Erika Council knew it was over with the man she was dating when he confused biscuits for dinner rolls.
"Dinner rolls for breakfast; that seems like a lot," he told her.
When Council explained she'd baked biscuits, not rolls, that man wondered aloud what the difference was, anyway.
Council relays the story in the introduction to "Still We Rise," a beautifully written and photographed ode to biscuits. The voice of the author, who also owns Bomb Biscuit Co. in Atlanta, nearly drips with incredulity from the pages.
"He had this weird vibe about Southern food in general, which killed whatever feelings I had for him," Council later said over the phone, laughing in her kitchen. "I'll never forget it. I've never had anyone turn their nose up at a biscuit."
Her mom knew there was something wrong with that man. The relationship would not last.
But Council's beloved biscuits? That's a whole other story.
"They're the longest enduring relationship I've ever had," Council said. "They've never failed me, never treated me badly ... they're comforting in my time of need, anything you'd ever want in a partner."
Council will tell you she's like an old Southern grandma who has a story for everything. Her relationship with biscuits begins with her grandmother, whose stories painted pictures of a Jim Crow South that united occasionally, but very rarely, over Southern food.
Council's paternal grandmother was Mildred Edna Cotton Council, also known as "Dip," a nickname she earned for the 6-foot frame that enabled her to dip into the bottoms of rain barrels for fresh water. She was an extraordinary culinary icon who wrote the cookbook "Mama Dip's Kitchen."
Erika Council has a strong literary and culinary lineage. It's her maternal grandmother Geraldine Dortch, an educator with an advanced degree from Columbia University, whose love for biscuits inspired Council's own.
It was Dortch who gave Council CleoraButler’s cookbook, "Cleora’s Kitchens: The Memoir of a Cook & Eight Decades of Great American Food,"and it was Dortch who ate the first biscuits Council ever baked, an effort that almost burned down the kitchen.
"But she sat there and ate the biscuits," Council recalled. "I had absolutely annihilated that batch of biscuits."
It was Dortch whose dementia, whose slow loss of stories, inspired Council to pore more deeply into Butler's words, how Butler's mom made such great biscuits that everyone wanted to gather around her in the kitchen.
Council felt a kindred spirit with the author, a Black woman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, whom she'd never met.
"I thought, when I get to a certain age, I'll be like that," Council said.
But in her quest to learn more about biscuits and the Black Southern women whose history is intertwined with their recipes, Council often found that those very voices were underrepresented. Worse, erased. Especially when it came to more intricate baked goods such as sourdough loaves.
"It's like the best bakers of the stuff that's more scientific, the intellect level has to be white," she said. "At least that's how it reads to me, and that's just not true."
Council's own great aunt Fannie used to keep little jars of starter around her house, some in the shade, some in the window, some in strange places.
"And she would open it and smell it and say 'This is the one I'll use today,'" Council said. "With this one molasses starter, she made brown bread that was the best thing I ever had."
When Council bakes, the recipes she uses and the memories she conjures aren't usually from mainstream baking sources. They're from church ladies. They're from grandmothers who never wrote cookbooks, some who did but never found widespread success, and some who briefly found the spotlight but would have been household names were they white, such as Lena Richards.
"I hearken back to the people I learned from," Council said. "They all look like me."
As for Council, she's since married a man who appreciates a woman with a sure hand with Southern food.
"I just made sweet tea, and he looked at me with adoration," Council said.
More about Richards:The 'fabulous' Lena Richards
The following recipes and headnotes were reprinted with permission from Erika Council's "Still We Rise: A Love Letter to the Southern Biscuit with Over 70 Sweet and Savory Recipes."
Duke's Mayo Biscuits
The practice of adding mayonnaise to cakes is often traced to the Depression era, when certain staple items such as eggs, milk and butter were rationed. Since mayonnaise consists of egg yolks, oil, lemon juice, vinegar and spices, it was used as a substitute for fresh eggs and fat. And since it’s mainly oil, it adds a moist and tender texture to biscuits, and the little bit of acid it contains assists in making those biscuits rise. Duke’s mayonnaise is my secret ingredient in everything from buttery golden grilled cheese to scrambled eggs to — now you know — biscuits. If you cannot find Duke’s in your area, you can substitute another brand such as Hellmann’s or Best Foods.
