I saw zwieback mentioned in a detective story. I’d heard the term before, but had to look it up on the web:

“Zwieback is a form of rusk eaten in Germany, Poland, Scandinavia, Austria, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey. It is a type of crisp, sweetened bread, made with eggs and baked twice.”
—Wikipedia

And I found some at a reasonable price ($6.70) on Amazon:

Brandt Zwieback Rusk Toast - 8 oz
https://a.co/d/5dwkQ3x

So I bought a box. There were 24 miniature slices in the box, 12 in each of two sealed cellophane envelopes. A slice is 2-1/2” along its flat side, and 3” up to its rounded top.

None of the slices in my box were broken, but they’re very fragile; likely that pieces will drop off as you munch. Consequently it’s a good idea to hold a plate below to catch the droppage.

Very bland if eaten dry. Garlic butter helps, and Marmite helps more. Not too bad, but I don’t expect to buy more. I’ll stick with crackers!

The long discontinued Gerber and Nabisco Zwieback biscuits were pretty good.

My mother fed me this stuff as a kid. Really liked it, too bad it was discontinued.

Commonly used for teething toddlers to help those chompers emerge.

We gave zwieback toast to our kids when they were just starting to use their teeth (back in the early 80's).

Used to eat it all the time when I was a kid, usually heated/toasted and topped with butter and honey or cinnamon sugar, or dipped into tomato soup. Remember them fondly. As with WB. I seem to recall that they were advertised to help with babies teething (dipped in milk).

Direct translation is "twice baked".

Zwieback and Camomile tea, when the kids have the shits.
I haven’t touched that stuff since my mom gave it to me when I was sick.

Had it back in the 50's, Nabisco brand with yellow packaging and baby on the cover. Mom use to pour warm milk on it in a bowl.

I always understood it to be a teething toast, as mentioned above. My dad was born and raised (until 5 y.o.) in Occupied Germany and I'm pretty sure as a result, we always had a box of the Nabisco zwieback in the pantry. I snacked on the stuff when I was a kid, even though it had a baby on the box.

-Rob

Wow a real blast from the past for me seeing Zwiebach in print. I had pretty much forgotten about it. My hometown was inhabited primarily by folks from Northern Germany, most of whom came over in my grandparents generation. Zwiebach was often a breakfast staple for us kids. Gramma made it by rebaking hamburger buns that had been buttered and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. Crispy and crumbs all over the place. Probably just a good way to save dried out bread versus throwing it away but good none the less. Thanks for the memory.

Back in the 1980's when I was in the Boy Scouts every breakfast menu included two items. They were required but no one really knew why.

1. Rusk
2. Tang

You could have eggs & bacon/sausage, omelettes, oat meal, cereal, breakfast barf (see other threads), waffles, etc... but you always had Rusk and Tang.

Very bland. I always thought of it as a thing for teething babies.