Angel Biscuits: A Tribute to my Grandma

Angel Biscuits: A southern specialty-a biscuit made with yeast to make them light and airy.

This weekend I went home to spend some quality time with my family. One of things I wanted to do was have Grandma teach me how to make her signature angel biscuits. Like many women of her generation, my grandmother is a great cook. Of all the things she makes, by far my favorite is her angel biscuits. I recently got the recipe from her and tried to make them myself and they turned out quite flat and rather bland. So, I decided I would spend an afternoon and make the biscuits with her so I could see just where I went wrong. While the biscuits were rising, Grandma and I talked about her childhood and other parts of her life. Some of the stories I had heard before and some were new to me. Not only did I learn a lot about how to make the biscuits, I learned a lot about my grandmother as well.

My grandmother was born in Lee County, Kentucky in 1920. Lee County is in the heart of Appalachia and my grandmother’s family lived out in the country. Her father worked on the railroads and when that work ended he packed up his wife and his three girls and moved to the “big” city of Lexington where he worked on horse farms. Another daughter was born in Lexington, so all in all there were four girls with my grandmother being the oldest.

Her mother, my great grandmother, was known to be a big worrier. She never let her daughters leave the backyard, ride a bike or skate. What she did allow them to do was cook and sew; therefore all the girls were experts in both as they did it since they were very small. However, Grandma told me when they knew their mother wasn’t paying attention, they would sneak out of the backyard. Once my grandmother snuck out of the yard and went skating with friends. Well, she ended up skating down a big hill, falling down and scraping both her knees up pretty bad. There was no hiding this from her mother and Grandma ended up getting a “good whippin’” for that one.

My grandmother was 8 years old when her youngest sister was born and being the oldest of the siblings, she was often in charge of helping her mother take care of the baby. My grandmother recalled one of her jobs was to rock the baby to sleep and being so upset because as soon as she would lay the baby down, it would start crying again. Imagine an 8 year old today taking care of an infant. She says sometimes she would get so mad, she would pinch the baby for crying and that would make her feel better.

Grandma’s mother wouldn’t let her start school until her sister (who was 18 months younger) was old enough to go, because she didn’t want her to stand out on the bus stop by herself. Luckily, her mother had already taught her how to read and write, so Grandma only had to stay in the first grade for one week and then was promoted to the 2nd grade.

On one hand, my grandmother seems to have a lot of respect for her mother. She talked about how she raised 4 girls, did all the cooking and cleaning, had a big garden and was always canning food. She recalled with pride how they would have apples all winter because her mother knew just how to store them. She seemed to be most proud of how her mother could “look at the Sears catalogue and then take the newspaper and draw out the pattern for the dress,” making all of her daughters’ clothes.

On the other hand, her mother was not the warmest parent. When Grandma was 14, her father died and her mother had to go to work. That left my grandmother in charge of the cooking, cleaning and basically raising of her younger sisters. Even though the next oldest was just 18 months younger, Grandma remembers that she had to go in the house right after school and start cooking and cleaning while her sisters were out in the backyard playing. Her mother wanted her to dust everyday and make sure dinner was on the table when she got home from work. Grandma remembered when her mother got home she would often say, “I can’t see a thing you’ve done”. I asked Grandma how she replied to that and she basically said that it hurt and she just took it except for a few words mumbled under her breath. Grandma knew her mother wasn’t the kind of person you could talk back to.

Around this same time, Grandma also helped out in the cafeteria at her school, wiping the lunch tables down and other tasks. The cafeteria staff must have somehow known her cooking talents as once when the cook called in sick, they sent for her (a 14 year old girl) and the home-economics teacher to cook lunch for everyone that day! When Grandma was in the 11th grade, her younger sister broke her leg and Grandma had to stay home and help take care of her. She never ended up going back after that and so she never finished high school until years later - after she was married and had all her children she decided to get her GED.

Her mother was not only a worrier, she was also stern. As my grandmother tells it, one night as a teenager, she went on a date and came home a few minutes late and her mother beat her. It is understood from the way she tells the story that it was not the first time this had happened. Grandma swore to herself that night that it would be the last. Not long after that, at the age of 17, she ran off with a man 10 years her senior and got married and had a son. She then got a job at a laundry, where she made a decent wage. Her husband, who was more of an escape from her mother than someone she loved, was a caddy at the golf course. This was apparently, as my grandmother tells it now, a job for a younger man and not really a respectable or well paying job for someone his age. When he came to her at the laundry and begged her for money for cigarettes, my Grandmother had enough. She told him, “Well, I can take of my baby with the money I earn, but I’m not taking care of you.” And that was that. She went crawling back to her mom, baby in tow. You better believe that her mother didn’t let her live that one down.

