Appalachian Biscuits

The Appalachian biscuit — soft, fluffy, slightly irregular, made from self-rising flour (or flour, baking powder, and salt), buttermilk, and lard or shortening, mixed quickly and baked hot — is the daily bread of the southern mountains, baked every morning, served at every meal, and argued about with the same intensity that Louisiana reserves for gumbo. The biscuit tradition connects to the Scotch-Irish settlers who brought their quick bread traditions to Appalachia and adapted them to the soft winter wheat flour available in the mountain mills. The specific character of the Southern biscuit — tender, layered, higher-rising than a scone, lighter than a roll — comes from the low-protein flour (White Lily, milled from soft red winter wheat, is the benchmark) and the cold-fat technique that creates steam-driven layers during baking.

A round, golden-topped, soft-sided biscuit approximately 7cm in diameter and 4-5cm tall, with visible layers when split open — the result of the cold fat creating pockets of steam during the hot bake. The interior should be tender, slightly moist, and faintly tangy from the buttermilk. The bottom should be golden (from a buttered baking sheet or cast-iron skillet). The biscuit should break apart easily with the hands — a good biscuit never needs a knife.

With butter, with apple butter (AM2-09), with sorghum syrup, with honey, with sausage gravy, with ham. The biscuit's role is the same as cornbread's in a different context — the daily bread, the vehicle, the thing that receives whatever goes on top.