The term biscuit now covers a whole range of products, even including
pet foods. The crisp savoury products known as crackers are considered
as biscuits while wafers are not biscuits.
This is an area where English and American usage have parted
company. American usage has developed the word cookie, presumably
from the Dutch Koekje for a small cake.
The manufacture of biscuits is an area where the plant bakeries
produce most of the output. A few biscuits are made domestically, some
are made by small bakers and supermarket in-store bakeries but these
are only producing a fraction of the plant bakeries’ output.
As a long life food biscuits were an early item of international trade. It
is recorded that English biscuits were being exported to the USA in the
nineteenth century.
8.4.1