OK, buckle up. I wanna talk to you about Triscuit.

March 26, 2020 6:22 PM

Several years ago I was at a party (BRAG!), and I spotted a box of Triscuits. I asked everyone, "What does the word 'Triscuit' mean? It's clearly based on the word "BISCUIT," but what does the "TRI" mean?" (I'm great at parties.) (Twitter thread unrolled here)

Sage Boggs investigated, deduced, and... he was right.

posted by Etrigan (92 comments total)

Thrice-baked, right?

*clicks*

Oh. Oh, that actually makes much more sense. If only they had been sold as Electriscuits!
posted by sciatrix at 6:25 PM on March 26, 2020 [9 favorites]

I'm not convinced. It seems more likely that it comes from Triticum, the wheat genus.
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 6:28 PM on March 26, 2020 [18 favorites]

Wouldn’t their ad copy be closer to “made with triticum!”, rather than “baked by electricity” and “the electric baked biscuit”, in that case? Maybe some wheat filigrees on the logo instead of lightning bolts??
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 6:36 PM on March 26, 2020 [7 favorites]

because ELECTRISCUIT didn't fit on the front of the box.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:38 PM on March 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

I love the lightning bolts and everything else about this story.
posted by theora55 at 7:00 PM on March 26, 2020 [5 favorites]

Triscuits rule.
Lunch = (stack in order) Triscuit, pesto, shaved deli ham, gouda, dot of mayo, spinach leaf. Build this 4 times.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:11 PM on March 26, 2020 [11 favorites]

Next mystery: why does the 1903 ad copy say that they're made in "Nicaraga Falls, NY"?
posted by justkevin at 7:21 PM on March 26, 2020 [11 favorites]

I love Triscuits so much I can't have them in the house. I eat ALOT of them if I have the opportunity. The only crackers that come close in munchability are Wheat Thins, and those have sugar in them. Triscuits are perfect and crunchy.
posted by suelac at 7:24 PM on March 26, 2020 [15 favorites]

It seems more likely that it comes from Triticum, the wheat genus.

As a food historian, that doesn't seem more likely at all. The novelty and excitement of the new electric kitchen at this period was wayyyy more brand-worthy than the fusty old Latin name of anything.

What makes sense about this is how consistent it is with alll the other food and appliance marketing of the time. It's exactly the kind of thing that the nascent field of branding, at a big company like NaBisCo (National Biscuit Company), would come up with.
posted by Miko at 7:33 PM on March 26, 2020 [48 favorites]

why does the 1903 ad copy say that they're made in "Nicaraga Falls, NY"?

Westinghouse &Tesla's turbines, probably? They had just been installed and turned on a few years earlier.
posted by BungaDunga at 7:35 PM on March 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

Good grief I am so tired of this "listen up BOZOS I'm gonna LAY SOME INFORMATION ON YOU so prepare to have your MIND BLOWN" style of tweeting. When what they're tweeting about is interesting I really wish people would stop with this over-the-top "LISTEN UP HERE COMES SOME KNOWLEDGE" shit.
posted by Lexica at 7:47 PM on March 26, 2020 [29 favorites]

To me, this one felt like it was a jokey riff on that, rather than an earnest that.
posted by aubilenon at 7:57 PM on March 26, 2020 [11 favorites]

Haven't had one in years! iirc, they were fab, but one of them had like a quarter of your recommended yearly sodium allowance
posted by thelonius at 7:57 PM on March 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

I really wish people would stop with this over-the-top

Me too, but I like when someone bothers to ask the obvious question. Anyone remember the "STOP CASTING POROSITY" billboard in Oakland? I finally felt like "Ok, I MUST know" and went to the business at the bottom of the sign, which was not easy to figure out how to get to before Google Maps. It was their sign. They knew the answer. They told me the answer. It was very satisfying.

There was no twitter then, though either, so I just had to be smug to myself. Which is to say, I know the feeling.
posted by ctmf at 7:58 PM on March 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

We were always told Triscuits were individually hand-woven under water.
posted by ahimsakid at 8:12 PM on March 26, 2020 [5 favorites]

Firstly: I liked this thread and now I crave Triscuits. Which is a problem, since I'm in the largely Triscuit-less UK. You can't get Stoned Wheat Thins here either, and even Ritz are not easily found.

