#7. Split Maryland beaten biscuits and put some thin slices of ham in them.

I make a lot of dough…

…and no I don’t mean money. I mean literal dough, pizza dough to be exact, that you put in an oven and bake. I enjoy making dough though almost as much as I enjoy making money. There is something blissfully mindless and relaxing about measuring out some simple ingredients, following some instructions and having something delicious come out of it all that you made with your own hands. So I decided to make some dough of my own and what better way to kill two birds with one stone than make doughy Maryland beaten-biscuits for my blog.

       These unusual biscuits are generally connected with the mid-Atlantic and southern Appalachian regions. Marlyand Beaten Biscuit recipes are good examples. Food historians trace the practice of "beating" bread to England, possibly as far back as the 16th century.

       Maryland beaten biscuits have an interesting history of being economically accessible, culturally specific and, almost always, a very local and authentic food in the Old Line State. Beaten biscuits consist of four ingredients: lard, flour, water and salt. The dense and sticky dough is mixed manually and beaten by hand, some recipes calling for 1000 times and some for a half-hour of pounding; the beating part is what makes these little bread balls truly unique.

       Recipes for these biscuits can be found as far back in colonial times, originating from Southern Maryland and Eastern Shore plantations. Archaeologists believe that leavening was in short supply during colonial times; most likely due to slow shipments and tight budgeting, as shipping foodstuff to the Colonies was time consuming and expensive. In order to make biscuits that could rise without leavening, one had to beat the dough which put tiny air bubbles all throughout. Dough was often placed on tree stumps and wooden boards and beaten with the back of an axe  or an iron bar until you could hear popping noises. These biscuits could also be kept for a long time due to their sturdy nature; hard and stiff on the outside, doughy and chewy on the inside. Dough balls the size and approximate weight of golf balls were formed by hand and then baked.

       This dough was so particular to the southern and coastal parts of Maryland they were called “Maryland Biscuits.” The economical and simple biscuits were even considered high-class party fare in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, where the tiny biscuits were served with thin slices of country ham.

       Today, beaten biscuits are not nearly as popular or well-known as they were 100 years ago; the necessity of the biscuits has disappeared due to the availability of any food products and monetary resources. However, on the Eastern Shore the tradition lives on with Orrell’s Beaten Biscuits. The Orrells have brought beaten biscuits into the fancy 21^st century with multiple flavors of biscuits (including whole wheat for the health nut and pizza for the adventurous foodie) and online ordering and delivery. Although modernity has touched the antique recipe, the biscuits are still made and beaten mostly by hand; for practicality reasons, the beating process was replaced with a mechanical roller that delivers the same motions to the dough. Other than this small change, the hand-made biscuits have remained relatively untouched (ha ha). The Orrell’s attempts at bringing an old Maryland culinary and cultural tradition back to the forefront of popular local cuisine have been successful this far:  multiple retailers throughout Maryland sell them (including Grauls!), they have been featured in the New York Times and they ship thousands of the little babies all over the country.

I did not purchase my biscuits from Orrell’s, as much as I would have liked to. I was pretty tired from making pizza dough and I figured I’d try my hand at making the biscuits the old fashioned way. After beating the dough for half an hour, getting flour all over my kitchen and having to clean it all up I realized it would have been less work to drive 40 minutes away to just buy some. Nonetheless, they were delicious and fresh. I filled the hot biscuits with butter and home-made strawberry preserves for dessert and today I filled two with thin slices of ham for a snack. For a while though, I’ll stick to making dough as in money. It’s much less exhausting than making biscuits.

References:

http://orrellsmbb.com/

http://www.foodtimeline.org/foodcookies.html#beatenbiscuit