Biscuits – a subject very close to my heart – something important to me and that interests me.
饼干 —— 一个非常贴近我内心的话题 —— 对我来说很重要，让我感兴趣。
Neil(尼尔)
I know, Rob. You are a biscuit connoisseur after all. And in the UK, many of us love to nibble on these sweet treats. And we have lots of names for them too.
Yes, we have the chocolate digestive, the garibaldi, the custard cream and the jammie dodger. It’s making my mouth water.
是的，我们有巧克力消化剂、加里波第、奶油冻和果酱道奇。这让我垂涎三尺。
Neil(尼尔)
I can see. But we’re not going to be tucking into any biscuits today. Instead, we’ll be looking at the origins and the language of this humble snack. And before we do that, Rob, let’s test your knowledge of biscuits with a question. The British aren’t the only fans of biscuits. So in which country are barazeks traditionally eaten? Is it in… a) Syria; b) Morocco, or c) Spain?
Hmmm, well I have not eaten one, but I’ll have a guess at Syria.
嗯，好吧，我还没有吃过，但我会猜测叙利亚。
Neil(尼尔)
OK, I’ll reveal the right answer later on. But now, let’s talk more about biscuits, also sometimes known as cookies. They come in all shapes, sizes and varieties.
They can be sweet or savoury – but I prefer the sweet ones that are crisp, crunchy and are good for dunking in my tea. Dunking means dipping into liquid for a short period of time.
But enough about your eating habits, Rob. Let’s find out how the biscuit got its name. It’s something the BBC Radio 4 programme Word of Mouth has been exploring. Dr Laura Wright, a historical linguist from the University of Cambridge, explains its origins…
但关于你的饮食习惯已经足够了，罗伯。让我们来看看饼干是如何得名的。这是BBC Radio 4节目《口碑》一直在探索的东西。剑桥大学历史语言学家劳拉·赖特博士解释了它的起源......
Dr Laura Wright, historical linguist, University of Cambridge(Laura Wright博士，剑桥大学历史语言学家)
From Latin ‘biscoctum’ – twice cooked. And it comes to us via Anglo-Norman French, but it’s bread that’s been cooked twice to extract all the moisture so that it goes hard, and it’ll stay fit for consumption for a very long time, which is why you can take it to sea and have a sea biscuit... and from the 1500 at least we spelt it like it sounds ‘bisket’… but at some point, in the 1800, we started to prefer the French spelling for reasons of poncy-ness!
So, the English word for biscuits has its origins in Latin. It describes cooking bread twice to make it hard. This baking process meant a biscuit could be kept for a long time, and as Dr Wright said, it would stay fit for consumption – another way of saying ‘edible’ or able to be eaten.
That’s why they were taken on long sea voyages – but they weren’t like the biscuits we eat now – they were plain, simple and very hard baked. Interestingly, the word biscuit used to be spelt B-I-S-K-E-T but the French spelling B-I-S-C-U-I- T was later adopted.
Biscuits are a handy go-to snack for when I’m hungry or bored. But how did biscuits become such a popular foodstuff and how did we come to depend on them so much?
It’s something Anastasia Edwards, author of Biscuits and Cookies, A Global History, talked about in the Word of Mouth programme. Listen to the word she uses to mean 'food' in her explanation…
One key fact in the rise in the popularity of the biscuit is meal times. Before the Industrial Revolution, people have a later breakfast and earlier supper. By the end of the Industrial Revolution, breakfast is much earlier, the evening meal is much later, so you’ve got this big gap of time where people need sustenance, and so lunch comes to greater prominence and tea time comes to greater prominence, and snacking – so there’s this great opportunity for biscuits – something small, something ready, something easily consumable, not expensive, you know, a bit of a sugar rush.
Right, so it was the Industrial Revolution that led to the rise – that's the increase – in the popularity of biscuits. Because the time between breakfast and dinner in the evening increased, people got hungry and they needed food to give them energy – what Anastasia called sustenance.
So, this is when smaller meals, such as lunch or tea, became important or more well-known – it had greater prominence. And this included snacking on biscuits. These were cheap and easily consumable – easy and quick to eat. And because of their ingredients, they gave you a sugar rush - a quick blast of energy.
Of course, now, we eat biscuits at any time, and because of their sugar content, we know to only eat them in moderation – Rob!
当然，现在，我们随时都会吃饼干，而且由于它们的含糖量，我们知道要适量吃 —— 罗伯！
Rob(罗伯)
I think a packet a day is fine – but a whole box, well, that would really take the biscuit!
我认为每天一包很好 —— 但一整盒，嗯，这真的需要饼干！
Neil(尼尔)
Take the biscuit! Good idiom there, Rob, to mean ‘be the most foolish, annoying or surprising thing to do’. But now let’s find out the answer to my quiz question. Earlier, I asked which country are barazeks traditionally eaten in?
Yes, you were. Well done. You are a smart cookie! Barazeks are biscuits filled with roasted sesame seeds and pistachio chips.
是的，你是。干的好。你是一个聪明的饼干！Barazeks 是装满烤芝麻和开心果片的饼干。
Rob(罗伯)
They sound delicious. I would love to try some.
它们听起来很美味。我很想尝试一些。
Neil(尼尔)
OK, well we’ve been discussing the language of biscuits and mentioned some of these words. Dunking describes dipping something, like a biscuit, into liquid for a short period of time.
好吧，我们一直在讨论饼干的语言，并提到了其中的一些词。扣篮是指将饼干等东西浸入液体中一小段时间。
Rob(罗伯)
Describing something as being fit for consumption means it is edible – which is another one of our words and means ‘it can be eaten’.
将某物描述为适合食用意味着它是可食用的 —— 这是我们的另一个词，意思是“它可以食用”。
Neil(尼尔)
Sustenance is another word for food. And something that has prominence is important or more well-known.
食物是食物的另一种说法。而一些突出的东西是重要的或更广为人知的。
Rob(罗伯)
And when you get a sugar rush, you get a quick blast of energy from, unsurprisingly, eating something containing lots of sugar.
当你吃糖时，你会从吃含有大量糖的东西中获得快速的能量，不出所料。
Neil(尼尔)
OK, well, we only get six minutes for this programme – that’s the way the cookie crumbles – so we’re out of time. Bye for now.
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