Month: June 2008

This morning, my friends Alan and Tammy sent me emails with the article from today’s NY Times about the White Lily mill in Knoxville closing.

Smucker’s has bought White Lily and they are making it up north. As of the end of *this month*, White Lily won’t be Southern any more! And not just that, but what makes White Lily what it is – the source of the wheat and the exact way it’s milled…well, here is the entire article and here are some excerpts:

FOR generations of Southern bakers, the secret to weightless biscuits has been one simple ingredient passed from grandmother to mother to child: White Lily all-purpose flour.

Biscuit dives and high-end Southern restaurants like Watershed in Atlanta and Blackberry Farm outside Knoxville use it. Blue-ribbon winners at state fair baking contests depend on it. On food lovers’ Web sites, transplanted Southerners share tips on where to find it, and some of them returning from trips back home have been known to attract attention when airport security officers detect a suspicious white dust on their luggage.

White Lily is distinctly Southern: it has been milled here in downtown Knoxville since 1883 and its white bags (extra tall because the flour weighs less per cup than other brands) are distributed almost solely in Southern supermarkets, although specialty stores like Williams-Sonoma and Dean & DeLuca have carried it at premium prices.

But at the end of June, the mill, with its shiny wood floors, turquoise and red grinders and jiggling armoire-size sifters, will shut its doors. The J. M. Smucker Company, which bought the brand a year ago, has already begun producing White Lily at two plants in the Midwest, causing ripples of anxiety that Southern biscuits will never be the same.

Maribeth Badertscher, a spokeswoman for the company, said the new White Lily was the result of thorough product testing and promised that customers “won’t know the difference.” But in a blind test for The New York Times, two bakers could immediately tell the old from the new.

—

The passion for White Lily is more than simple nostalgia.

“All you have to do is take a little bit in your hand and take some all-purpose flour in the other hand and just look at it,” said Shirley O. Corriher, the Atlanta-based author of “CookWise,” about the science of cooking, and a forthcoming companion volume called “BakeWise.” “There’s an incredible difference. It’s much, much finer, much whiter and much silkier. You’re going to get a finer textured cake.”

—

It may also explain why many Northerners’ attempts to replicate Southern delicacies fall flat. Low-protein flour absorbs less liquid, so a recipe designed for White Lily won’t work with other flours. Cake flour or another low-protein flour like Martha White are the closest substitutes.

—

A blind test by two bakers, who were sent bags of the old and new product marked only A and B, underscored Ms. Corriher’s concern.

Zoellyn Smith, who worked in both quality control and research and development at the Knoxville plant, accurately identified the new product before she began to bake. Sample A, the new product, had “a grayish color” and made a “dense and chewy” cake, while Sample B, the old, made for silky, rather than stiff, dough and a “light and airy” cake.

“When I looked at just the flour I thought that Sample B was milled in Knoxville,” she said. “After performing the bakes there was no doubt.”

But it did not take a specialist in food technology and plant sciences to guess right. Ms. Hilton, the amateur baker, said, “There wasn’t a big difference, but I could tell the difference.” Even her family knew which batch was made with flour milled in the Midwest. “The biscuits came out just a little more dense, and the texture wasn’t quite as smooth.”

I sent an email this morning to Smuckers asking how I can tell when I go to the grocery store this weekend to buy sacks & sacks & sacks of White Lily whether it was milled in Knoxville or up north. I will update as soon as I hear.

I’m going to freeze bunches of it…

Updated! Update 1, Update (final) 2

How many biscuits can you eat this mornin’?
How many biscuits can you eat this evenin’?
How many biscuits can you eat?
Forty-nine and a ham of meat! (sometimes people sing “and a pound of meat”)
This morning…this evening…right now…

Do you know that song? It’s old, I think I found it on a cd of traditional songs from field recordings. I sing it in my head every time I make biscuits. Unfortunately that’s the only verse I can remember! Then there’s another that goes something like “biscuits in the morning, biscuits in the evening, biscuits at…” is it ‘biscuits at suppertime’? But suppertime is in the evening, so does that make sense? I may have that wrong.

Likely, because I get lyrics wrong all the time. And I get old sayings wrong too. Seriously, I said this to Av last week:

“Well if that’s not the needle in the haystack that broke the camel’s back!”

We both had a good laugh over that one – after I realized I had stuck two different things together – but we both knew what I meant!!

Anyway!

