Biscuit (bread) cooking, most often based on ground wheat and warmed with gravy. The biscuit emerged as a distinct food type in the early 19th century, before the American Civil War. Cooks created a cheaply produced addition for their meals that required no yeast, which was expensive and difficult to store. With no leavening agents except the bitter-tasting pearlash available, beaten biscuits were laboriously beaten and folded to incorporate air into the dough which expanded when heated in the oven causing the biscuit to rise. In eating, the advantage of the biscuit over a slice of bread was that it was harder,
Aerated Bread Company stores. Having entered commercial life as a show-room manager in the religious publishing business of Mr Chrysostom Lorton of Paternoster Row, Enfield, Augustus Carp makes several references to the Aerated Bread Company in a detailed description of his daily routine: At eleven o'clock, therefore, I would despatch Miss Botterill to a neighbouring branch of the Aerated Bread Company for a glass of hot milk and a substantial slice of a cake appropriately known as lunch cake. I would then, at twelve-thirty, repair in person to the same branch of this valuable company, where I would generally order from one of