We need to discuss biscuits.

Not where to buy them.

Not whether a chocolate Hobnob is superior to the original.

We're not ready for that level of trouble in the comments yet.

This is about something considerably bigger.

Because Peterborough has a fascinating connection with the machinery used to make food around the world.

And the name behind it is Baker Perkins.

Wait What Did Peterborough Have To Do With Biscuits?

Quite a lot, as it happens.

Baker Perkins became a major manufacturer of equipment for bakeries and other food-production businesses.

According to Peterborough Libraries & Archives, machinery supplied by the company has been used for bakery, biscuit, confectionery, snack and breakfast-cereal production around the world.

 Peterborough Libraries & Archives

Think about that for a moment.

We spend plenty of time talking about food made in Peterborough.

But here's another part of the story:

Peterborough also became associated with machinery that helped other people make food.

Lots of it.

And It Didn't Start With A Giant Biscuit Machine

The company's roots go back to the 19th century and two North Americans, Joseph Baker and Jacob Perkins, who emigrated to England.

The story includes inventions as humble as flour scoops and sifters before the business developed into a major engineering operation.

Which is reassuring.

Almost everything impressive seems to begin with something considerably less impressive.

Amazon started with books.

Apple started in a garage.

And somewhere in the Baker Perkins story we're talking about a flour scoop.

Never underestimate office stationery either.

One of those staplers could be the beginning of something enormous.

Peterborough Was Already A Food Town In A Different Way

This makes more sense when you look further back.

Peterborough's position near fertile farmland and the Fens helped make agriculture and markets important to the area.

Peterborough Museum describes agriculture as the area's dominant industry through the 18th century and well into the 19th, with produce brought into town for sale. Museum & Art Gallery

Later came industry, engineering and enormous population growth.

Peterborough Archaeology's history records the city's transformation through the railways and manufacturing, and specifically includes the Baker Perkins Westwood Works in its modern industrial history.

 Peterborough Archaeology

So our food history isn't simply:

“Here are some old recipes.”

It's farming.

Markets.

Bakeries.

Engineering.

Factories.

Machines.

And ultimately the food ending up on somebody's kitchen table hundreds or thousands of miles away.

There's Something Quite Funny About That

Imagine eating breakfast in Peterborough years ago before heading off to work building machinery that would help somebody else manufacture breakfast cereal.

That's quite a loop.

And it also makes you wonder how many things around the city we walk or drive past without knowing the story behind them.

A building.

An old factory.

A street name.

A family business.

Something your grandparents worked on.

Something everybody over 60 seems to know and everybody under 30 has never heard mentioned.

Those stories belong on Taste Trail too.

Because food isn't only what's on the plate today.

It's how it got there.

So We're Starting A Different Kind Of Taste Trail Feature

We want Peterborough's food memories.

Not polished history essays.

The things people actually remember.

Did somebody in your family work at Baker Perkins?

Did they work in a bakery, pub, factory, café, butcher's shop or market?

Was there a restaurant everybody went to that's disappeared?

A sweet shop you still miss?

A bakery where the smell hit you halfway down the street?

A pub lunch that cost an amount that would now barely buy the drink?

Put it in the comments.

Tell us the place, roughly when, and the thing you remember.

Because somewhere underneath those comments could be another Peterborough food story that deserves digging up.

And yes...

we will eventually have to settle the Hobnob question.

Just not today.