Nimrod described the pigs in a blanket that I know. You're talking about stuffed cabbage.

ditto on pigs-in-a-blanket.

Those previously mentioned refrigerated items (in this case crescent rolls) work well too for a quick version at home.

The only thing I ever make with Bisquick *yes, they still sell it* is dumplings with chicken.
I think the pigs in a blanket ( we don't eat the pigs though) would be with those Pillsbury rolls sorts of biscuits.
I make my scones from scratch, but never make biscuits..I like them better when other people make them :)
I think lots of baking powder or soda makes them lighter..

Not daft (well, maybe I am) -- I know stuffed cabbage rolls are also called pigs-in-a-blanket in places, but I was talking about the hotdog type. Did you think I, as a kid, was making cabbage rolls with Bisquick?? :)

I spent roughly the first 18 years of my life near Philly, and I always heard those wrapped-up sausages called "pigs in a blanket." But maybe all of the people who said that were later shot in the street.

NYTraveler, Biscuits can be had at Chat and Chew in Manhattan. But those Cracker Barrel ones are great, and the cheddar variety, though greasy, at Red Lobster are good too! Kate

When I'm on vacation one of the things I look forward to the MOST is biscuits and gravy. Yes that white gloppy stuff!

When I can have that for breakfast, I know I'm on vacation! Just like when I was a kid and we got to a place that had Stuckey's bars I knew we were out of Minnesota!

Grandmothers everywhere are rolling over in their graves thinking people are making biscuits with Bisquick! LOL!
If you want easy yeast rolls, these are the best non-homeade ones ever - www.ssrolls.com. Sister Shubert yeast rolls are almost as good as the old family recipe and they will ship if you can't find them in the freezer section if your local grocery.

OMG! Sister Schubert also does the best frozen cinnamon rolls - in a round pie plate!

I think they also do a variation of the pigs-in-a-blanket! :-)

First, thanks for entertaining me today with this thread! My parents are from Arkansas and also like cornbread (made with corn meal) crumbled up in a glass of buttermilk. They have it for dinner or supper - dinner is the mid-day meal, supper is the evening meal.

My favorite way to have biscuits for breakfast is with chocolate "gravy". No kidding, my mom made it almost every weekend when we were growing up. To make it, just sprinkle a bit of salt in a sauce pan, add 1/4 cup flour, 1 tablespoon cocoa powder, 2/3 cup white sugar, and slowly add about 1 1/4 cup water while stirring till smooth. Heat till just boiling and thick and then spoon it over buttered bisquits. Yum!

Kybourbon :D I do agree. My mom didn't make biscuits from scratch....unfortunately (I'm sure grandma did, though). I think that went out the window with wringing the chicken necks for my mom.

Danna, I hadn't thought of Stuckey's in a long time. Are any of them still around?

Cornbread crumbled up in buttermilk? Sorry, but I just can't picture that, let alone imagine it going down my throat LOL.

The best biscuits I've ever tasted are from Mrs. Knott's Chicken Dinner Restaurant at Knott's Berry Farm in California. No Bisquick here, no way. Just lots of boysenberry jam slobbered on top. My, oh my...

Statia, we saw Stuckeys signs on the highways for what seemed the entire trip from Fl to Or. So I think they are still around..
We stopped several times at Cracker Barrels for biscuits in the am on our drive also..some were a bit on the greasy side but hot biscuits with jam ( as Nimrod says) are really good in the mornings..
I never thought I would miss anything in Florida but I do miss those SIsters yeast rolls..sigh.
Someone send me some :)

John, dearest, is there a Slav in the woodpile?
I, too, grew up with pigs in the blanket made of seasoned ground beef and pork meat mixed with cooked rice, rolled in cabbage leaves then stewed with tomoatoes. The specific name (and maybe some of the seasoning) varied by eastern European ethnic group - holupki, holushki, golubtsi, gwumpki - but of a more western origin adopted the recipe and called them piggies.
Confronting those mini-weiners baked in canned crescent dough has aways caused a great deal of cognitive dissonance for me.

Didn't mean to start an argument over the orgin of biscuits, but I associate good homemade biscuits with the south.

Biscuits can be found just about everywhere, and biscuits and gravy are common items on many restaurant menus throughout the US. Oddly enough, I've come to think of Las Vegas as the biscuits and gravy capitol of the world, although in my experience, most are inedible.

As Neil can attest, there are alot of questionable biscuits out there and some pretty scary, heart stopping, cement-like gravy. Love your description BTW Neil.

But when you find a delicious, melt- in-your-mouth biscuit, you'll know it.

The way I see it, American biscuits and gravy are alot like Australian and NZ meat pies - I'm told some are very good, but I've yet to find anything remotely edible (apologies to our friends down under).