Yield: 12 biscuits
Ingredients
- 3 cups / 360 grams all-purpose flour, plus extra for folding and cutting
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ cup Duke’s mayonnaise
- 1 cup full-fat buttermilk, cold
Instructions
Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 450°F.
Place the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl and whisk to combine.
Add the mayonnaise and stir gently with a spatula until combined and no large clumps of mayonnaise remain. Add the buttermilk and stir gently until the dough forms into a ball and no dry bits of flour are visible. The dough will be shaggy and sticky.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and lightly dust with flour. With floured hands, pat the dough into a ½-inch-thick 11×6-inch rectangle. Fold the ends of the rectangle toward the center, one end on top of the other, to create a trifold. Dust the top lightly with flour, press out to the same size rectangle again, and repeat the folding. Repeat this process a third time. After the third folding, pat the dough to a ½-inch thickness and cut out the biscuits using a floured 3½-inch biscuit cutter. Be careful to press straight down and do not twist the cutter.
Place the biscuit rounds 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps, reshape them and pat the dough out to a ½-inch thickness. Cut out as above. Discard any remaining scraps.
Bake 15 to 20 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through, until the tops are golden brown. Serve immediately.
Chocolate Chip Biscuits
If there is a way to incorporate chocolate into any dish, I’m going to find it. These biscuits are studded with chocolate chips that melt into the layers of the dough as it bakes. They’ve become somewhat of a signature item at Bomb Biscuit Co., where we often end up selling them by the dozen rather than just ones or twos.
We’re that happy place where biscuit lovers and chocolate enthusiasts meet. Each bite is like eating a biscuit that’s been dipped in chocolate gravy, which I highly recommend. The recipe calls for semisweet chocolate chips, but you can switch things up and use dark chocolate, too.
Yield: 12-13 biscuits
Ingredients
- 2½ cups / 300 grams all- purpose flour, plus extra for folding and cutting
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1½ teaspoons kosher salt
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, cold, cut into ½-inch chunks
- 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, cold
- 1½ cups full-fat buttermilk, cold
- ½ cup (4 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Adjust the oven rack to the middle position and preheat the oven to 450°F.
Place the flour, baking powder, salt and baking soda in a large bowl and whisk to combine.
Using your fingers, a pastry cutter or a fork, work the shortening into the flour mixture until only pea-sized pieces of shortening remain. Using the slicing side of a box grater, slice the butter into the flour mixture. Toss the sheets of butter in the flour. Then lightly work the butter pieces between your fingers or use a pastry cutter to break them up and coat them with flour. Stop when the dough resembles coarse sand and there are still some small visible pieces of butter.
Place the biscuit mixture into the freezer for 15 minutes.
Add the buttermilk and stir gently with a spatula until the dough forms into a ball and no dry bits of flour are visible. The dough will be shaggy and sticky.
Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and lightly dust with flour. With floured hands, pat the dough into a ½-inch-thick 11×6-inch rectangle. Fold the ends of the rectangle toward the center, one end on top of the other, to create a trifold. Sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the dough. Using your hands or a rolling pin, press the chips into the dough. Dust the top lightly with flour, press out to the same size rectangle again, and repeat the folding and sprinkling of chocolate chips. Repeat this process a third time. After the third folding, pat the dough to a ½-inch thickness and cut out the biscuits using a floured 2½-inch biscuit cutter. Be careful to press straight down and do not twist the cutter.
Place the biscuit rounds 1 inch apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Gather the scraps, reshape them and pat the dough out to a ½-inch thickness. Cut out as above. Discard any remaining scraps.
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes, rotating the pan once halfway through, until the tops are golden brown. Serve immediately.
