This "morning", I rolled out of bed at 1pm before D woke up, and I decided to make him biscuits. He had purchased the sausage and the buttermilk for me last week, but I never got around to doing it. More important things to do like knitting and spinning got in the way. But not this morning. This morning, I decided to do it. And I did. But sitting here just now, enjoying the spoils of my labor, I started thinking about blogging them. That's when it hit me: I have no idea how much of each thing you need for these. I have no idea. I know what it looks like when it's right, but I couldn't tell you a measurement to save my life. I just know. And it was this train of thought that brought me here today. What do we know just because we grew up where we did? I know how to make those biscuits because I saw my mama make them 1000000000000000 times in my life time.
I know that you get a stainless mixing bowl, heap self-rising flour in the center until there is a little mountain, stick your finger into the top of the mountain to make a well (shorter the mountain, wider the well), and then pour veg oil in until it fills the well and runs around the side just enough. Then you add enough buttermilk to make it dough (it took half a quart today). That's all there is to it. Oh, and mix it with your hands no matter how icky it feels. Something about using a regular spoon messes with them.
Mama once made these to make extra money and sold them two to a wax paper envelope at her work. She mixed in bacon chunks or sausage crumbles along with shredded cheese. I like the sausage ones best, so that's what I mixed in this morning. I did have to call and ask Mama what temp to bake them at, but that is a tiny detail that always gets lost. Maybe I really do remember, but I want to talk to Mama when I make them. I'm not sure, but it is the one thing I can never remember.
So this morning, I toast to your health with a biscuit that I just know how to make because. I can't remember her standing me in a chair and telling me the steps, but somehow, I got it all the same. I want to say these are her grandmama's biscuits too, so I'm keeping the tradition of just knowing stuff alive. What do you just know?
2 comments:
Sometimes you don't even know that you "just know" something until it becomes apparent that other people don't "just know" those things too. Sometimes those things are related to where you grew up (I have discovered some since we have lived in such diverse places....like the obvious ones about snow related information) and sometimes they are just within your family (like how I just know how to make apple pie from scratch, thanks Grammie) or maybe they are universal ones (like how I just knew how to breastfeed, not as simple as it may seem).
I think that when you discover these things, or someone else does, it is most fun/interesting to figure out how it is you "just know". So, thanks for sharing yours. And by the way, did you not include the cooking temp. on purpose, so you would not be able to look it up here, and again have you call your Mom? -Michelle H.
Ha! No. I didn't even think about the temp. :P
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