Food Heroes - Sir Alexander Grant
Photo © Rob Jones
Sir Alexander Grant (1864-1937)
Scottish Businessman, Biscuit Manufacturer and Philanthropist.
Claim to fame: The Inventor if the McVitie’s Digestive Biscuit in 1892.
I heard some startling news this week. Of course it could be fake news, in which case it would only be mildly startling.
Virtually everyone eats Chocolate Digestives upside down.
The logic is incontrovertible.
On a normal Digestive biscuit, the writing is on the top. During the chocolating-process, they are dipped into molten chocolate. The writing remains on top.
So… if as most people do, you eat the biscuits chocolate side up, then that is VERY WRONG.
My excuse is that I almost always dip them, and so eat them sideways.
Apparently the PM Boris Johnson likes Chocolate Digestives, the Queen likes Rich Tea, London Mayor Sadiq Khan is partial to a Hobnob, and TV Personality Davina McCall is known to eat Digestives with Camembert. This I understand and applaud.
56 million packets are sold every year.
McVitie’s own food scientist has worked out the optimum number of dunks for various biscuits. Too few and it’s too crunchy. Too many and it plops into your tea to create a miserable sludge.
Digestives, Hobnobs and Ginger Nuts = 2 dunks
Chocolate Digestives need 8 dunks.
Rich Tea need a staggering 14 dunks.
Biscuits should be dunked ata 45 degree angle.
Alexander Grant’s life in short: Born in Forres near inverness, he was the son of a railway guard but was apprenticed to a local baker. He moved to Edinburgh to seek his fortune. He joined McVitie’s as an assistant, but rose through the ranks to eventually take over the company in 1911.
He got rich and gave away a lot of money - paying to create the National Library of Scotland, buying fancy cutlery set for Holyrood Palace, encouraging the study of geology and controversially bankrolling Ramsay MacDonald who was the first British prime minister without a private income.
The company merged with Macfarlane’s to become United Biscuits.
Facts you never knew you didn’t know, nor probably need to know or want to know:
The recipe for Digestive Biscuits remains top secret.
McVitie’s baked George V’s and the Queen’s official wedding cakes.
Biscuits were the first food to reach the North Pole.
The first chocolate digestive was created in 1925. The Chocolate Caramel Gigestive appeared in 1999.
National Biscuit Day falls on the 29th of May.