Secondly: to Lexica's point, the best send-up of Buckle Up Twitter I ever saw was Jared Pechacek's thread on why you can't legally marry clams in the state of Maine: Twitter, Threadreader
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:12 PM on March 26, 2020 [11 favorites]

So interesting; I have wondered this but not found much of an answer. Weirdly, the "baked with electricity" ad is on the Triscuit wikipedia page and has been since last summer (citation). That page also links the patent US713795A, by H.D. Perky of Worcester Mass, for "filamentous cracker," filed 1900, patented 1902. According to which they're not woven, they're pressed.

[To remedy defects in existing cracker technology], the article is made in sufficiently thin and flattened form of the filaments which extend in a more or less undulating manner in one direction, superficial ribs being provided extending in the direction of the filaments and between these ribs elongated depressions having in their bottoms locking indentations. To effect this, the filamentous material having its fibers or filaments extending in one direction is laid between baking-irons having teeth studding their inside surfaces in such manner that while the filamentous material is held between the irons during the baking by the approximation of the points of the teeth the filameutous structure is preserved, the pressure between the points being sufficient to cause the locking of the filaments by direct attachment to each other at regular intervals, so that the cracker will hold its form.

posted by LobsterMitten at 8:18 PM on March 26, 2020 [13 favorites]

Triscuits are the biscuits that Les Tricoteuses make. Because they're knit, you see.

Also, Triscuit Nachos rule. Plate of triscuits, shredded cheese, jalapenos, etc. Microwave to melt the cheese. Git yer snack on.
posted by bartleby at 8:26 PM on March 26, 2020 [14 favorites]

why does the 1903 ad copy say that they're made in "Nicaraga Falls, NY"?

Westinghouse &Tesla's turbines, probably? They had just been installed and turned on a few years earlier.

The turbines were set up at Niagara Falls. The ad copy says Nicaraga Falls.
posted by bryon at 8:31 PM on March 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Other products named after technology include: Radio Chocolate, Television Lozenges, Atomic Fireballs, Liquorice Pylon Cables, X-Ray Soap, Headphones For Listening In (licorice), Electric Light Wires (licorice). See also Atomic Brand Names.
posted by user92371 at 8:34 PM on March 26, 2020 [6 favorites]

thelonius: Haven't had one in years! iirc, they were fab, but one of them had like a quarter of your recommended yearly sodium allowance

Now for the good news...

Per the Nutrition Facts on the side of the couple of boxes of Low Sodium Triscuits I’ve got in the cupboard, they contain 35 mg of sodium per 4 crackers, waaaay less than regular.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 9:08 PM on March 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

The ad copy says Nicaraga Falls.
The original packaging says Niagra Falls, proving that ads had typos even back then.
posted by monotreme at 9:17 PM on March 26, 2020

So clearly "Triscuit" was just a typo for "Biscuit" after all, QED.

THAT'S IT EVERYONE WE SOLVED IT
posted by The Tensor at 9:41 PM on March 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

So clearly "Triscuit" was just a typo for "Biscuit" after all, QED.

Clearly whatever the -scuit part of biscuit means was fine twice with biscuits and thrice with these. Sciatrix had it right out the gate.

Someday I will be ricochet triscuit and then you will all pay.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:53 PM on March 26, 2020 [22 favorites]

Good grief I am so tired of this "listen up BOZOS I'm gonna LAY SOME INFORMATION ON YOU so prepare to have your MIND BLOWN" style of tweeting. When what they're tweeting about is interesting I really wish people would stop with this over-the-top "LISTEN UP HERE COMES SOME KNOWLEDGE" shit.

I think this is some medium-is-the-message thing. The bite-sized (lol) nature of twitter evolves this kind of delivery. It's a reduced form of the multi-post-long-story-forum-thread, I guess?
posted by cape at 9:56 PM on March 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

the pressure between the points being sufficient to cause the locking of the filaments by direct attachment to each other at regular intervals, so that the cracker will hold its form.

TIL Triscuits are spot-welded.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 10:17 PM on March 26, 2020 [24 favorites]

Personally, I thought this was the greatest “buckle up Twitter” thread of all time. It legitimately delighted me.
posted by snowmentality at 10:18 PM on March 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

I'd always subconsciously assumed there was some relation to the nursery rhyme "a tisket a tasket", which sometimes I remembered as "a triscuit a tasket"...

