Betty’s Buttermilk Biscuits — The Recipe I’ve Been Chasing My Whole Life

Clay has a girlfriend. Or he has a girl who he talks to on his phone constantly and won't tell me about, which in the language of fifteen-year-old boys means he has a girlfriend. Connie knows her name — Connie always knows things I don't because Connie has the interrogation skills of a CIA operative disguised as a veterinary receptionist. The girl's name is Madison and she's in Clay's biology class and that is all the information I'm going to get because Clay looked at me like I'd asked him to explain quantum physics when I said "So who's Madison?"

I don't remember being fifteen. That's not true — I remember it clearly. I was fifteen in 1983 and I was already six feet tall and playing football for Evarts High School and thinking about the mines the way a river thinks about the sea — like it was inevitable, like there was no other direction to flow. I didn't have a girlfriend at fifteen. I had a crush on a girl named Donna Hoskins who sat in front of me in English class and smelled like Ivory soap and never once looked at me, which was the appropriate response because I was a large boy who smelled like coal dust and had nothing to offer except the ability to carry heavy things.

What I want to talk about this week is biscuits, because biscuits are the thing I'm worst at and the thing I most want to get right. Betty's biscuits are legendary in Harlan County. They are tall, fluffy, golden on top, soft in the middle, and they taste like what you imagine heaven tastes like if heaven is run by an Appalachian grandmother, which I believe it is. She makes them every morning. Every single morning. Seven days a week. She's been making them since she was twelve years old, which means she's been making biscuits for sixty-four years, which means she's made roughly twenty-three thousand batches of biscuits, which means I should not be surprised that mine don't measure up.

The recipe is simple — two cups self-rising flour, a good pinch of salt, a third cup of lard cut into the flour until it looks like coarse meal, then buttermilk stirred in with a fork until the dough just comes together. You turn it out, pat it — don't roll it, never roll it, rolling compresses the layers — pat it to about an inch thick, cut with a biscuit cutter, and bake at 450 for twelve minutes. That's it. That's the whole recipe. And yet mine are always flatter than Betty's, always denser, always missing that airy quality that makes hers look like small clouds that decided to sit down.

I called Betty about it. She said the problem is my hands are too warm. Big hands, she said, run hot, and hot hands melt the lard before the biscuits get to the oven. She said to run my hands under cold water before I handle the dough. I tried it Saturday morning. The biscuits were better. Not Betty's biscuits, but closer. Close enough that Clay ate four of them and said "These are alright," which from a fifteen-year-old boy is a standing ovation.

Connie and I drove to Evarts on Sunday to see Betty. Three hours each way. The drive takes you through the mountains — up and over the ridges on roads that weren't designed for the speed limit and definitely weren't designed for the speed I drive them. Betty was in the garden when we pulled up. Seventy-six years old, on her hands and knees in the dirt, putting in onion sets. I told her to get up, that I'd finish. She told me to mind my business. I mined my business, which is to say I went inside and started fixing the kitchen faucet that's been dripping since December.

The house looks smaller every time I visit. The company house in Evarts — three bedrooms, one bathroom, a kitchen, a front room. Eight people lived in this house. Eight. And now it's just Betty, rattling around in rooms that still smell like Earl's cigarettes even though he's been gone eight years. I want her to move to Lexington. She won't. She says she'll die in Harlan County. I say that's what I'm afraid of. She says that's between her and the Lord. I fix the faucet and drive home.

I drove home with both hands on the wheel and a knot in my chest that I still haven’t been able to name — not quite grief, not quite guilt, something in between. When I got back to Lexington I didn’t call her to say I’d made it safe, because she doesn’t worry, and I didn’t unpack, because I didn’t feel like being home yet. I made biscuits instead — Betty’s biscuits, the recipe she never wrote down and that I had to piece together by watching her hands over years of Sunday mornings. It’s the closest thing I know to being in that kitchen.

Betty’s Buttermilk Biscuits

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 12 minutes | Total Time: 22 minutes | Servings: 8 biscuits

Ingredients

• 2 cups self-rising flour, plus more for the board
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup lard, cold (do not substitute shortening if you can help it)
• 3/4 cup buttermilk, cold, plus a splash more if the dough is dry

Instructions

1. Run your hands under cold water. This is the step Betty will tell you about if you call her. Big warm hands melt the lard before the biscuits hit the oven. Dry your hands, but keep them cool.
2. Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk together the self-rising flour and salt in a large bowl.
3. Cut in the lard. Add the cold lard in small pieces. Work it into the flour with your fingertips — quickly, lightly — until the mixture looks like coarse meal with a few pea-sized lumps. Do not overwork it.
4. Add the buttermilk. Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir with a fork just until the dough comes together. It will look shaggy and a little rough. That’s correct. Stop stirring the moment it holds.
5. Turn and pat. Flour your board or counter lightly. Turn the dough out and pat — do not roll — to about 1 inch thick. Rolling compresses the layers. Betty will know if you rolled it.
6. Cut the biscuits. Press a biscuit cutter straight down without twisting. Twisting seals the edges and costs you height. Cut as many as you can from the first pat, then gently press the scraps together for the rest.
7. Bake. Place biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet, touching each other slightly for soft sides or spaced apart for crispier edges. Bake at 450°F for 12 minutes, until golden on top.
8. Serve immediately. These are best the moment they come out. Butter, sorghum, or country ham. Clay will eat four and say they’re “alright,” which is the highest praise a fifteen-year-old can give.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 390mg