Old-Fashioned Biscuits

Monday soup beans. Always Monday soup beans. I've made them every Monday since I was old enough to stand at a stove, first watching Betty, then helping Betty, then making them myself in a kitchen that isn't in Evarts but the beans don't know that. Pintos soaked overnight, ham hock from the freezer — the last one from the Christmas ham, which means I need to buy another ham or befriend a butcher, and I am not a man who befriends easily. Six hours on low, the pot barely talking, the kitchen filling with the geography of Harlan County. I ate at noon, standing at the counter, because the chair is still a negotiation and the couch is a trap I might not escape.

Disability paperwork came in the mail Wednesday. A thick envelope from the Social Security Administration, which is the government's way of saying we've received your surrender and here are the terms. Forms and forms and forms. Medical history. Work history. Functional capacity assessment, which is a phrase that means tell us exactly how broken you are, in writing, with specifics. Can you lift ten pounds. Can you walk one block. Can you sit for thirty minutes. I can do all of these things, just not without my spine filing a formal complaint afterward. Connie sat across from me and read each question and I answered and she wrote because her handwriting is legible and mine looks like a drunk chicken walked through ink.

Travis stopped by Thursday after work. He smelled like grass clippings and gasoline, which is the smell of honest labor, and I envied him with a sharpness that surprised me. He's twenty-eight and his body works and he doesn't know to be grateful for that yet. He will. Everyone does, eventually. He brought a six-pack of beer and we sat on the back porch and drank two each and talked about the Wildcats and the weather and nothing important, which was exactly what I needed. Sometimes your son shows up and doesn't try to fix you and that's the fix.

Saturday I built a fire in the fire pit — the one I built last summer when my back was merely bad and not catastrophic — and grilled pork chops. Thick-cut, bone-in, rubbed with salt and pepper and garlic powder and a little cayenne. Direct heat, four minutes a side, then moved to the cooler edge to finish. The fat sizzled and the smoke rose and I stood in my backyard in Lexington watching fire do what fire does and felt, for the first time in weeks, like a man who was doing something instead of waiting for something to be done to him. Connie ate hers and said not bad. From Connie, that's a Michelin star.

The soup beans don’t come to the table alone—they never have, not in any kitchen I’ve known. While the pot was doing its six-hour work on the stove that Monday, I made biscuits the way Betty made them, the way her mother made them, the way every Harlan County woman I ever watched cook made them: no measuring cups, no fuss, just cold fat cut into flour until it looks right and feels right. If I can’t control the disability forms or the bad days in the chair, I can still control a biscuit. That turns out to matter more than I expected.

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

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/3 cup cold lard or cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup cold buttermilk, plus more as needed

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat oven to 450°F. Lightly grease a cast-iron skillet or baking sheet.
Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl.
Cut in the fat. Add cold lard or butter pieces to the flour mixture. Use your fingertips or a pastry cutter to work the fat into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs with some pea-sized pieces remaining. Work quickly—cold fat is the key to a flaky biscuit.
Add buttermilk. Pour in the cold buttermilk and stir with a fork just until the dough comes together. It should be shaggy and a little sticky. Do not overmix.
Shape the biscuits. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently pat it to about 3/4-inch thickness. Fold it over itself once or twice, then pat back to 3/4 inch. Cut with a 2-inch biscuit cutter or the floured rim of a glass, pressing straight down without twisting.
Arrange and bake. Place biscuits in the prepared skillet with sides just touching for soft biscuits, or spaced apart for crispier edges. Bake 10–12 minutes until risen and golden brown on top.
Serve. Brush tops with melted butter if desired. Serve hot alongside soup beans, or split and dragged through whatever pot liquor is on the stove.

Nutrition (per serving)

Old-Fashioned Biscuits — The Thing You Make When the Beans Are Already On