Cathead Biscuits

Cravins’ of the Worst Kind

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Biscuits and sawmill gravy…biscuits and sawmill gravy…biscuits and sawmill gravy.

BISCUITS AND SAWMILL GRAVY!

It’s four in the AM and I’m thinking about biscuits and sawmill gravy.  My fifteen-year-old puppy dog can’t decide if she wants to go to the potty or not and is keeping me from going back to sleep.  Did I mention she’s blind and on a drug regimen too?  I’m thinking about drugs, but my drug thoughts involve food.  Might as well write about it, the chance of returning to dreamland is nil.

Someone posted a recipe about two weeks ago and accompanied it with a photo of biscuits ‘runnin’’ in the heavenly manna called sawmill gravy.  I have been craving this staple from my childhood every day since.

Big ole tall biscuits split and dripping butter in a puddle of creamy white gravy with bits of pork sausage and black pepper flakes doing the backstroke as if in an Olympic pool.  I could hear the plaque swelling in my veins and have been fighting the urge like a pregnant woman craving vanilla ice cream smothered in sardines at three AM in the morning.

I reckin’ there are worse urges, but it is not the healthiest dish in the world, and I’m concerned about health.  I’ve been having a lot of unhealthy urges, most of them involving pork, beef or chicken parts deep-fried or slow-cooked and if not smothered in gravy, running in fat…oh man, bacon fat.

I tend to run off the rails when it concerns my diet.  I don’t do anything by half measures.  I’m planning lunch and supper while I’m eating breakfast.  A day of excess turns into a month of penance and metaphorical self-flagellation.  Why eat a cup of ice cream when a half-gallon is available?

I can hear the half-gallon calling to me from the fridge, “Eattttt me, EATttttt me, EATTTT ME!”  The call starts with a soft, ethereal, childlike voice…and ends in a scream from a horror film.  It begins as a suggestion and ends with a demand.  A demand I will pay for in my head.

Food is my drug of choice.  I will have a liquor drink or a light amber pilsner beer on occasion, but Jasper Newton “Jack” Daniels doesn’t scream at me in a gruff, Tennessee accent from the liquor cabinet, “Y’ALL DRINKKKK ME!” 

“This little piggy” who should have gone to market is rooting around in my head instead.  Pulled pork BBQ, bacon, country-fried pork chops…yum!

I have waged a battle with my weight for the best part of six decades.  I was a fussy eater until my tonsils and adenoids were removed in the late Fifties.  It was as if my taste buds suddenly activated.  Active taste buds and low willpower are a deadly mix when weight is involved.

Now the memory of my grandmother’s peanut butter cookies is calling to me.  “EATTTT ME!”  She died twenty years ago and took her cookie and biscuit recipe with her.  If not, I might be makin’ biscuits with a side of sawmill gravy and a dessert of peanut butter cookies at five AM this morning instead of writing this.

My grandmother is one of the reasons I’ve tried every fad weight loss regimen known to man with only short-term successes.  She had a bad habit of showing her love through food.   “Good boy, Donnie.  I love you, have a cookie…” or five.

Lost seventy pounds on the Atkins diet, tried, and failed going vegan with the MacDougal Diet, counted fat grams, the beer diet…no not really.  I finally stumbled on to something that worked in the mid-2000s.  A heart attack.

Exercise with a low fat, taste at a minimum, plant-based diet to stay alive so I could meet my grandchildren.  Heavy doses of running and walking.  Meat and fried foods…once in a blue moon….  I’m sorry, I grew up Southern with food deep or pan-fried, highly seasoned by the spirits of my ancestors, “That’ll do honey chile.  Ease back on that salt but put in another dash of those Cajun seasonings.”

Because I tend to run off the rails, I worry about giving in to my urges.  Biscuits and sawmill gravy now, fried liver mush and onions later, fried catfish filets with grilled cheese and onion grits forever…all covered in pan drippings that involve bacon.

I’m not sure grilled salmon on a bed of greens with a simple vinaigrette is going to satiate me.

A still, small voice calls to me, “Eattttt me, EATttttt me, EATTTT ME!”  Damn it!  I did.

***

Historical- “The legend of biscuits and sawmill gravy is that, prior to the Civil War, the gravy was created in logging camps or sawmills to give lumberjacks extra energy for a long day of chopping down trees.”

“The dish started with cooking sausages in a pan and then making a roux by tossing flour and/or cornmeal into the pan and cooking to a light blonde color. Cooks deglazed the pan with milk and scraped off the sausage bits stuck to the pan, called fondly by the French, “fond”. If the gravy was served too thick and chunky, lumberjacks were said to accuse the cooks of adding sawdust to the recipe. The original recipe most likely consisted of only breakfast sausage, pan drippings, milk, and black pepper.”

