Classic Cookbooks: Ham Biscuits
“The women of Freetown were amazing because they participated in the work of the fields and barnyard and yet would step right out of the field work when an unexpected friend or traveler turned up,” Edna Lewis writes. “They would make a quick fire in the wood cookstove, and in a few minutes emerge from the kitchen with a pot of hot coffee, a plate of biscuits—flannel-soft, a thin slice of ham inserted in each—a bowl of home-canned peaches, and perhaps some sugar cookies. Often the biscuits were made with chipped pieces of ham.”
Would you not pledge eternal devotion to someone who brought you coffee, biscuits, peaches, and cookies when you showed up unannounced on a summer afternoon? Easy-peasy cream biscuits tenderly entered my repertoire a few years ago, but biscuits made with lard, butter, or shortening were still in too-challenging territory for me (I have a fear of overworking dough) until The Taste of Country Cooking convinced me that I had to learn to make these ham biscuits, simply regular biscuits with minced ham folded into the dough before baking.
