September is National Biscuit Month. According to tradition, biscuits appeared 10,000 years ago in China where dried rice pies with sesame and fruits were made. Another theory suggests the Assyrians prepared thin rusks made of barley and wheat dough which was placed in a clay vase and baked on embers.

The origin of biscuits may never be resolved completely but it is known that thousands of years later, Egyptians were known to have made what we now call a biscuit. Their tombs revealed workers stirring an oven fire in which biscuits were being made.

During Roman times the bakeries produced what they called soldiers, or sailor’s bread, made from flour soaked in water without salt or yeast and then baked twice. This method produced bread that stayed preserved for a long time, ideal for armies and navies of past centuries.  

Martin Frobisher, writing of his stay in North America in 1577, mentioned that his sailors’ daily food consisted of a pound of biscuits and a gallon...