This is convincing and it's a little eerie how something we take for granted like electricity was such a novelty, and that this left an impression still present on the everyday items of our lives.
posted by Schmucko at 10:24 PM on March 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

The copy in the second ad also says they are to be eaten "as toast with eggs" and I can't figure it out. Maybe quail eggs? Or am I eating my eggs and toast wrong? Or yeah, with "fruit juices", OK.
posted by St. Oops at 10:36 PM on March 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

You know those things where you put a hard boiled egg in and wires press down and cut it into slices? One slice of egg per scuit and you have a nice snack or basis for a light lunch.
posted by bartleby at 10:42 PM on March 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

More seriously, I hope I'm not the only one who's unconvinced by this evidence for the "electric biscuit" etymology of "Triscuit". The whole things strikes me as a job half-done with a bunch of hand-waving and cork-popping at the end instead of proof. I mean, it could turn out to be true, but this isn't the smoking gun.
posted by The Tensor at 10:56 PM on March 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

Spot welded, or sintered?
posted by clew at 11:19 PM on March 26, 2020 [5 favorites]

I thought it was also a jokey riff on that annoying style of tweeting but I can't be sure? It's like how there are several writers I enjoy, some with great academic backgrounds, but they didn't get the notice it's not 2009 anymore and that overly familiar, digressive, bloggy writing style is both super old and like chewing tinfoil.
posted by The Whelk at 11:39 PM on March 26, 2020

The copy in the second ad also says they are to be eaten "as toast with eggs" and I can't figure it out.

You’re not to eat the triscuit as you would toast, i.e., by putting eggs on top of it, you’re to eat the triscuit as you would toast-with-eggs, i.e., by putting it in your mouth, chewing it, swallowing it, and digesting it.
posted by aubilenon at 12:27 AM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

Me too, but I like when someone bothers to ask the obvious question. Anyone remember the "STOP CASTING POROSITY" billboard in Oakland? I finally felt like "Ok, I MUST know" and went to the business at the bottom of the sign, which was not easy to figure out how to get to before Google Maps. It was their sign. They knew the answer. They told me the answer. It was very satisfying.

And?

Also, what does baked with electricity mean?

laid between baking-irons having teeth studding their inside surfaces in such manner that while the filamentous material is held between the irons during the baking by the approximation of the points of the teeth the filameutous structure is preserved

It is just like a George Foreman grill or something? I was hoping they like electrocuted the biscuits into shape.
posted by Literaryhero at 1:27 AM on March 27, 2020

Step 1: make shredded wheat
Step 2: put it in a tiny, cracker-sized waffle iron
Step 3: Triscuit!
posted by bartleby at 1:42 AM on March 27, 2020

I haven’t had an electric biscuit since my rave club days.
posted by w0mbat at 2:17 AM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

Re: "STOP CASTING POROSITY", the comments section of a blog post from 2005 has the fairly straightforward answer:

I'm not sure I want to destroy the mystique of what used to be the East Bay's most gnomic sign, but here goes... When you're casting metal (bronze, iron, etc.) or other materials, it's really desirable to make sure that porosity (i.e. porousness, on the surface or internal to the cast object) is controlled or eliminated during the casting process and / or during cooling, otherwise the surface looks dreadful, or the strength of the cast object is compromised. The little factory beneath the long-gone sign used to make chemicals and associated gear that helped stop casting porosity...
posted by Wandering Idiot at 2:21 AM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

Anyone remember the "STOP CASTING POROSITY" billboard in Oakland?

I've spent about 5 minutes total in Oakland (CA, that is) and didn't see the billboard, but I spent several years making patterns for foundries so I know what casting porosity is. It's not something I imagined would ever count as arcane wisdom.
posted by jon1270 at 4:17 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Response Twitter thread from a historian.
posted by pemberkins at 5:02 AM on March 27, 2020 [17 favorites]

ricochet biscuit: "Someday I will be ricochet triscuit and then you will all pay. "

or tricochet biscuit ("knit the biscuit")
posted by chavenet at 5:03 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

pemberkins: "Response Twitter thread from a historian."

Bro-Man-Gel-On?

I'm not putting that in my mouth.
posted by chavenet at 5:05 AM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Also, what does baked with electricity mean?

Baked in an electric oven, which at the time would have been pretty novel. I think most cooking appliances at that time would have been wood- or coal-fired.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:08 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Hydrox cookie introduced in 1908 (a few years before the Oreo) was so named as a portmanteau hydrogen + oxygen to convey wholesome scientific purity. Now I see the brand has been brought back on a small scale, artificial ingredients removed, non-GMO, and no HFCS to meet new notions of purity.
posted by bendybendy at 5:15 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

This may seem like a trivial thing (AND IT IS, WITH RESPECT TO [GESTURES BROADLY]), but it also blurs the line between historical research and the declaration by fiat from a corporation more concerned with how its brand is perceived *now* than what may have happened in 1903.

