OK, buckle up. I wanna talk to you about Triscuit.
The 'Shocking' Origin Story Of Triscuit
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Isaac Cabe
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- March 31, 2020
We've all probably had a Triscuit by now. It's very fibrous for a biscuit/cracker/baked good of some sort, it gets stuck in your teeth with the same amount of ease as a chewy toffee, and generally the best way to consume it is with stuff on top, maybe like a cured meat/cheese combo sort of thing. You know, party food. Well, "eating Triscuits at a party" is the very simple event that sent comedian Sage Boggs spiraling, as he details in this Twitter thread:
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As Boggs tells it, he could be reasonably certain that the name "Triscuit" was based on the word "Biscuit," but he wasn't so sure about the "Tri" part. Everyone he asked seemed sure it had to do with the snacks having three of something, be it layers, ingredients, or even the shape (in some editions), but none of these were the official answer. A deep googling didn't have a consensus, either. Boggs had to go straight to the top and emailed Triscuit parent company Nabisco, and got this answer:
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The consensus was that "TRI" means three. Maybe "three layers" or "three ingredients." No one knew for sure, though, so I Googled it. But here's the thing -- Google didn't seem to have an official answer, either. Just more guesses.
So we went straight to the source. We emailed Nabisco. And the response we got a few days later shook us to the core. Here it is:
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That wasn't a good enough answer, like not even by corporate PR email standards, so he did some further research into the origins of Triscuits, and found some early advertisements. And, well, they couldn't be clearer.
Also, "No business records survived"? What the HELL happened at the Triscuit factory? Did the building explode? Did someone run out of the doors and yell "It doesn't mean THREE!" right before perishing in a giant blaze?
I was baffled. And I couldn't stand not knowing. So I did a little sleuthing online, and stumbled on some early Triscuit advertisements. Take a look at these bad boys:
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That was it. In the early 1900s, it was a huge new thing for something to be cooked using electricity. Someone probably slurred some words together or had a fun little dad joke moment, and created one hell of a portmanteau. Elec-TRIS-ity Bis-CUITS. TRISCUITS. And to top it all off, Triscuits confirmed it, even adding a little lightning bolt to their Twitter account:
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We had to go all the way up the ladder but we CAN confirm
https://twitter.com/sageboggs/status/1242968530250870786 …
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So there you have it, next time you head to the grocery store, maybe pick up a box of Triscuits and think a little bit about the lover and amperage in every bite. What we need now is a Gourmet Makes episode about Triscuits with a jury-rigged battery-powered oven with visible sparkage. You ready, Claire Saffitz?
52 Comments
romulanspace
March 31st, 2020 • 31/03/20 • 12:06 pm
I'm not a fan of Triscuits, but I enjoyed reading their name's origin story. It's just the right kind of trivia to keep me from grading student work at the moment.
tiberiuswise
March 31st, 2020 • 31/03/20 • 12:11 pm
Good to see you're amping up the investigative journalism.
mournblade
March 31st, 2020 • 31/03/20 • 11:21 am
Holy shit! I'm just shocked to learn that Triscuits came out in 1903, over a hundred years ago. And I would have guessed they were from the 1960s or 1970s.