From AmazingRibs.com, Classic Southern Biscuits and Gravy (Sawmill Gravy) Recipe by Meathead Goldwyn

King of Syrups, All Hail King

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I have a sweet tooth I must guard as tenaciously as we should be guarding our nuclear launch codes…not a good analogy because I slip up and let my guard down.  While letting my sweet tooth guard down might equate to an increase of a pound or five on my bathroom scales, letting your guard down concerning the launch codes could equate to increases in radiation levels and nuclear ash swirling about.  I’ve seen too many end of the world movies.  This morning my end of the world scenario involves my sugar and fat cravings.

I awoke with a hankering.  I flat out fancy something sweet.  To avoid such scenarios, I have made my fridge and pantry a post-apocalyptic, barren wasteland of sweet treats.  If not, I would be chin deep licking the container from a former half-gallon of Breyer’s Chocolate Chip Mint ice cream or reaching into the bottom of a bag of Hersey’s Dark Chocolate minis I had just opened.

Absolutely…No…Willpower.  Twice I’ve walked over to the freezer to see if there was something sweet hiding behind those frozen Lean Cuisines.  This is despite knowing, “There ain’t nothing there!”  Wait…I wonder if Linda has something stashed in her purse…“F@#$ Me!”

My cravings have taken me down one of Alice’s rabbit holes.  Instead of enjoying a cup of tea with the Mad Hatter I’m thinking about thick, lard infused, buttermilk biscuits, “runnin’” in butter, topped with King Brand Golden Syrup.  Even those cravins’ are for naught.  No lard, no freshly churned butter, and no King Syrup.

As I mentally toast the Mad Hatter’s similar insanity, I regale him with stories of peanut butter and Missouri cookies served by my grandmother.  They too are favorites from my youth, but for some reason, this morning it’s biscuits and King Brand Golden Syrup.

Biscuits and honey, you say Mad Hatter?  I would not turn it down…it’s just that in the memories of my youth it wasn’t honey, it was Golden Syrup…or maybe molasses…”Wait! I have molasses…a little toast drizzled in blackstrap molasses!”  Nope!  It ain’t what I want.

Growing up in a Southern rural area one might think I would crave honey…or sorghum.  One would be wrong.  I found sticky, sweet heaven in a large, red labeled metal can featuring a lion’s head and a pry-off lid.  Made in Maryland, somehow the syrupy ambrosia found its way South to the shelves of Pettus’s Store.  From there the contents had found their way onto the cathead biscuits my grandmother had made and placed before me.   A dessert fit for a King…or made by a King…All Hail!

Some people don’t consider biscuits and sawmill gravy a meal.  My guess…those same people would not consider butter covered biscuits drowning in a King Syrup a dessert.  Their loss…and mine cuz I ain’t got none.

Well, Mad Hatter…I’ve no biscuits and no King Syrup.  All I have are the memories of a small kitchen and the narrow dining area that went with it.  The warm biscuits on a chipped china plate with freshly churned butter. and the red labeled tin waiting at the ready.

My heart is thankful for the memories and much “heart” healthier because the memories are all I have…until I get myself to a grocery store.

For further trips down a rabbit hole, Don Miller’s author’s page can be found at https://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

 

Could it be the Lard? Said the Spider to the Candle Fly.

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Who knew the shingles could be such a great diet aid. The day before they hit I stood on my scales and commented out loud to myself and the spider creating the web above the back door, “You better be careful, your weight has been creeping up. You are about five pounds above where you want to be…need to be.” The spider ignored me and continued “casting” her web.

That was a month ago and I no longer am concerned about being five pounds too heavy. Now I’m worried about having lost twelve pounds without trying. The spider doesn’t seem to be too concerned although the candle fly joining her in the web seems genuinely frightened to death. Why am I thinking of a spider in female terms? Anyway….

Because of my weight loss and the reinvigorated appetite coinciding with the passing of the shingles, I decided to go on a quest, the holiest of quest. No, I am not joining Percival questing for the Holy Grail, my quest involves gaining four or five pounds using flour, cream, baking powder and …well there is my problem. My quest is to create a biscuit just like my grandmother made; tall “catheads” with a break midway, buttery crisp on the outside, yet moist, light and fluffy on the inside. I’ve tried cold butter ala Bobby Flay, both shortening and butter from Paula Dean and all I have to show for my efforts is a net gain of two pounds. They were good biscuits, worth the two pounds gained, especially the peppered version by Flay, but it’s still not quite right.

It’s my fault. I should have pressed my grandmother for her recipe earlier before she had entered the twilight of her mind. When I finally asked for her recipe, the best she could give me were her dry ingredients and a statement, “When it all comes together it will feel right.” I remember my father saying something similar about love. It took me a while to get that right but I have actually been more successful with my quest for love than my quest for the perfect biscuit…wait, I am no longer questing for love…well, I guess its love for a biscuit.

Well, Miss Spider, what do you think? More silence and for some reason, the candle fly has ceased her struggles.

My mind has been playing around with a thought…the one I’ve tried to ignore. Could it have been lard? Epic pork fat at one hundred and thirty percent of your daily fat requirements in one serving. And if I add a little sausage or sawmill gravy…I’m a dead man. What do you think spider? Could it be the lard?