ThinG, I grew up surrounded by four Mennonite churches (West Swamp, East Swamp, Great Swamp and another one), went to school with a lot of Mennonites (both regular and a few Old Order Mennonites), had dinner at their houses many times and biscuits were served with butter, not gravy. I've had shoo-fly pie many times, but prefer Moravian cake.
My parents dragged to just about every local fair you could name, which probably included the Bloomsburg Fair, although we were regulars at the Lebanon Street Fair, the Coopersburg Fair, MusikFest (when it was still a celebration of local culture), the Allentown State Fair (oh so tacky but...) and the original Kutztown Fair until it got all trendy.
Now, excuse me, I've got to go make some dippy eggs before the bread is all.

Having read this thread I have concluded that we are divided by more than just a common language (and a lot of fish). In England we dip biscuits in tea. Lovely, especially a digestive or ginger nut (never a Hob-Nob which are Satan’s work).

BTW what on God’s earth is “chipped beef”?

Hi Barbara,

I have never heard of scones with oatmeal in them..and I grew up in Scotland. Maybe it's a highland thing.To my knowledge though, they may call them scones, but they're a distant relation. Even the shape is wrong, they should be cut in rounds.<

I think we are seeing regional differences, similar to what goes into a cassoulet.

I was taught that scones are triangular.

How is the word "scone" pronounced?

((I))

Never mind all that.

Who wants a crumpet? With lashings of butter?

Hi Statia
>.. jalapeno jelly ....I might suspect...another southern thing.<

Au contraire, dear colleague. It's Tex-Mex. Sothren folks do not eat spicy foods.

Sothren cooking is rather bland, except for a little pepper, a lot of salt and large amount of sugar.

((I))

I was taught that scones are triangular.

How is the word "scone" pronounced?

Welcome to the world of class and regional prejudice.

Soft shandy drinking southerners like me call them "Scohnes" with a long O. Rufty tufty northern oiks and the hoi-poloi call them "sconns".

And the stone that the scottish monarchs sat on is pronounced the "Stone of Scoon" (spelt Scone).

Crumpets are always round, unless you are using the term "crumpet" in it's slang sense, in which case they come in a variety of delightful shapes.

You are absolutey right, Ira. I stand corrected. Tex-Mex...the "other" comfort food. :D

David is correct as to the pronunciation of "scone," as this verse illustrates:

I asked the maid, in dulcet tone,
To order me a buttered scone.
The silly girl has been and gone
And ordered me a buttered scone.

Would it look weird if I went to lunch at 10:20 a.m. Well, maybe just a break and head over to Biscuitville. This thread is making me VERY hungry.

I don't know much about food science but somehow buttermilk has a similar quality to baking powder and baking soda in causing a chemical reaction to make biscuits rise.

In addition to Pillsbury frozen biscuits, also try 'Mary B' brand frozen biscuits. Both are much better than the canned biscuits (but opening the can is cool and a great way to bang out some aggression).

Southern diet includes more than sugar and salt, it has as much more cholesterol as your ateries can stand.

I've never been to Stuckey's but I see billboards for the pecan log.

Watch out Biscuitville, here I come.

David, chipped beef is a very stringy sort of dried, salted beef that is almost always prepared in a cream sauce and served on toast or biscuits. Now, I think I have that right, it was my mother's favorite, but I hated it and so only tasted it once.

Now, what is an "oik?"

Suki: That sounds foul. Do you have corned beef in murrca?

An oik is a pleb, a chav, a wrong ‘un, a pov, a dole-mole, an Asbonaut, a pramface, a chardonnay. Hope that helps.

David: we do indeed have the aforementioned foul concoction known as chipped beef in murrca.

I googled dole-mole. The first explanation (and I'm sure it was just what you meant) was a "closet supporter of Bob Dole" :)

My mother's version of a corned beef recipe:

"You start with a perfectly good brisket..."

DavidWest, you said: <<Having read this thread I have concluded that we are divided by more than just a common language (and a lot of fish). In England we dip biscuits in tea. Lovely, especially a digestive or ginger nut (never a Hob-Nob which are Satan’s work).>>

My gut reaction to the word "biscuit" is closer to yours, though the biscuits I'm most familiar with are the Italian style ones. The biscuits with gravy thing is just as foreign to me as it is to you. I've heard about it many times, mostly on Fodors or in stories, though without a prescie description until Statia explained it, but have never seen it or tasted it.

I think chipped beef was a dish served to Ameerican soldiers during WWII. Or at least I heard about it from my father who was subjected to it in that context.

Well, there's corned beef and then there's corned beef. On the one hand, there's a brisket that's been corned (brined) and spiced. Put this on a good rye bread with good mustard. On the other hand there's that indeterminate stuff in cans that's more like Spam. God knows what you do with it.

