I learned to make biscuits when I was this side of 8 years old. We didn't have a Mama at home most of the time and the boys did the cooking, after my sister Ruby married.
I was just 7 years old at that time and little did I know that my outdoor days of running and playing were about to come to a curtailed end.
One day my brother Ernest said," come here gal, I'm gonna help you to fix some biscuits." I was so excited that I couldn't come fast enough. I still remember my first biscuits. Hard as rocks cause I had messed with the dough too much, messy looking with cracks cause I had not finessed the tuck and circular motion that makes them pretty, but within a year, I was making some pretty edible biscuits. I had more flour on me than the flour barrel in those days but I was so proud of my biscuits until I realized that my brother showed me how, so that he wouldn't have to get up to make them or get Daddy off to work. lol.
As the oldest girl at home, biscuit making fell to me when I could make a pretty good biscuit and I was this side of 9 when that happened. I did that most of the time, except that one yr or so that we had a live in housekeeper.
There were many 4 AM mornings after Daddy would make the fire and I made the biscuits that I would run to the only source of heat in the house, our small fireplace in the living room. My hands would throb and hurt so much from the cold, that when I would get a moment to warm them by the fire, pain would shoot through my fingers, and I would grit my teeth so that I would not make any noise.
I just made biscuits the other day to go with some sausage gravy and my daughter said, "Mama, those were some good biscuits."
They were pretty credible but my biscuits are a pale shadow of my Aunt Thelma's who lived to be 102 and 8 months, making biscuits in an iron skillet til she went home. Lordamercy to have another one of hers with some mater gravy or her fried chicken or smeared with butter and her Watermelon Rind Preserves.
I don't know if lil girls learn to make biscuits anymore but I am glad that I was taught, even if the motive wasn't quite pure. 😀
( Over the years, my brother taught me so many things and most of them I learned to do, except his perfect swan dive. I miss him since he went home in 2008 but I have many memories to help keep him close.)
