By The Campfire

July 23, 2008

By the time you read this, White Lilly Flour, made in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee since 1883, will cease to be manufactured in the South and will instead be made somewhere in the midwest. To understand the consequences of this situation, you must understand biscuits more than business.

When I was growing up, the two giants of Southern biscuitry were White Lilly and Martha White. Both were made in Tennessee (MW in Nashville) and both are now owned by Smuckers. I guess it makes sense with the jelly and such.

The reason White Lilly and Martha White are special in Southern baking has to do with soft red winter wheat, bleaching (the white part) and low proteins (bleaching lowers them as well). Less protein makes them fluffier and better and able to suck up sugar more efficiently – a biscuit’s main job – sopping.

White Lilly was milled to be extra fine, prompting people to call it “The Sunday Flour,” because it was wickedly special and made cakes and biscuits so light and fluffy that deadly, hardened convicts would break down and cry like babies in the mere presence of anything made from White Lilly Flour.

My mother, however, preferred Martha White, the longest continuous sponsor of the Grand Ol’ Opry – and she probably preferred it for just that reason, since we listened to that show every Saturday night on the radio. The theme song, “Goodness gracious, good and light, Martha White” plays in my head, accompanied by blue-grassy harmony and thringing banjos.

In 1899, Martha White Flour was named for the three-year-old daughter of Richard Lindsey, owner of Royal Flour Company. I have no idea if she ever lived up to her legacy, but her name made my head swim like pictures of Natalie Wood when I was a boy. My mother’s Martha White biscuits were hypnotically addictive and people would sneak them away from the table in their pockets even when they were wearing their best clothes.

My grandmother, on the other pan, liked White Lilly better because she said “Lilly” – that’s what she called it – was sifted to be extremely fine in the confines of “heavenly machinery up in Knoxville by people who were special in God’s eyes.” White Lilly made biscuits that would jump down your throat so fast your teeth didn’t labor and your tongue only smelled a yeasty blur on their way by. I preferred to savor them like a plug of Redman in my cheek.

I hope the new White Lilly mill can uphold the longstanding tradition and considerable weight of millions of legendary, award-winning biscuits that have come to depend on its perfection. Personally, I can’t talk about it anymore because I have a lump in my throat the size of a cathead biscuit.

When such throat-lumps hit me, I turn to an old friend to drown my sorrow: Yellow Label Syrup. Sorry Mr. Beam and Daniels, forgive my opinion on this, but Yellow Label is the amber Southern liquid that can cause a Brooklyn plumber to drawl.

In Alabama, where I learned to eat things that have built dams in my arteries, people put syrup on everything from fried chicken to collard greens. Harper Lee described it a bit in To Kill A Mockingbird. She just wrote what she saw.

There are several Alabama cane syrup brands that have similar properties: Yellow Label, Golden Eagle and Alaga. I lean toward the honey-like Yellow Label, myself, and buy the stuff in bulk when I visit home because no stores sell it here and I don’t believe in shipping something so valuable. I want it in my own vehicle.

If you have never tasted Yellow Label (and please understand, they are not paying me to tout the rejuvenating properties of this slow, glueish nectar), you must go to Amazon and buy some (yes, they sell it, like everything else) if you don’t mind shipping.

Yellow Label poured over a White Lilly or Martha White biscuit cooked in a cast-iron pan and sandwiched with farm-churned butter can cause people to pass their SAT’s in less than 20 minutes. A few bites of this most Blessed Sacrament will turn evil to good, stupid to smart, and ugly to supermodel in 2.3 chews. Ship it to D.C. and watch how fast liberals and conservatives find something in common.

The best part about Yellow Label is, it’s not just for breakfast. Southerners use it on anything, as I said – vegetables, meats, desserts, homework that needs pasting when the Elmer’s runs out (I have used it for this purpose in elementary school).

I have also seen people pour it in coffee and milk and bourbon. An old barbecue man in south Alabama used it as the final brush on pork shoulders and ribs. He was elected mayor 14 times in a row.

Country ham or sausage dredged through a puddle of Yellow Label will make you forget your blood pressure, marital, legal or mortgage problems. Mix it with rum and use it as pound cake icing. Stir it up with Tabasco Sauce and dip Golden Flake Potato Chips in it. Put cayenne pepper in it and it can make you think twice about coughing. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t cure sunburn, poison ivy, athlete’s foot and jock itch, but I am no medical expert, so don’t try those and blame me. I can tell you for sure it will draw out an entire bed of fire ants and you can rearrange their furniture before they get back without getting stung. I bet there is even a way to use it as an alternative fuel.

Yellow Label is a multipurpose tool, like my Leatherman or Jeff Johnson’s Swiss Army knife, which, by the way, looks like a large crab when fully unfolded. That reminds me, Yellow Label is amazing on soft shell crabs and the perfect shrimp dip with Old Bay stirred into it.

I saw a recent article reporting Southern Baptists have been losing members for several years in a row. While I am no theologian, I believe devoutly that Yellow Label Syrup should be used for the Lord’s Supper in those churches instead of that watered-down grape juice. Fill those little thimble-sized glasses with Yellow Label and replace those stale crackers with White Lilly biscuits and you’ll be dipping those new converts faster than a dog in a river after his tail got caught in the campfire.

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