My quest might be for the impossible. Did Percival ever find the Grail? Okay, yes and no, depending on which version you read. Maybe I have created a standard in my mind that will be impossible to find or meet…well, I still have five or six pounds to play with before I must give up my quest.

Okay, spider…what did you do with the candle fly?

“Looking for answers to questions that bothered him so” For more musings and other stuff from Don Miller, check his author’s page at https://goo.gl/pL9bpP

MAGIC ON A CHINA PLATE

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Triggered, appropriately, by a comment about an oyster po’boy, I was taken back to a time when I discovered I had fallen in love with food. I mean really in love. I’m so in love with food, I usually begin planning my next meal while I’m eating the one I am presently eating…sometimes two or three meals in advance. The seduction occurred sometime after I had my tonsils removed in 1956. I don’t understand how my tonsils were related to my taste buds but considering the sixty-year war I have fought with my weight, there must have been some sort of bond. I am presently winning one of the many battles I have fought in my war on weight but I realize I am just a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice-cream from falling off the wagon…or into a food truck.

I associate food with love. It’s my grandmother’s fault. She was never the most demonstrative person when showing affection unless it was with a plate of peanut butter cookies…or a split cathead biscuit dripping in butter and King Golden Syrup. I guess several cathead biscuits dripping…served on a chipped china plate with a jelly glass filled with milk on the side. I’m sure she had saved S & G Green Stamps for the china…or purchased them individually through the weekly grocery store offers. I never asked if she ever collected a complete set. I remember the different scenes in blue I exposed as I mopped up the extra syrup and butter with another biscuit. There is no greater demonstration of love than a biscuit dripping butter and syrup. Magic, pure magic.

Food was usually placed in front of me along with some form of praise, “Donnie you’ve been a good boy, here have a cookie or five.” “Donnie, you did such a good job sorting my buttons, you want a biscuit?” No, she did not withhold food if I was naughty. If that had been the case I probably wouldn’t have my weight problem unless looking like a bag of bones fleeing famine is a weight problem.

I don’t look like a bag of bones because shortly after my tonsils went to tonsil heaven I fell in love with a hog…whose spirit had gone to hog heaven. The hog’s earthly body had been buried but not in a grave. The porker had been slow cooked in the ground all night long before being pulled, shredded or chopped…I really don’t remember which, I just remember the taste…the taste of magic…the taste of love. Served with a mustard sauce, slaw, bread and butter pickles and barbeque hash over white rice. It was magic on a paper plate instead of china.

A decade or so later I would find myself being seduced as an immature Newberry College freshman. Tempted by heaven in a brown paper bag. The “Dopey Burger.” Dopey ran a hole in the wall hamburger joint named The Tomahawk Café across the road from Cromer Hall. He had a real name but everyone just called him Dopey and the café, Dopey’s. Names didn’t matter because it was about the burger. A burger featuring a huge handmade patty on a soft and sensual sesame seed bun, mayonnaise spread copiously on both sides edge to edge. With a sweet onion slice I really didn’t need the lettuce and tomato on the burger but felt it looked naked without it. Despite its covering, I fondled it anyway. I understand why porn addicts have issues breaking their porn habit. I remember taking the burger out of its wax paper wrapper, exposing it to the world, it’s very scent playing to my basest instinct, gluttony. Mayonnaise and grease leaking out, covering my fingers…dripping down my chin…staining the paper napkins on my desk…I was addicted to the “Dopey Burger” and to make things worse, Dopey offered to run a tab. “I can’t graduate until I pay how much?

I so love food; even my more traditional romantic remembrances tend to have a food component accompanying the memory. A honeymoon dinner at the Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. Magical the way it rolls off the tongue. The Columns Hotel on St. Charles Avenue. Due to an empty dining room, we had our own personal waiter who resembled Santa Claus in a tuxedo. Does Santa wait tables in the off season? He did have on a red cummerbund. It went well with his white beard and gloves. I remember Linda Gail’s floral dress and her beautiful face smiling at me from across her…plate, the polished paneled walls, the soft music playing in the background, a Bloody Mary with a pickled okra pod for garnish and THE BLACKENED RED FISH TO DIE AND GO TO HELL FOR. I also remember the Oysters Rockefeller. Who knew spinach could taste so scrumptious surrounding an oyster and dripping in an herb, breadcrumb, and butter sauce. The evening was memorable due in part to the food. Love Linda Gail, love food! Loved the drunken chase after a street car later, but we should wait for the street car story. Oh my!

To quote author Rick Bragg, “I know magic when I taste it.” He and I must be related, I do too and it doesn’t have to be far from home. My latest magical moment was a fried catfish taco at a new restaurant in nearby Travelers Rest.
Whether it’s fried chicken and catfish at a hole in the wall soul food spot in Georgetown, crab bisque at a Cajun establishment in Hendersonville, Dutch Fork barbeque in Batesburg or shrimp and grits almost anywhere, it really requires only one thing to make it magic, love. Love for good food and the good woman I’m sharing it with…it doesn’t even have to be served on china.

Uniquely Southern, uniquely insightful, books by Don Miller can be bought or downloaded at http://goo.gl/lomuQf