Last week I made my buttermilk biscuits and finally took pics so I can post the recipe! These are extra-special because they’re made in Av’s grandmother’s cast iron skillet. And the great thing about old cast iron skillets is that they’ve been used/seasoned so much that nothing will stick – really. You just have to remember to never-ever put it in the dishwasher, and to just wash it out by hand and dry it off immediately. Good old cast iron skillets can be passed down for generations.

—
The trick to these biscuits is to oil the skillet and put it in the oven cold, then switch the oven to 450* and let it get up to temperature. That’s what gives the biscuit bottom a nice crust.

Oh, and if you (like me) don’t enjoy rolling things out, there’s no rolling with these – overhandling dough makes it tough – so that’s another big plus. These are beautifully free-form.

Ingredients (this recipe makes 14 or 15 biscuits but I make half this recipe all the time and it always comes out. In the pictures below, I have made half this recipe.):
oil for pan
2 cups flour – White Lily is my favorite
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp ice-cold butter, cut into small bits, each a little bigger than a kernel of corn
buttermilk – this amount will always vary but start with 1/2c. and add as needed

Directions:
The first thing to do is to oil the pan – pour some in, swish it all around the bottom and halfway up the sides, then take a paper towel and remove the excess (but don’t get it completely dry). Put it in the oven, and then set the oven to 450*.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the cold butter pieces and get them coated:

The reason it’s so important to keep the butter cold is because of the steam that is generated when the butter melts. The steam is what makes the inside of the biscuit so nice and airy. If the butter isn’t still really cold and in little-bitty pieces when it goes in the skillet, it’s not going to make all that steam.

Add the buttermilk slowly, just add until you get to a good dough consistency. Not too dry, not too wet (and the amount used will always be different, I guess because of the weather or something. Not sure.). Be careful not to overmix because that will make the biscuits tough. It should still be messy on your hands when you pick it up to make the biscuit shape:

Take a potholder and get the super-hot, 450* skillet out of the oven, then take little mounds of biscuit dough in your hand and put them in the skillet. You’ll be able to see the minute you put them in that they will start sizzling on the bottom. Get the potholder and put it back in the oven…

I start checking on the biscuits at 8 minutes but I don’t think they’ve ever been done in less than 15. Mostly they take around 20-22 minutes to get nice and golden brown:

Now that is a pretty biscuit! And it wasn’t rolled out or anything! It’s just a pretty shape made by hand:

It’s got that nice crust on the bottom:

…and super-light and airy inside.
These don’t even need butter – they just come out perfect. Well, maybe with a little mayhaw jelly at breakfast…

This was Av’s first *real* Father’s Day! We had a cookout with family over, and had a giant iced cookie for dessert. Shug and I got him an iPod since the new car has a plugin for it, and this is one he can put pictures on too, plus a stereo-thingie so he can use the iPod at his office. He loved everything and of course the best part of all was that he really can celebrate the holiday since we have Shug (and of course, Shug saying “dada dada dada!” all the time makes him sooo happy!)!

We were in a neighborhood that we’re not familiar with on Monday, looking for a restaurant we had heard wonderful things about when we passed by this house.

There are four suits of armor on the roof, at least two on the front porch, and…you can’t see it here, but a faux crocodile guarding the fountain in this home’s side courtyard. And how many homes do you know have a big clock above the front door?

I would love to meet the people that live here. I think.

—
That reminded me of a place I’ve heard of called Medieval Times – it’s a dinner and ‘tournament’ place where you eat while performers do things like jousting and…oh gosh, you know, I have no idea really, but that kind of King Arthur thing I guess. There are several of them around, even one in Atlanta.

In Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and a couple of other places, there’s a similar-type dinner show, except it’s called Dixie Stampede and I heard that if you go, you either cheer on the Yankees or the Rebels.

When I just Googled these two places, I found two other dinner ‘adventures’ – one called Pirate’s Dinner Adventure and another called Arabian Nights.

I’ve never been to any of those places, but I wonder if it might be fun…I mean, is it so hokey it’s funny, or is it something you can genuinely get into?

I’ve been to a regular dinner theater two or three times – but those are places where you watch a regular play/show on a small stage rather than be in an arena with thirty horses running around. The first time I went to dinner theater was in high school, I think with my Speech and Drama class, and we saw “Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” about experiences in a Catholic private school.

