Biscuits
Biscuits.
Oh, the Heavenly Host of Southern foods – warm, mealy, soft and springy as a feather bed after a long day. Many of us pride ourselves on being the Best Biscuit Baker in the family, and my mother and grandmother were no different.
Mammaw Burchfield baked hers on a cookie sheet blackened with age and use. Her doughy creations were huge. Forget the so-called “cat-head” biscuit – hers were practically cougar-sized. A single cakey biscuit and ladleful of gravy would keep you full for hours. My daddy, the oldest of 7, was a life-long fan and a kind-hearted soul. He praised Mammaw’s biscuits, as well as every other one of the foodstuffs offered up to him, and she rewarded him with heaping platefuls of it. After all, he was slender – some might say skinny – so he needed it.
My mother was born and reared in the flat fields of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Flame-haired and high-spirited, she met my father at seminary, married him within a matter of months, and followed him back home to Knoxville, Tennessee. Early on in their married life, Daddy expressed to Mama his love of biscuits and gravy.
Biscuits, it turned out, were not a part of her family’s culinary repertoire.
My mother, although intimidated by the unspoken spectre of Mammaw’s perfect biscuits, was determined to conquer the process. Mama cooked up a masterpiece, her biscuits smaller yet fat with butter so they could be divvied up among many but still satisfy an appetite. Her first attempt at gravy wasn’t bad – maybe a little thick – but still salty and flavorful.
Mama watched Daddy spear his first forkful of biscuit and put it in his mouth. He chewed thoughtfully as Mama waited with baited breath for his reaction.
“Well,” he said matter-of-factly, “they don’t taste as good as Mom’s.”
Suddenly, a pan flew past his head. Thickened gravy coated the kitchen wall of the tiny trailer they shared.
"If you don't like it, you can go back home to your mother," was her retort.
My father, stunned into silence, grabbed a dishtowel and started cleaning up the mess. Because he valued his life, he did not point out that the consistency of the spilled gravy was much like wallpaper paste.
Eventually, Mama apologized to him, and they moved on as married people are wont to do. To my knowledge, he never criticized her biscuits again - or any biscuits, for that matter.
Mama did acknowledge that Mammaw's biscuits were delicious, and I can attest to that fact. To be honest, though, I liked Mama's biscuits more. They were a bit less dry than Mammaw's, and were especially tasty just by themselves, fresh out of the oven. But Mammaw's biscuits were better with jelly.
We have room for both, don't we? With biscuits as with life, sometimes you choose your favorites because they are familiar. Even after you try all the biscuits at the buffet, you still may choose to return to your mother's table.
Others, like myself, firmly believe that each biscuit is beautiful in its own way, especially if you're looking down the barrel of a loaded skillet that's ready to take flight.