Dangit, that historian's response, and the linked evidence for "thrice-cooked," is much more compelling than electro-biscuits.
posted by mediareport at 5:31 AM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

TRIscuit.

QuadroTRIticale.

Coincidence?
posted by wittgenstein at 5:37 AM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

Also, what does baked with electricity mean?

I suspect it may be heated by having a current run through it, like the bread used to make panko
posted by STFUDonnie at 5:45 AM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

They need a warning on the box that says “Someone knowledgeable of the Heimlich maneuver must be present at all times while ingesting”. Half chewed Triscuits have what appears to be barbed wire around the edges that lock into your throat when swallowed (true storey).
posted by waving at 5:45 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

TWO-WEEK SHREDDED WHEAT DEMONSTRATION
posted by Nutri-Matic Drinks Synthesizer at 5:52 AM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

Next mystery: why does the 1903 ad copy say that they're made in "Nicaraga Falls, NY"?

Because in 1903 they were made in Nicaraga Falls, NY, a place that has since been obliterated due to a mysterious electrical catastrophe, and subsequently erased from history by the ElectrIlluminati.
posted by otherchaz at 5:57 AM on March 27, 2020 [13 favorites]

→ … even Ritz are not easily found

Uhoh. My ancestors would not be pleased. Well, two in particular: my late gran and grandpa, for whom biscuits and cheese meant lunch, and biscuits meant Ritz. Or TUC, which to my great 8-year-old dismay weren't individually hand-made by Len Murray, Norman Willis and other members of the Trades Union Congress.
posted by scruss at 6:08 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Ooh, the plot thickens! I really hope Nabisco responds.

I think it's fair to note that the historian's evidence does not show Triscuit was thrice-cooked. The clip he cites is just more speculation about the name - a leap to assumption, not an actual description of process by the company. Also, he's a historian of religion, not food or branding, so caveats apply.
posted by Miko at 6:35 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

STOP CASTING POROSITY

My first reaction was to wonder whether I've been away from D&D long enough that they've added some really weird spells.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 6:45 AM on March 27, 2020 [14 favorites]

For sure - I just appreciated the highlighting of the difference between “the modern day company decided to call it true” and “the company found the evidence they previously said they didn’t have” - plus the concept of jello on shredded wheat was a baffling delight.
posted by pemberkins at 6:46 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

the most important takeaway so far is bro-man-gel-on
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:48 AM on March 27, 2020

So it's only occurred to me reading this thread, but alternate theory: yes, it means three, but it doesn't mean three of anything particularly, it's just an increase from two, because biscuit -> bi-scuit. If a two-scuit is good, wouldn't a three-scuit be even better?
posted by solotoro at 6:50 AM on March 27, 2020 [7 favorites]

I think it's amazing that no one knows where the word "triscuit" came from. It just shows how easily knowledge disappears. Talk to your family about their past; keep a journal.
posted by Automocar at 7:14 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

If a two-scuit is good, wouldn't a three-scuit be even better?

“These go to three“
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:33 AM on March 27, 2020 [14 favorites]

The response Twitter thread from a historian is both entertaining and a must-read.

The dude probably was not, as it turns out, right.
posted by Gadarene at 7:48 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

So it's only occurred to me reading this thread, but alternate theory: yes, it means three, but it doesn't mean three of anything particularly, it's just an increase from two, because biscuit -> bi-scuit. If a two-scuit is good, wouldn't a three-scuit be even better?

This is actually the most likely explanation that the historian ends up with.
posted by Gadarene at 7:50 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Now I'm slightly confused, because I vaguely recall a cracker/snack product from the late 70s or so marketed with "Triticale" (a wheat/rye hybrid). I couldn't find this product in a quick google search, but I did see a Triticale reference in 'The Trouble with Tribbles', which is hilarious.
posted by ovvl at 7:51 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

This is actually the most likely explanation that the historian ends up with.

