Biscuits – from the Latin biscoctus, meaning “twice-cooked”– go back at least as far as the 1500s. The first biscuits were made from three basic ingredients – flour, water and salt – and cooked until they were hard, dry and tasteless. These compact bricks of bread, which the British called hardtack, were given as rations to soldiers and sailors because they could travel the world without spoiling.