My friend Marilis, who is from Tennessee, has told me there are two things that every Southern woman should know how to make—biscuits and piecrust. She has also said, with a twinkle in her eyes, that it’s a good thing her husband, who is a Northerner, didn’t know this when they got married. In truth, I expect he did and then quite rightly decided it didn’t much matter that Marilis couldn’t make biscuits or piecrust. It’s a well-known fact that Northerners, especially Mainers, are as keen on biscuits and pie as Southerners are. Geography, climate, and, perhaps temperament might make Southerners and Northerners seem like opposites, but they are united in their love of biscuits and pie. 

My own mother was a good pie maker, but her biscuits were outstandingly good. They were so light and fluffy that they really did pretty much melt in your mouth. Although I have always used her recipe, my biscuits have never been as good as hers. She just had the knack. (Her biscuit recipe is in the post Using Leftovers: Biscuit Pizza.) 

Mom died two years ago in May, well before I started this blog and posted her biscuit recipe. She would have been thrilled to have her biscuit recipe online, but she would have been tickled beyond pink to know that her biscuit recipe has traveled south, to biscuit country, to North Carolina.

My friends Bob and Kate Johnson have gone to North Carolina to visit their daughter, Erin. Recently, I received an email from Kate describing how she had gone to a farmers’ market, bought some peach butter (among other things), and then made some of my mother’s biscuits to go with the peach butter. What a great combination! I am crazy about all things peach, and my one big regret about the Maine climate is that it’s too cold, as a rule, for peaches. (There are small microclimates in Maine where a peach tree or two can be grown, but they are the exception and are thus very rare. Alas, I have never seen local peaches at any Maine farmers’ market.) Erin liked the biscuits so much that she wants the recipe so that she can make them for herself. (Kate knows where to direct her.) 

A few more words about Erin. This is a young woman who grows herbs on her deck and who makes panfried black bean cakes for her parents when they come to visit. Pish posh on those naysayers who claim that young people “just don’t know much about food nowadays and don’t know how to cook, either.” Well, this young person does, and so do the young people in my life. If our children are cooking, then I suspect many other young adults are cooking, too. A good example of how generalizations are often wrong. 

As Mother’s Day approaches, it is lovely for me to think about how Mom lives on through her biscuit recipe, not only here in Maine with her family but also down south with another family. This sharing of recipes, passed down through the generations, illustrates food at its best, when it transcends mere sustenance to become a gift.