When she was still working at the laundry, she met my grandfather. “Shorty” (as he was called), was 5’2” and was quite a likeable character who knew everyone in town. He had moved from Eastern Kentucky to work on a horse farm. He lived at a hotel near a drug store and ate almost every meal there. Grandma would sometimes eat lunch there too and that’s how they met. Eventually, grandma got a job at the drug store working the counter where they served food. Some time passed and they were engaged to be married. Grandma’s sister was also engaged and they planned to have a double wedding, but Shorty got his papers from the armed service that he was being called up, so they had to move the wedding date up. Grandma remembered that once she took the train from Kentucky to visit my grandfather where he was stationed in Texas. Her mother was not pleased that she went off by herself with her son on a train full of soldiers. But, Grandma was determined to see her husband.

Around this time, tuberculosis was in full swing and because my grandmother worked as a cook, she had to be tested for it. They found a shadow on her lung and the same week that my grandfather got his first leave from the service, she had to be taken to a sanatorium. They did get to spend the week together and he dropped her off at the sanatorium on his way out of town. Her mother was against her going to the sanatorium mostly, grandma believed, because she was stuck taking care of Grandma’s son.

After 6 months, Grandma was released from the sanatorium and after he served his time, Grandpa returned home and they started their own family. Grandma and Grandpa had 4 more boys for a total of 5 boys! (My father, was the first born to Grandma and Grandpa.) My grandmother, who had been raised with 3 younger sisters, who was only allowed to cook, clean and sew was now in charge of 5 wild, rough and tumble boys! Because she so hated how restrictive her mother had been, she took the opposite approach at raising her sons. As long as they went to school and were home for dinner, Grandma basically let them play wherever they wanted in the neighborhood. This would upset her mother who would constantly ask her, “Don’t you know where those boys are?”

Sadly, my grandfather died of a heart attack one month before I was born. But I know him from the stories that my dad, grandma and sister tell. Dad says you couldn’t walk with him on the streets downtown without him running into someone he knew and that if he didn’t know someone, he would meet someone. I know that he was a truck driver and at 5’2” had no problem driving the big rigs. I know that he was crazy about my sister and his other grandkids and my dad says if he had ever met me I would have been able to get anything I wanted. More than this though, I believe he was the best thing that ever happened to my grandmother. His good-natured, fun-loving personality was just what my grandmother needed.

Continuing her talent in the kitchen, my grandmother worked as a cafeteria manager at an elementary school for 20 years. I can remember that she would always have the school pizzas that I loved so much in stock in her freezer. Angel biscuits were a main recipe in the elementary school system at that time and all through my school years as well. No telling how many times my grandmother made those biscuits.

My grandmother has led a full life, raised five boys, had many grandchildren and great- grandchildren. She survived a stern mother, a bad marriage, tuberculosis, the death of her husband and breast cancer. At 85, she still lives in her own house and drives to her weekly hair appointment, to the grocery, to visit her sister, and to church and doctor appointments. Recently, coming home from her sister’s house, my grandmother was hit by a drunk driver. Luckily, the only damage was to her car, but it scared her pretty bad. Because the driver didn’t have insurance and Grandma only had liability, she had to pay for the car to get fixed herself. But, Grandma, being the determined woman that she is, sent the driver of the car a note with the bill and stayed on him until he paid her.

I wanted to roll out the biscuit dough and have her watch me and let me know if I was doing it right. Towards the end, she said, “do you want me to finish the rest?” I could tell she was getting impatient with how slow I was going, so I let her have at it. Watching Grandma kneed the dough and cut the biscuits was quite a show. Her hands usually stiffened with arthritis in other tasks, worked magic with the dough. In her hands were a million memories of biscuit making and all the ups and downs of life that went with it. For her mother and younger sisters, for her classmates at school, for her future husband at the drug store, for her five sons, for all of the kids at the school cafeteria, and for me, her granddaughter at every family function - my grandmother had made these biscuits her whole life. And here I thought that I could make them just like her the first time I tried it. No, I’ll need a lot more practice and a lot more memories before my biscuits will be just right. But, I’ll never make those biscuits without thinking about my grandmother and all she experienced in her life.

Grandma’s Angel Biscuit Recipe

1 pkg. Dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup Crisco
5 c. flour
1 tsp. Soda
3 tsp. Baking powder
2 tsp salt
2 cups buttermilk
4 T. sugar

Dissolve yeast in warm water (add 1 TB of the sugar to mixture to be sure that yeast works. Sift dry ingredients together. Cut in Crisco until it looks like meal. Add yeast and buttermilk. Roll out and cut biscuits (1/2 "). Place in buttered pan. Cover with damp cloth and let rise until they double in height. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Grandma’s TIP: You can add 1T vinegar to 1 cup milk to make buttermilk.