Behold the Biscuit

From Southern breakfast spreads to champagne dinners

by

Biscuits are emotional. They’re fluffy, flat, flaky, dense, tall, squatty reminders of comfort, warmth, and love. There is no right or wrong, only preferences. Biscuit recipes can be a peek into family history, passed down from a loved one, or shared between friends and home cooks. Though often thought of as a symbol of Southern cookery, the word is used by the British for a thin cookie or cracker. Once in the hands of Southern cooks, the British “biscuit” became something else entirely: a lighter, slightly sweet but mostly savory creation that fell somewhere between bread and cake. In 1952, when Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken opened its first franchise in Utah, the biscuit gained popularity nationwide.

The word “biscuit” comes from the Old French bis (“twice”) and cuit (“cooked”). The biscuit’s evolution from the hard, flat, dry staple for ancient sailors and military to the modern biscuit of familiarity dates to the early nineteenth century in the Southern U.S. Mainly composed of simple ingredients—flour, shortening, leavening and milk, cream or water—biscuits are a sort of “quick bread that can be rolled, dropped, or beaten, ingredients and styles varying by region. Recipe differences lie in everything from flour types (all purpose, cake, wheat); leavening agents (yeast, eggs, baking powder, etc.); liquids (milk, cream, water); and fats (animal lard, vegetable shortening, cold butter, melted butter...), the potential combinations being endless and each resulting in a biscuit with distinct flavor and texture. And make no mistake, everyone’s biscuit recipe is “the best.”

[You might also like: Making Biscuits]

Mixing that recipe is another matter. Some swear it must be done by hand, while others rely on an electric mixer. Tumble prepared dough on a workspace to be patted, rolled, or otherwise shaped for cutting, or drop spoonsful of dough right from the bowl onto a baking sheet. Both methods produce beautiful biscuits and adhere to one constant: don’t overwork the dough.

Coquette Pastry Chef James Kubie is the New Orleans restaurant’s biscuit whisperer. Using and tweaking an existing recipe from the previous pastry chef (Zak Miller, one of Kubie’s mentors), large batches of the house biscuit dough are made with eggs and sour cream, in an electric mixer, and are on the menu at brunch but the star at special events like the restaurant’s well-attended Fried Chicken and Champagne dinners. “Every time I make biscuits, I hear my mom’s voice and remember our time together baking them,” said Kubie. “Her secret technique was to have a good attitude while baking. That and simplicity; she was a stickler for keeping things simple with quality ingredients.” Laughing, he said, “I can hear her in my head, reminding me to make sure and leave visible chunks of butter and not to overwork the dough.” Another biscuit-making tip Kubie dropped was about prepping the biscuits for baking: “Put your biscuits close together but not touching—you don’t want one big mass. Keeping them close but separate assures a tall biscuit.”

A humble, simple thing once served at home for weekend meals or special occasions, biscuits then found a place on restaurant menus, mostly alongside breakfast plates at homey cafes. As an easy and relatively inexpensive food to make, biscuits moved beyond a morning staple, migrating to lunch and dinner, as sandwich bread, a crust for pot pies and fruity desserts, or small scoops of dough plopped into a burbling pot for soft dumplings. Virtually anything and everything has been put on or in a biscuit, from the usual suspects (butter, jam, honey) to eggs, sausage, fried chicken, corned beef, goat cheese, and avocado mash. (The honey chicken cheddar biscuit at The Overpass Merchant in Baton Rouge will send you through a small mountain of napkins.) Biscuits remain a more breakfasty, casual foodstuff, though these days it’s easy to find biscuits with a bit of a wild streak (chicken fried pork belly, white gravy, and pickled red cabbage biscuit at District Donuts). Lafayette’s long time biscuit haven, Edie’s Express, is joined by Rusted Rooster (fried chicken biscuit with pecan-praline glaze), Rêve Coffee Roasters (biscuit with espresso coffee sausage), and many more, but it’s the Blanchard’s BBQ food truck that dining guru and radio host Tiffiany Decou (Lafayette Food Junkie, KPEL, 96.5 FM) claims has “the best biscuits in Lafayette.” “They’re delicate and melt-in-your-mouth,” added Decou. “It could be butter or the fat from the meats, but between that and the tangy, almost sourdough taste of the dough, this is simply a great biscuit.” Tiffiany isn’t flaking on other biscuits in town; she’s passionate and will keep trying. Every day she drinks her coffee from a mug that reads: “Eat a Biscuit.”

Biscuits are emotional. They’re fluffy, flat, flaky, dense, tall, squatty reminders of comfort, warmth, and love. There is no right or wrong, only preferences.

Biscuits are also getting fine. White tablecloth restaurants in South Louisiana have taken biscuits beyond the morning meal (though they’re there too), offering them for house bread service, whipping them out at special dining events, and giving them menu space as an appetizer with fancy condiments. Here are some not to miss for the wild factor and some that are pinkies-up affairs:

Chef Tenney Flynn, co-owner of GW Fins, a smart seafood-centric French Quarter restaurant, has always served warm biscuits for bread service. Made with lard and served with butter, the drop style biscuit is rich, tender, and properly crumbly. Eat more than one, take some home, or buy the mix from the restaurant to make in your own kitchen. (You can also make the biscuits from scratch using this recipe.

At Compère Lapin, Chef Nina Compton’s signature start to any meal is a board bearing lofty biscuit squares with one each of sweet and savory compound butters to slather on the flaky layers.

At Toups South, the crisp, flatter-style biscuits served with crab fat butter for slathering, are completely addictive and the stuff of dreams. Meril Chef de Cuisine Will Avelar’s fluffy buttermilk biscuits are an app on the extensive menu. Two big biscuits arrive with two ramekins—one with decadent foie gras butter, another with blackberry preserves.

Doe’s Eat Place in Baton Rouge stays true to the Greenville, Mississippi, original by serving stellar 21-day-aged, hand-cut steaks, broiled to order. The not-so-secret secret is to get their Southern style drop biscuits for sopping up the juices.

Biscuits are beautiful, even when they aren’t pretty, and capable of eliciting fierce emotions. They can be potent reminders of family, a delicious bit of history, casual or fancy fare, and the subject of a coffee mug quote with advice worth following. Go ahead, eat a biscuit.

Mark your 2018 calendars for: the International Biscuit Festival (May 16 in Knoxville, Tennessee) and the Natchez Biscuit Festival (September 29 in Natchez, Mississippi).