What's the History of Southern Biscuits?

Fluffy biscuits are a cornerstone of Southern cuisine, but they're a relatively recent invention. Learn the history behind this baked good in today's episode of BrainStuff. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren bog Obam here. When you think of light, fluffy biscuits,
you may think of the other traditional foods from the
American South that they pair so well with a fried chicken,
gravy and homemade jam. But biscuits like the ones we
eat today in the United States are fairly modern culinary creations.

(00:22):
Throughout much of history, biscuits weren't at the center of
dreamy breakfasts or chicken dinners. They were hard, thin, durable, dry,
and meant for survival. The word biscuit comes from the
Latin word panis biscottis, which means twice baked, and so
it's no coincidence that a biscuit was once similar to biscotti,
the Italian cookies that actually are twice baked. Soldiers in

(00:44):
ancient Rome received hard biscuits in their rations. They had
no leavening agent or fat, so they lasted a long time.
Hard biscuits of some type or the m r e
s or meals ready to eat of military personnel for
centuries and have been known by the names hard tech,
ship's biscuit, sea biscuit, and pilot bread. Fast forward to
the Antebellum South, Biscuits were still tough and flat and

(01:05):
typically were only eaten in wealthy homes. Most people living
in the South at the time ate corn bread instead.
That's because most mills in the South were great at
grinding corn but not at processing wheat, so only the
rich could afford flour, which often had to be shipped
in from northern states. Beaten biscuits, which could be considered
the precursor to the modern Southern biscuit, were only a

(01:27):
little better than hardtack. They included fat like butter or lard,
but still no leavening agent, so beaten biscuits remained flat
and only slightly lighter because the dove required fifteen minutes
of kneading or beating. It wasn't until several nineteenth century
innovations came along that we got what's now recognized as
a Southern biscuit. First, better flour mills, most of them

(01:48):
in the midwestern United States, and increased wheat production dropped
the price of flour enough that less than wealthy Southerners
could also afford to buy flour, And the development of
chemical leavening agents such as potassium carbonate potassium bicarbonate and
sodium bicarbonate, what we now call baking soda, helped biscuits
reach new heights without yeast or beaten eggs. If you're

(02:09):
going to bake your own fluffy, flaky biscuits at home,
it's not hard, but a few details are important. Keep
your butter cold. Don't let it get too soft while
you're working it into the flour. You want the butter
to melt when the biscuits are cooking in the oven,
because melting butter produces steam that will help the biscuits rise. Also,
to make the most of the leavening power of your

(02:29):
baking soda and baking powder, bake the biscuits as soon
as you mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Baking
soda starts to work as soon as it's moist, and
those biscuits will lose some height if you let the
dough sit. Finally, use a biscuit cutter, cookie cutter, or
a sharp knife to cut the biscuit dough. Don't use
a glass, and if you do use a cutter, don't
twist it. Nice clean edges help the dough rise. Today's

(02:57):
episode was written by Sean Chavis and produced by tie
Acclaim Sean provided his own biscuit recipe to accompany the story.
You can find it by searching for the light and
fluffy history of Southern biscuits available on our home planet,
how stuff works dot com.