September is National Biscuit Month!

I just found this out and being a southerner, i LOVES me some biscuits! My grandfather used to make them every morning when we'd go down to Montgomery, Al to visit. I have his recipe somewhere and i'm planning on making them in honor of National Biscuit Month. Also its kind of funny that Montgomery's minor league baseball team just happens to be called The Biscuits. I feel the hum of the string theory, don't you?

Anyways until i make Grandada's biscuits, i thought we'd do a brief little history of that wonderful little creation! - while researching the biscuit, i realized i needed a few more qualifiers than "biscuit, history". I forgot those crazy Brits call cookies biscuits and that apparently to the rest of the world they are sonomous with scones as well - what's WRONG with you people?!

"southern biscuit, history" didn't yield much more. Then "american biscuit, history" - We have a winner! Here's what i found: Wikipedia entry: Biscuit

In American English, a "biscuit" is a small form of bread made with baking powder or baking soda as a leavening agent rather than yeast. (Biscuits, soda breads, and corn bread, among others, are sometimes referred to collectively as "quick breads" to indicate that they do not need time to rise before baking.)

Biscuits are extremely soft on the inside and similar to scones or more closely to the bannock from the Shetland Isles. In the United States, there is a growing tendency to refer to sweet variations as "scone"and to the savory as a "biscuit", though there are exceptions for both (such as the cheese scone). A sweet biscuit served with a topping of fruit and juice is called shortcake...

Biscuits are a common feature of Southern U.S. cuisine and are often made with buttermilk. They are traditionally served as a side dish with a meal, especially in the morning. As a breakfast item they are often eaten with butter and a sweet condiment such as molasses, light sugarcane syrup, sorghum syrup, honey, or fruit jam or jelly. With other meals they are usually eaten with butter or gravy instead of sweet condiments. However, biscuits and gravy (biscuits covered in country gravy) are usually served for breakfast, sometimes as the main course.

A common variation on basic biscuits is "cheese biscuits", made by adding grated Cheddar or American cheese to the basic recipe....

Beaten biscuits date from the 1800s and are a Southern U.S. food. They differ from a regular biscuit in that they are more like hardtack instead of soft because the dough is beaten with a hard object or against a hard surface for at least a half hour. They are also pricked with a fork prior to baking and are usually smaller than a regular biscuit. These are the biscuits traditionally used in "ham biscuits", also known as hog cakes, a traditional Southern canapé, which are simply tiny sandwiches of these bite-sized biscuits sliced horizontally, spread with butter, jelly, mustard, filled with pieces of country ham, or sopped up with gravy or syrup."

Ok, its at this point that i MUST interject that i do not like biscuits and gravy! Not everyone from the south does :P gross and now QuikTrip gas stations have this: Hotzi Sausage Gravy Stuffed Biscuit /vomit

So enough gross stuff in regards to the biscuit. I PROMISE this month i will fix my grandfather's biscuits and MAYBE just MAYBE share the recipe with ya'll. And i've apparently just found out that his a "beaten" biscuits. hmmm - learn somethin' new everyday, don'tcha?