And we might just have to live with the possibility that there is no real explanation. He is correct in noting that this time period was 100% zany when it came to branding and naming things. Mass marketing and branding were completely new industries and there were no rules or agreed practices. It's entirely possible the people responsible for naming things at Nabisco then were sitting in a room tossing around all these words - "bi/tri," "electricity," "Triticum," - and trying different portmanteaus and combinations and finally settling on Triscuit, not because it meant anything, but because it just sounded best. In my experience of naming things even today, that's often how it goes down.
posted by Miko at 8:02 AM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

Buckle up, butterdicks. It's time to talk about Doritos.
posted by asperity at 8:09 AM on March 27, 2020 [16 favorites]

I mean I feel like this is pretty unequivocal though. "Nature's Food by Nature's Progress." It *says* "Triscuit: the Electric Baked Biscuit."
posted by Miko at 8:21 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Good, now I can stop wondering what a Monoscuit or a Tetrascuit would be like.
posted by Foosnark at 8:29 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

NO. Bi- shows they are Latin prefixes. Wonder instead about Uniscuits and Quadriscuits

Which really do sound less clunky
posted by aubilenon at 9:30 AM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

Mass marketing and branding were completely new industries and there were no rules or agreed practices. It's entirely possible the people responsible for naming things at Nabisco then were sitting in a room tossing around all these words...

I think the way it works now is they gather the brand managers into a room, lock the doors, empty an 8-ball of coke onto the conference room table and scream, "nobody leaves this room until we have a brand strategy!"
posted by sjswitzer at 10:23 AM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

And pardon me if this is obvious/already explained/whatever, but from the copy of that second ad:

"... the best creation of the Natural Food Co. ..."
and
"... makers also of the Celebrated Wheat Biscuits..."

I'm only now realizing that Nabisco is derived from NAtural BIScuit COmpany.

MIND BLOWN not really, sorry
posted by martin q blank at 10:32 AM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Triscuits are one of the two crackers we always have stocked at home (the other being cheez-its, because our kid's best friends are all big cheez-it fans and we kept a supply on hand for sleepovers , pre-apocalypse)

But shredded wheat biscuits? Never put together that they are basically the same thing. I have a box of them at home, none of those puny mini-wheats and certainly not frosted, the big boy biscuits that are each the size of a fist. My grandpa used to cook them for breakfast, with an egg on top. I've tried it multiple different ways but what seems to get me the closest to his recipe is to butter them, fry on one side for a bit, add a little water to soften it, flip it over and crack an egg into the dent made by the water softening the biscuit - then add a bit more water and put a lid on it to poach the egg. When done right the egg is left a bit runny. Have seen multiple variations on the recipe and can't quite remember how Grandpa did it, but it tastes right to me, so there's that.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:40 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

yes, it means three, but it doesn't mean three of anything particularly, it's just an increase from two, because biscuit -> bi-scuit. If a two-scuit is good, wouldn't a three-scuit be even better?

That was what I always thought too, that it was a clever bit of wordplay not about three of anything in particular, just that "tri" is bigger and better than "bi".

(I was surprised to learn that the "bi-" in "biscuit" actually is, etymologically, a "two". I thought it was a bit of wordplay akin to "tetromino" and the like terms which derive from an etymologically ungrounded back-formation of "domino" to "di" + "omino".)
posted by jackbishop at 11:27 AM on March 27, 2020

"Biscuit," "biscotti," and "zweiback" are all basically the same construct, though in French/English, the meaning has expanded considerably from twice-baked.
posted by sjswitzer at 11:34 AM on March 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Good, now I can stop wondering what ... a Tetrascuit would be like.

It would probably taste like fish.
posted by hanov3r at 11:58 AM on March 27, 2020

OH BOY it's time for my Triscuit story/observation!

Sometime in the 2000s, I was chowing down on a Triscuit while reading the back of the box like it was breakfast cereal (as you do.) I noticed that they had a slogan that seemed like it was written by Marge Simpson: "Triscuits fill you...........but not with regret!"

Why would I be filled with regret for eating a snack cracker? Listen, I have eaten an entirely inappropriate amount of Doritos in my lifetime, and I'm sure I've been filled with various petrochemicals, but not with regret. What kind of fat-shaming hokum is that?

Thankfully at some point since then they seem to have realized how awkward-sounding and problematic that slogan is as I haven't seen it on new boxes.
posted by zeusianfog at 12:02 PM on March 27, 2020 [4 favorites]

It seems more likely that it comes from Triticum, the wheat genus.

Smash cut to an alternate reality where the choosy snacker prefers Cumscuits.
posted by zeusianfog at 12:05 PM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

I'd just like to take this opportunity to say how viscerally upset the new "Make 'Scuit Happen" marketing campaign makes me every time I see it on my FB timeline. I may never get another opportunity to comment on a Triscuit marketing campaign conversation on the blue, so I thank you all for allowing me to vent my spleen about this.

