When I pulled the biscuits out of my purse to find a pen, the mayor didn’t even blink. Hokes Bluff, Alabama, was small enough that he knew I’d come to city hall from lunch with my grandfather. I guess I wasn’t the only person he knew who gnawed on cold biscuits while driving down County Road 33.
My job at the time was helping local governments in the eastern part of the state get grants to build playgrounds or extend their sewer lines. After my grandmother’s death, I timed my trips to visit the elected officials of Etowah County so I could spend lunch hour in the red brick bungalow with the wrap-around porch, the first house my grandparents ever owned.
The biscuits started out hot, sweet, and sinfully good. Biscuits and Karo were all we ate for lunch. It was our signature dish, a symbol of our little club. It was a ritual as important as any in a Masonic Lodge.
As soon as I came in the front door each visit, Granddad pulled the cast iron skillet out of the cold oven where he stored it and let it slam on the stovetop. He snapped the oven dial to 375, popped the biscuits out of a can, lined them up in a circle with one in the middle, and tossed the skillet in the oven with easy practice. When the tops were brown, they were done.
Out of the oven and on his plate, he’d drop a slab of butter on the middle of each split biscuit and let the heat melt it until butter ran down the sides and he could scoot the biscuit around with the end of his knife like a skater on an frozen pond. Then came Karo syrup, the light version, poured on top and dripping down the sides.
I didn’t bother with the butter because I didn’t like it, but otherwise I did the same. Split open a biscuit and douse it with Karo. I leaned over the table to eat it, dipping each biscuit in the syrupy runoff every time I took a bite. My fingers were sticky at the end, but it didn’t take but a second to lick them clean.
We sat on either side of the small round table that took up almost all the floor space in that kitchen with the slightly sagging floor. To get past the refrigerator, even a skinny person would have to turn sideways. But none of us were what you'd call skinny. It was a source of pride in our family to be hearty, strong, solid people who didn't put on airs. The kind of people who didn't think twice about carrying cold biscuits wrapped up in a paper towel, just in case.
