getting down to biscuits

As most readers of this blog know, for a good long 13 years my family has had a yellow Labrador Retriever of whom we are quite fond. She answers to Biscuit.

I don't recall specifically any actual drops of blood or tears shed over the great puppy naming debate in the Cawein household back in December of 1995, but I can tell you that there were several meetings of the minds held on the topic, and that the three most concerned parties (ages 10, 13 and 15), hemmed and hawed excessively before coming to an agreement on the name Biscuit.

In reality, choosing a name for a new pet falls somewhere on the scale of Life Or Death Importance between getting a tattoo and choosing a breakfast cereal -- it is a fairly permanent situation, but the pet is probably going to love you just as much even if you do name it something thoughtlessly heinous, like Spot or Fluffy. But that is reality, and I was 10. This was a serious situation, but ultimately I remember being quite satisfied with the name Biscuit; it seemed to encapsulate just the right amount of utility and cuteness necessary for a good, strong puppy name. Utility, because any good pet name needs to be two syllables (or two southern syllables, as in words like "bad," "hell," "down," "sit," etc.) such that it can be called loudly across the yard or yelled across the living room, mid-piddle. And cuteness, because she was named for the golden color of her coat, which made her look like a perfectly browned, right-from-the-oven, biscuit.

You see, when I was growing up -- even years before the arrival of Biscuit, herself -- my family had long been strong supporters and consumers of biscuits. We ate biscuits with breakfast, we ate biscuits with dinner, we made biscuit sandwiches, we had them for dessert with jam or honey. And normally, this would be the place where I'd insert some comment about how I told you we were southern. But here's the thing, y'all.

I had no idea biscuits were a southern thing.

There are any number of things that I have always known, even before really leaving the south, were strictly below the Mason-Dixon, and many things strictly even lower. Grits would be a prime example. For whatever reason, I was never under any sort of illusions about grits being an international delicacy. Even in Kentucky I met people who couldn't tell grits from cream of wheat. (Which, I should point out, simply works toward proving my point that everywhere north of Tennessee is yankee-land.)

But biscuits? Really? On Saturday, I hung up the phone at the Philharmonic after finishing a call and said aloud, "This woman's name is Honey. Seriously." To which one of my co-workers replied, "I had an aunt named Bunny." I turned in my chair and said, "No, no. Not Bunny. Honey. Like you put on a biscuit."

She looked at me funny, and I automatically assumed her expression had something to do with her distaste over the honey/biscuit combo. Some people prefer jam, some gravy, some just plain butter. It takes all kinds, or something like that. So I said, "Well, that's what I like on my biscuits." To which she corrected me: "No, I wasn't saying that. We don't have biscuits here."

My face must have registered without an ounce of hesitation the complete shock I felt inside. No biscuits? They told me they eat french bread. I said, for breakfast!? Then another guy I work with started saying something about when you can, on rare occasion apparently, get a biscuit. And he said something about herbs and spices and flavors and I said, hold on just a tick here. A biscuit, is a biscuit, is a biscuit. I mean maybe they're Grands or maybe they're Kroger brand. But it's a biscuit. And it was in that moment that I knew he'd never eaten a real biscuit in his life. (I almost tried to explain what biscuits are made from, before I realized that the word about to escape my mouth was Bisquick, and dear GOD, do they even HAVE THAT HERE!?)

When I lived in London I accepted from the get-go that my biscuits and their biscuits were two very different things, and I loved them both the same for very different reasons. But I'm just not so sure I'm living in America if I'm living somewhere that doesn't celebrate the biscuit. Just to be sure I didn't need to pack up my things and move immediately back to the south, I asked one critical question.

"Y'all do eat cornbread, right?"


Thankfully, they all said yes.


cheers,
e. cawein