In the United States, a biscuit is a variety of baked bread with a firm, dry exterior and a soft, crumbly interior.

[2] Like other forms of bread, a biscuit is often served with butter or other condiments, flavored with other ingredients, or combined with other types of food to make sandwiches or other dishes.

[5] The long development over time and place explains why the word biscuit can, depending upon the context and the speaker's English dialect, refer to very different baked goods.

[7]Early British settlers in the United States brought with them a simple, easy style of cooking, most often based on ground wheat and warmed with gravy.

[8] A very similar practice was also popular once with the Royal Navy as hard, flour-based biscuits would keep for long journeys at sea but would also become so difficult to chew that they had to be softened up.

Northern American all-purpose flours, mainly grown in Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, are made from the hard spring wheats that grow in the North's cold-winter climate.

This summer growth results in wheat that has less protein, which is more suited to the creation of quick breads, as well as cookies, cakes and muffins.

[11][12] Pre-shaped ready-to-bake biscuits can be purchased in supermarkets, in the form of small refrigerated cylindrical segments of dough encased in a cardboard can.

[6] Originally, biscuits were little more than wheat flour and water, baked to form hardtack, which was carried by travelers because it stored for long periods of time.

[citation needed] For dinner, they are a popular accompaniment to fried chicken, nearly all types of Southern barbecue, and several Lowcountry dishes.