Here's the recipe from the 1910 Manual for Army Cooks

http://www.seabeecook.com/cookery/recipes/chipb1910.htm

Mom used the little glass jar of Hormel dried beef (sliced)

Slang name is abbreviated as SOS. I don't want to go there because I don't want the editors to get upset.

for cmt:

http://www.hollyeats.com/images/Sout...cuitsGravy.jpg


You've never in your life seen or heard of anything remotely resembling this? Not even in a movie or on TV?

Are you sure you're American? May I see your papers, please! :)


And you <i>really</i> don't know what a biscuit (as we describe) is? That's hard to believe, but I'll accept it.

Nimrod, I said (above) that I HAVE heard of it, mainly in fiction and on Fodors, but that I've neveractually seen it or eaten it. I also don't hear people talking about eating it, the way they talk about having pancakes or waffles or eggs or pastries for a special breakfast. I do think American food is regional. Many people have never seen or tasted foods that were common when I was growing up, or if they have, it was not until decades later. The other factor is that I'm not much of a traditional breakfast eater, and in the morning usually eat fruit and yogurt, or yogurt and fruit with a little sprinkle of cereal, or bread and cheese, or rye toast and peanut butter, or sometimes simply leftovers (soup is best).

For the person who dips biscuits in tea, the type of biscuits mentioned are considered cookies in the USA.

And now a question about Moravian cookies (yum). Very thin (around 1/8 inch), molasses-spice cookies. How did that start instead of just making a thicker cookie. I've never made them, so I guess they don't have much levening ingredients. Good with a cup of tea.

By the way, I did have a biscuit with lunch thanks to KFC. Should have gone to Biscuitville, because traffic to/from KFC was bad.

In the USA, at least where I live (maybe another regionalism?), some cookies are called &quot;biscuits&quot;--the ones that are cooked twice (hence the name) and have a dry texture and usually are in the form of slices from a loaf, which are then baked again. They're called &quot;biscotti&quot; in Italian, but calling them &quot;bicotti&quot; when speaking English is a slight affectation, so they're &quot;biscuits&quot; in English, and many people dunk them in tea, coffiee, milk, etc.

Neil, the gravy you describe: &quot;I was intrigued by the sausage gravy, which I found to be a sort of glutinous white sauce&quot; is definitely a commercial cream sauce, as Ira says. Correctly made, this foodstuff is &quot;gravy of the gods.&quot; It is a bechamel sauce, the roux for which is made with the sausage grease and drippings and equal parts flour and cornmeal. Heavy cream, a bit of water, and two tablespoons of strong coffee (for red-eye variety), lots of pepper and salt seasoning, and break about half your sausage back into the sauce. Spoon over split biscuits, watch them reappear on your hips. Heavenly!

cmt, where do you live? I have never heard of biscotti being called biscuits anywhere that I have traveled in the US (mostly east and west coast though.) And it is really odd that you have never even heard of the soft biscuits that we've discussed in this thread. I do believe you, but I think your expereince must be pretty unique.

&lt;&lt;They're called &quot;biscotti&quot; in Italian, but calling them &quot;bicotti&quot; [sic] when speaking English is a slight affectation, so they're &quot;biscuits&quot; in English, and many people dunk them in tea, coffiee, milk, etc.&gt;&gt;

Not where I live. Never have been called otherwise. These are <i>always</i> known as biscotti, and have no real relation to the soft-baked American biscuit spoken of here aside from being derivatives of the same root word.

I am mostly from the Midwest -- at least my relatives were for a long time and I grew up there, although have lived in California and Wash DC as an adult -- and I have never heard of anyone referring to the Italian biscotti as a biscuit, although you would never see those until the last few years and they got trendy in Starbucks, etc. I'm sure they were around in Italian neighborhoods of big cities, but not anywhere I lived in the Midwest.

However, I will agree with cmt on the biscuit thing. I would say this is very regional, not some common American dish. I have never been served nor eaten biscuits and gravy, and I don't think I've ever seen it, either (except maybe some commerical on TV). I thought this was just a Southern dish. I have heard of biscuits a little more and I think my mother made them a couple times a year, but just as a variation on a roll. I've certainly seen them and know what they are. My family on both sides is German, and sometimes they'd make dumplings, but I don't think biscuits were common. Gravy is just something you put on mashed potatoes in my family.

I make biscuits myself a couple times a year, at least something I think of as biscuits, which is what is often called shortcake and you pile strawberries and whipped cream on top in summer. But this is more a biscuity-y recipe and not those spongecake things you can buy pre-made in the supermarket. I just use a recipe on the Bisquik box for that and I think they call it biscuits. I love Bisquik, it makes it so easy.

Suki, I think David's &quot;dole-mole&quot; is referring to someone receiving unemployment benefits in the UK.

Now for biscuits, you can't beat a digestive, bourbon cream or jammy dodger...