Okay, I feel a bit better now.
posted by WaylandSmith at 12:06 PM on March 27, 2020 [5 favorites]

They actually have a marketing campaign where they're substituting an abbreviation for their product -"'scuit" for the word "shit" in a common phrase? And they're using this to market food?
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 12:15 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Uniscuit?" That's just bread.
posted by Western Infidels at 12:41 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

→ "Make 'Scuit Happen"

This is a terrible campaign for many reasons, least of all being it would be pronounced the same as squit, a colloquial term for diarrhea.

I wonder what a nullscuit would be? Raw grain? Discuss — but maybe not for too long
posted by scruss at 1:02 PM on March 27, 2020

> This is a terrible campaign for many reasons

And yet here we are, discussing their product. 🙄
posted by WaylandSmith at 2:03 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

If a two-scuit is good, wouldn't a three-scuit be even better?

“These go to three“

"... it's like, how much more scuit could it be? And the answer is none. None more scuit."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 3:37 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

"Why do they call it Ovaltine? The mug is round. The jar is round. They should call it Roundtine. That's gold, Jerry! Gold!"
posted by etherist at 7:43 PM on March 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

My own longstanding wild guess was it was derived from "tricot", because the rough, fibrous texture gave them a sort of knitted appearance.
posted by baf at 8:22 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Speaking of ovals, I was wondering if the Nabisco logo, then, was also technology inspired---some kind of antenna? Seems that otherchaz upthread was closer with that reference to the Illuminati. Snopes says any intentional freemasonry connection is false; the designer found the symbol in a collection of rare books.
posted by TreeRooster at 9:43 PM on March 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

I did see a Triticale reference in 'The Trouble with Tribbles', which is hilarious.

Star Trek digression:

When David Gerrold wrote his script for "The Trouble with Tribbles," the grain he initially used was triticale. He'd apparently read about it somewhere and it stuck in his brain. To prevent comparisons to the real grain and add to the sci-fi aspect, the grain in question in the episode was renamed quadrotriticale: a four-lobed hybrid of wheat and rye. (Enterprise's engines initially used lithium crystals, but this was soon changed to dilithium so people wouldn't say, "Lithium can't do that!") Then, in the "Tribbles" sequel in the animated series, "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (also by Gerrold), we were introduced to quintotriticale, a five-lobed etc.

End digression. Live long and prosper.
posted by bryon at 10:30 PM on March 27, 2020 [8 favorites]

quadriscuit
quintiscuit
sexcuit

*phones marketing*
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:45 PM on March 28, 2020 [7 favorites]

The copy in the second ad also says they are to be eaten "as toast with eggs" and I can't figure it out. Maybe quail eggs? Or am I eating my eggs and toast wrong? Or yeah, with "fruit juices", OK.

I’m a few days late to this very important point, but clearly this refers to dipping the Triscuits in the yolks of your fried eggs like toast points or toast soldiers, not in place of the toast in eggs-on-toast. And now I need to get some Triscuits to try dipping them into some nature’s gold myself.
posted by stopgap at 9:26 AM on March 29, 2020 [3 favorites]

[conspiracy] OBVIOUSLY it stands for "Trilateral Commission Biscuit". This information of course has been suppressed. [/Conspiracy]
posted by happyroach at 11:15 AM on March 29, 2020 [5 favorites]

My first reaction was to wonder whether I've been away from D&D long enough that they've added some really weird spells.

I always read it in my mind in "Leave Britney alone!" tone.
posted by ctmf at 12:07 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]

The Trouble with Triscuits, or specifically, this Twitter thread and Nabisco's baseless support of the elecTRIcity biSCUIT, with additional Biscuit-Triscuit connection from period adverts (Contingent Magazine).

Triscuits, the plate o' beans for 2020.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:04 PM on April 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

By way of triscuit and beanplating I have come up with three-fried beans. Which are obviously a quantum leap ahead of refried beans.

I look forward to job offers from Mad Men style advertising firms, thank you.
posted by Monochrome at 8:08 PM on April 1, 2020 [4 favorites]

They're three-fried, but are they three-fried with electricity?
posted by tobascodagama at 6:03 AM on April 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

You rubes, “three-fried” is short for “THREEp-FRIED”, referring to this very argument about proper nomenclature!
posted by stopgap at 10:25 AM on April 2, 2020 [2 favorites]