I will never forget it, because we got served a salad with mushrooms and I got choked on one. Could not breathe. I mean, I could not breathe!! My best friend Beky saw what was going on and was just about to either put me in the Heimlich or call the teacher or whatever and I *begged* her – while choking and turning blue – with some kind of impromptu sign language – to Do.Not.Do.Anything.

Seriously, it was high school. We were all having a good time. And I would have rather died there on the spot than everybody know that I was not big-girl enough to eat a mushroom without choking! hahahaha!!!

Well, somehow, it worked out and I’m still here. But that thought of everything stopping and everyone watching me turn into Violet Beauregarde was too much to bear. Oh, especially during high school.

As it turned out, I switched out of Speech and Drama class during the Christmas break for some other elective I was interested in. Speech and Drama had been so frustrating.

Our teacher was *wonderful* – beyond wonderful. She was very big on enunciating every single syllable. “Mountain” wasn’t “mown’n” anymore. It was MOWN TEHN (or something like that). And the word “towel” was supposed to sound like it was spelled rather than “tahl”. Every word that had an “R” at the end was actually supposed to be spoken with an “R” at the end! Can you imagine!?

Nevah!

Last night, I made banana pudding – you know, nana puddin – for everybody. Ooooh it was so good. This is my recipe, but I borrowed the idea from Screen Doors and Sweet Tea to serve it in Mason jars. Thing is, it didn’t occur to me how big those Mason jars were until I started filling them and realized “oh wow I think this is enough for like two or three people!”. Next time, I’ll use those cute little Mason jelly jars.

I’ve heard from a bunch of people that bought the Screen Doors cookbook – if you turn to her recipe it exchanges flour for cake flour and adds cinnamon and nutmeg, as well as calls for fancy cookies. Oh, and meringue on top. That all sounds nice, but I like my nana puddin a little more traditional. So no nutmeg, cinnamon, and nothing fancier than Nilla wafers. If you like meringue, that’s easy, but this one’s pretty humble.

This is for my PawPaw, who loved nana puddin. I miss him and think of him every time I eat a little bowl of it.

He grew up and lived his whole life in the same little town except for the years he was off in Europe fighting in WWII. He came home and worked at the steel plant. He married my sweet Nanny. He taught me to ride a bicycle (“okay PawPaw you can let go now” and he had let go at the other end of MawMaw’s backyard).

When he spoke, it would take forever because he had this delicious Southern drawl and any sentence would take two minutes to finish…at least.

He had one of those laughs that was so good – and it was just this great-big belly laugh – that even if you were a stranger and didn’t know what was funny, you would have to laugh along too.

My sweet PawPaw.

—
This nana puddin takes no time to make and it’s perfect for picnics.

Ingredients:
6 bananas, sliced
1 package Nilla wafers (you won’t use them all but they’re good for snacking too)
1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
2 tbsp. butter
1-1/2 tsp. vanilla
dash or two of salt

Directions:
Slice the bananas. Bananas that are unblemished and perfectly yellow are a little unripe for this. The ones that have a few freckles are a bit softer and do really well:

In a pan, add the flour, sugar, milk, and beaten egg yolks. Cook on medium heat, stirring the whole time with either a whisk or wooden spoon. Really, you do have to stir it the *whole* time.

For a long while it will seem very liquidy, then at a certain point you can see it changing – and from there you really have to keep an eye on it. Stir, stir, stir. When it coats the back of a spoon like this:

…you know you’re getting close.

Just a little while longer (stir, stir, stir) and it will turn right into pudding:

Take it off the stove the minute it gets to this stage and add the butter, vanilla, and salt to taste:

This recipe serves 5-6. If you’re using a small baking dish (like 8×8) just layer it wafers/bananas/half of the pudding/wafers/bananas/other half of the pudding. I’ve been to a little luncheon where it was served in mismatched teacups too. So pretty.

Here’s my too-big-for-this Mason jar. I put Nilla wafers and bananas on the bottom, a spoonful of puddin, then another layer of wafers and ‘nanas. Looks pretty good!

Really, though, I’ll use the little jelly jars next time.

Some people like nana puddin warm and others like it cold (I love it warm). You can serve it the minute it’s ready if you like or put it in the refrigerator and it will be nice and chilly in just a couple of hours. There’s a meat-and-three that Av and I go to that only serves it warm and even brags that they are the only place in town that does it that way. Yum!

Well, first of all, my computer broke. The one in the library.