1271 CE), European armed forces, especially navies, had been stocking up on biscuits. For more than two centuries, till around 1840 (when canned beef was introduced), the standard ration of the British Navy had two fixed elements – biscuits and a drink, first beer and later rum. But these were hard (and quite inedible) biscuits, which had to be dunked in some liquid first. These came to be known as hard tack biscuits. The oldest preserved biscuit today is one such naval issue from 1784. 

13th April 1784 - the oldest surviving biscuit in the world - today preserved in Britain's National Maritime Museum. A hard tack biscuit given to wood engraver Thomas Berwick

Today it is difficult to imagine that hardly 150 years back biscuit was an absolute novelty for Indians. Just like bread, it was the Portuguese, who introduced biscuits in Bengal (and perhaps in Goa/Western Coast also). The first known reference to biscuits made in Bengal came from the famous French traveller and jeweller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689), who wrote in the 1660s that the port of Hooghly was a good place to stock up on biscuits for return journey. For the next 100 years or so, the bakeries of Portuguese-influenced Hooghly, of Dutch Chinsurah and French Chandannagar remained the main suppliers of bread and biscuits to Calcutta.

Rajnarayan Bose, ;eading intellectual of his generation and maternal grandfather of Sri Aurobindo - when he joined Brahmo Samaj in the 1840, celebrated the event with biscuits and sherry with his friends - having biscuits openly was an act of rebellion for them

The first commercial bakeries in Calcutta came up near the dock area and Khidirpore. These bakeries were run by the Portuguese/people of European descent first and then by Muslims. Right from the beginning, the majority population of the city that is Bengali Hindus, found both bread and biscuits irresistible in taste but these remained forbidden food items for long. In the 1840s, when a young Rajnarayan Bose (1826-1899) – one of the most famous intellectuals of his generation and maternal grandfather of Sri Aurobindo – took the oath to join the Brahmo Samaj, he celebrated it with his friends by sharing biscuits and sherry!! It was an act of revolt for them. Revolutionary leader, Bipin Chandra Pal (1858-1932) recalled in his autobiography that in his childhood it was an exciting adventure to buy bread and biscuits from the only shop (that too Muslim-owned) selling these items in Sylhet town and to consume it at night once the entire household was asleep.

By the 14^th century, biscuits were well-known in England. However, from the 17^th century, British slave trading and subsequent sugar plantations in the West Indies powered by slave labour made sugar easily available and affordable. This completely revolutionized British baking – soon there were great variety of cake and biscuits for every occasion. From the 18^th century, tea, especially afternoon tea, became almost a British ritual and biscuits found a pride of place there.

In the 19^th century, with the growing popularity of tea and travel, a variety of easily consumable biscuits came to be manufactured in Britain. The company, which represented the best of this tradition and one of the first global brands – Huntley Palmers – started their operations in Bristol in 1822. By 1900, their products, perfectly preserved in beautiful tin boxes were to be found all over the world from Tibet to heart of Africa and from North Pole to New Zealand. 

Grand Duchess Marie Alaxandrovna with her husband Prince Alfred

For some time in the second half of the 19^th century, biscuits enjoyed a golden period. When Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred in 1874 married Tsar’s daughter Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, one of the leading British biscuit manufacturers, Peek Frean, created a special biscuit called ‘Marie’.

Federico Peliti opened Calutta's first stand alone fine dining restaurant with an in-house bakery in 1881

Back in Calcutta, there were more respectable options for the British now as hotels like the Wilson’s started their own bakeries. In 1881, Federico Peleti opened Calcutta’s first upmarket standalone restaurant along with an in-house bakery. However, the problem persisted for the Hindu upper caste till 1887, when a Bengali gentleman named Girish Chandra Mandal and I do not know anything else about him – opened a biscuit manufacturing unit in Central Calcutta. Soon the business grew so fast that he had to request his neighbour Nalin Chandra Gupta, a lawyer by profession, to help him out. Their venture was known as VS Brothers. Soon Mr Gupta came to be the driving force behind the venture. The company was renamed Gupta and Company and they set up a much bigger unit at Dum Dum and started selling biscuits under the brand name of ‘Hindu Biscuits’. As you can well imagine, during the Swadeshi days (1905-11), the company did roaring business.

In 1913, again under what circumstances I have no clue, this company took on board an English gentleman by the name of C H Holmes and subsequently it was renamed Britannia Industries during the First World War (1914-1919).

In 1970, three major British biscuit makers - Huntley and Palmers, Jacobs and Peek Frean amalgamated to create Associated Biscuits. This Associated Biscuits held a major stake in the Britannia Industries. Now you know how your tea time favourite Britannia Marie came about - traversing the channels of colonial commerce (in 1982, Nabisco acquired Associated Biscuits and in 1989, Nabisco sold the Associated Biscuit brands to Danone; Britannia today is majority owned by Danone and their Indian partner Nusli Wadia).  

World's best selling biscuit - it's an emotion, an identity to millions of Indians

Parle G is not just a biscuit but as it trended in twitter recently, it is an emotion and an identity of our rootedness. Many of us would remember the original ‘Swad bhare Shakti bhare’ Parle G campaign with a dadaji and his grandkids from the 1980s. With sales of more than 5000 crore for this single product, this is the highest selling biscuit in the world. Parle Products baked their first biscuit in the village of Parla, near Bombay in 1939 and right from the beginning branded itself as a swadeshi product (bharat ka apna biscuit).

In most cities of Punjab and North India, still there would be at least one National Bakery, producing old style biscuits and other savouries. I do not know much about them but I am quite sure that their origin was also somewhat like the Hindu biscuits in Calcutta. Frontier Biscuit, today well known for premium eggless biscuits in North India, was established in West Punjab in 1921 and probably came from the same tradition.

In every major airport today, you will find Hyderabad's Karachi Bakery selling famous Osmania biscuit

West Bengal is one of the top biscuit-consuming states (of course along with Maharashtra, home of Parle G) and Calcutta continues to be the biscuit capital of India. Britannia, ITC and Priya – three leading Indian biscuit manufacturers are based in Calcutta today. As the famous Irani chai of Hyderabad is intrinsically linked with sweet and salty Osmania biscuits, similarly, roadside tea stalls in Calcutta sell an enviable range of local bakery-produced biscuits. 

Some of these are rusk (the famous lero biscuit, to be dunked in steaming hot tea, served from a large brass kettle into your earthen cup), biscuits flavoured with kalo jire (onion-seeds) or the all-time favourite, projapoti (butterfly) biscuit (I just discovered that there is a recent Bengali film by that name). 

These biscuits taste somewhat different from the regular ones – I am not sure why. My friend and food blogger, Ranjini tells me, perhaps because they use dalda. 

We have surely come a long way since those days when having biscuits could pose risk to one's religion and also the romance of Huntley Palmers, but our love affair with biscuits continues to deepen.