Ah, THE SMELL OF HOMEMADE BISCUITS

Have you ever smelled biscuits cooking in the oven?  I know this is a strange question but I am guessing you have not.  No, today we open a can of biscuits that Pillsbury made and we cook them according to the instructions on the can.  Those biscuits are great and I eat them myself but I do remember the smell of biscuits cooking in the oven and canned biscuits do not compare to the real thing.

 I remember the smell of biscuits cooking in my childhood kitchen.  If you were inside the house, the smell of hot biscuits was the signal to come to the table, our meal was almost ready.   Notice I did not say dinner; biscuits were made for every meal in those days.  I never gave much thought to the smell associated with biscuits being cooked, but there is a distinct odor that overrides other succulent odors in the kitchen. 

In my youth, I took those odors for granted.  It simply meant we were about to eat.  I did not consider the love that prepared the meal nor did I consider the logistics of a particular meal.  My father occasionally cooked a meal but the task of preparing meals was my moms and she was very good at taking care of us with her cullinary skills.  It was what we did back then.  We gathered, as a family, at “the” table and ate the meal mother had prepared.  I still don’t like liver but back then, I ate liver very slowly one very very small piece at a time.  It was that simple and yet today I see it all as having profound meaning.

There was no central air conditioning back then and even when it was cold outside, the kitchen was tight and warm.  For many years after we had left the home our gathering place was in the kitchen and not the living room.  In the summer months, we could smell a meal being prepared from the back yard.  We didn’t know life could be any different.  We didn’t know some families never sat together for a meal and we didn’t know how special it was for us at that time.  We passed the biscuits and deepened our love for each other without giving it much thought.  It just happened. 

All of us watched mother as she made the biscuits.  She could have taught the class on multi-tasking because she could mix the ingredients, stir the lima beans and set the table all at the same time.  She never measured anything when she made biscuits.  She would pour flour into the big wooden bowl and then create a hole in the middle with her hand.  Then she would put some lard in the middle and as she began to work the lard and flower together, she would add the buttermilk.  She never made a mess and she knew exactly how much to use to fill up the bread pan.  When all of the ingredients were thoroughly mixed, she would pull off a small piece of dough and form it into a biscuit.  The last thing she did to the biscuit was put a dimple in the very middle.  It was like her stamp of approval. 

All of mom’s biscuits were the same size and she cooked them at around 425⁰ until they were golden brown.  Occasionally she would create what we called a “hotdog” biscuit that was long instead of round.  Those biscuits were the prize we all wanted.  If we saw mom making bread, we would ask if there would be a hotdog biscuit.  If we saw a hotdog biscuit being formed, we laid claim to it before it even entered the oven.

Since we all watched mom make biscuits we kind of knew how to make biscuits ourselves.  Several months after I was married, I called my mother and asked her to guide me through as I made biscuits for my wife.  I was going to surprise her by making dinner and providing homemade biscuits.  I had all of the ingredients on the kitchen table and I was ready.  Mom told me to put some flour into my bowl.  I asked her how much and she said just put some in there.  Then she told me to make a hole in the middle and I moved my hand in the flour just like I had seen her do it so many years before. 

“Now put your lard in the middle,” she instructed. 

“How much,” I asked?

“Just get some on the ends of your fingers,” she replied.

As things progressed, I had no idea of how much of anything.  In the end, I had dough up to my elbows and it was a pure mess.  I hung up the phone and threw the whole pan full of pain into the trash can.  We dined that night on the meal I had cooked and some loaf bread.  The next time I cooked biscuits, they were edible.  All of us children could make biscuits but they were never as good as mom’s.

Our table was crowded but if one of us was missing, we all felt it.  It wasn’t the same and we all knew it.  Our food did not have fancy names but came from the garden of which we toiled with our own hands.  We all knew how to hoe the beans, pick the tomatoes, shuck the corn and snap the beans.   We knew how to lay a row and drop the seeds at the proper intervals.  We also learned how to use manure to make things grow bigger and better.  It was the way we lived then and at the time, we took it for granted.  Perhaps we even silently told ourselves that when we grew up, things would be different.

Chickens in the yard made many a Sunday meal.  It was special the way mom fried up a chicken making use of all the parts including the neck.  There was a crust on the chicken that would have made a staunch vegetarian a chicken lover.  No one could fry chicken like mother did.  Fatback gravy poured over crumbled biscuits or “hocake” along with some green beans and we were set to go.  Cornbread and milk and greens made yet another memorable meal. 

Christmas in the days of my childhood was a very special time not so much because of what we received but by the cooking mother would do.  There were numerous pumpkin pies, sweet potato pies, real chocolate cake with cooked icing and a coconut cake with real coconut.  These were made from scratch and our mothers love.  The most special part of this was there was no limit on how much you could have.  I once ate a whole pumpkin pie before breakfast on one Christmas morning.  It was just so good; I could not stop eating it.  The presents we received soon faded but the beauty of our kitchen was something that lives still.

A natural part of life is growth and so it happened with us.  David left first to be a US Marine and we felt the significant loss of his presence.  Gloria followed when she and Del were married.  Later I left to be a Marine followed by Doug who left to be a Soldier.  Karen went to college, Japan, Seminary and then to the great state of New York to do her work.  Joyce amazed us all by being the most tenacious and by her joy and ability in playing the piano.

We have each taken our own paths in life and established our own kitchens.  Professionals in every sense, our families embody the essence of the kitchen of our childhood.  We still hold the family table as something honorable and sacred.   We still abide by the table as a meeting place, a reference point and a common point of contact.  Even though the scriptures tell us in one part of a verse that “Man does not live by bread alone,” we continue to smell the bread in the oven of our childhood and we embrace the hands that prepared the meals that enabled us to become adults.  I may not have understood the true value of mom’s biscuits when I was young, but today the memory of the odor of bread in the oven carries me home and to a time of uncompromised love.