Homemade biscuits, cut in rounds or baked as a loaf, are delightfully plain fare; a tasty, filling and well appreciated comfort food that is a joy to share with family and friends. Serve them as Uncle Hal did, with Karo Syrup, for a 1916-style dessert. Or dress them with a smear of good butter, honey and fruit jam, anytime.

One of Uncle Hal's Biscuits Split and served on a plate with a smear of butter and drizzled with Karo syrup.

Learning to make Biscuits…

My great great uncle Hal was a wonderful storyteller. Though his formal education was sparse, he was well read and wrote with a broad vocabulary in a neat cursive hand. His handwritten one hundred and sixty two page memoir beautifully recounts his experiences in the early 20th century.

Uncle Hal was not only a fine writer but a cook of some merit, when the need arose. One story he shared in his memoirs described his duties as cook on the farm he rented with a friend as a young man in Minnesota around 1916:

…On the Farm

It was agreed beforehand that I was to be cook and housekeeper and Mrs. Clark taught me how to make biscuits the quick and easy way – I already knew how to boil beans and potatoes. Mrs. Clark rolled her dough and used a biscuit cutter, but my method was much simpler and more direct. When my dough was thoroughly mixed I dumped it into a bread pan, leveled it off a bit and put it in the oven to bake. And since it is never good to cut hot bread with a knife I would put it on the table just as it came from the pan and we could break off any size piece we needed. I baked a pan of the stuff every evening for supper and there was always enough left for the next two meals.

In addition to my homemade loaf we lived mostly on beans, potatoes, oatmeal, eggs and milk. Meat was hard to handle since we had no refrigeration and went to town only on Saturday night. For dessert we poured out a plate full of Karo syrup and mopped it up with bread or biscuit, whatever it was. If the Karo company paid extra dividends in 1916 and 1917 it was due largely to our patronage. I love biscuit and syrup to this day…
~ from Uncle Hal’s Memoirs

Uncle Hal's Biscuit Loaf on a pewter plate.

A Few Years Later

I remember eating Karo pancake syrup as a child. Aunt Hen always bought Mrs. Butterworth’s but my Dad was a thrifty shopper and not swayed by branding. Karo was inexpensive and tasted good. It was as practical for a family watching their food budget in the mid-twentieth century as it was for a young man living in lean times fifty or more years before.

So, here’s to Uncle Hal – a plate of delicious homemade biscuits, cut in rounds, squares or baked as a loaf, smeared with good butter and drizzled with Karo syrup. Or, if you prefer to forgo the Karo, try smothering them in maple syrup, honey or Apple and Peach Butter. No matter how you serve them, homemade biscuits are delightfully plain fare. They are a tasty, filling and well appreciated comfort food that is a joy to share with family and friends.