Here's what I want to do. I want to ask you to tell me about the time when you first made
the very first time you made biscuits. Tell me that story again, so I want to get it on
tape for the future. Well, when I made them the first time, I was 11 years old, and Mom
all had had a baby. Well, anyway, I knew that, well, the first time I made them, she
hadn't had that baby. She was showing me how. And I went in to make those biscuits, and boy,
I got disgusted. I just couldn't handle it, and I quit. And so she said, well, you're
going to have to make some biscuits. So I thought about it, thought about it. So I thought
myself, well, I believe I can do it anyway. You know, I had tried and got my hands all
mixed up in it, and I didn't like it, and I quit. She had all that throw away and started
again, you know. But anyway, after that baby was born, I had, Daddy told them, the rest
of the children said, now, Lucille's going to have to make biscuits. And don't any of
you criticize them or say anything about them, because she's going to do the best she can.
Well, I made those biscuits, and I just rolled them too long, and they were hard, you know,
they even cracked up. So when we went to the table that night, they, some of the boys car
lying in someone's life, you know. And Carlisle said to Pete, said, do you, have you got,
how we got old cat, we'd let it kill. Me and Nick could throw the biscuit at it and kill
it, you know. It was so hard. And Daddy said, all right, now boys, you know what I told
you. They didn't say no more about it. And I made biscuits several times before Mama
got able. And then it's when I learned how. And I was 11 years old. Me making them ever
since.
Can you tell me, just off the top of your head, how to make them, like the recipe, what's
in them, how you do it?
Well, I was thinking about yesterday when I was making those biscuits. I reached in that,
I took my pan, and I reached in that bag, and I got three handfuls of flour like this,
you know, and put it in the pan. And I thought, well, that will make enough as many biscuits
as they would want at the time, you know, probably. And then I took me a glass of this
high milk out. And then I took my lard, a Smithville lard, one I use. And what's that?
You can use mayonnaise. I used to make them, and I should be eating them right on. Mayonnaise
and just a little bit of tablespoon full of oil and mayonnaise. And they're not going
to be as much fat in them, you know. And then I took about that lard, and I guess I could
have held it like this into my hand that I put in the biscuit. And then I started pouring
a little milk in it, made me a little hole, you know, and put the lard in the center.
And then poured a little milk and mixed, meant to begin to mash it up, the lard and the flour
with it and mixed it all up. And you kept pouring a little milk and kept mixing, kept
mixing until I had, I would say, half of the, or a little more of the flour mixed in, you
know. And then I made it dry by putting in dry flour, you know, rolled it around, made
me a little ball about that big. And then I kneaded it. You know what I'm talking about?
Rolled it, kneaded it, and got it to about the consistency that I thought it ought to
be, you know. And then I took my little biscuit lard and I smeared it all over the pan, just
a little all over it, you know. And then I pinched off my little biscuits and rolled
them around like this. That's the way I do mine. Then laid them in there and then pat
it in the mouth. And then I had a little milk left, and I just stick my hand in there and
pour a little on my hand in this, put a little on the top of it, and let them sit a few minutes.
And then while the oven was heating, let them sit there a few minutes, and they began to
rise a little bit. The milk gets all in there, you know, wet some good. And then I put in
them 450 degrees. And what I do, I just put them in there and let them sit there about
10 minutes. And then I look, start looking to see when they get as brown as I want them,
and whenever they do, they'll take them out. It takes them, I would say, about 30 minutes
to cook them.
And you use buttermilk instead of milk?
Buttermilk. They rise better and they're spongier than sweet milk.
When you measure out that milk, you just know that you have a glass that you kind of use?
I know about. It's that little glass you drank water out of last night, at that size, about
like this, that I poured milk in. I'm 77. How many years I make biscuits? About 60. More
than 60, about 66 years. I let's see all biscuits I've ever made. How about this house wouldn't
hold?
Well, see, the good thing about that is, since you make them, we eat them faster than you
make them, so it just gets a bunch of people over here and then we take care of them.
I don't think, I imagine every biscuit I've ever made has been eaten. I don't feel like
I'm eating any of them, it's been thrown away.
