Brains are considered an easily digested food and thus often given to children and invalids.

I'm reading through my beloved Women's Day Encyclopedia of Cookery (New York, 1967) (shut up)- it's an excellent reference work, and also has recipes that are tasty, followable, and mostly not all that watered down for lovers of bland. It also has odd little timebound things, like the very wierd prose poems that introduce recipes from each state in the American food section, and this, er, gem.
"BEATEN BISCUITS
This crackerlike Southern bread harks back to pre-Civil war plantation days when kitchen help was assured, for labor, not a leavener, softens the gluten of the flour in these biscuits."
PLS BUY OUR BOOK HOUSEWIVES OF THE SOUTH WE WILL NOT MAKE YOU UNCOMFORTABLE, y/n?

Also, went to see Danny Bhoy last week, laughed a lot, observational stuff, not too slick, amusing gecko impersonation.