Hot Biscuits

My mother was a member of a minority group not often encountered in the South.  She was a Norwegian-American.  Born in the United States of Norwegian immigrant parents, she spent her early childhood in a totally Norwegian community in Illinois called Freedom.  Because there were no English speakers in the community, he spoke only Norwegian until she was seven and started school.  Her language problems continued, however, because at school they only spoke that perverted form of English that we here in the South refer to as the “Yankee accent.”

When mother married dad, she had barely been south of Chicago much less the Mason-Dixon line.  She expected a little culture shock.  She realized that making the adjustment from being a single woman to a married woman would present a challenge.  The most insidious problem that she faced, though, was the language barrier.  She often felt that she had immigrated to a foreign country for all she understood about the conversations swirling around her.

One of the bright spots in this cacophony of adjustments and demands was one of my father’s aunts, name Mabel.  Aunt Mable was a country lady.  She understood both city and country life and delighted in all the “feminine arts” from gardening to baking to interior decorating and she was kind and good to “the Yankee” (my mother).  Mother took to her instantly and a real friendship developed.

Aunt Mabel seemed perfectly rational and sensible except for her constant bragging about her “hot biscuits.”  According to Aunt Mabel her hot biscuits were the most beautiful around and he couldn’t wait until they came in so mother could see them.  Since her immigration south mother had made the acquaintance of several varieties of biscuits but had never encountered a beautiful one and how a biscuit could “come in” was a total mystery.  She imagined that, perhaps, there was some exotic form of yeast or baking powder involved, which necessitated a protracted period of rising or curing or something.  In any case Aunt Mable was such a delightful person, her fetish with biscuits seemed a minor eccentricity.

One day, in the middle of the summer, mother got a call from Aunt Mabel.  The hot biscuits were coming in.  Mother got there as quickly as possible.  Imagine her surprise when Mabel led her through the house to the yard and proudly pointed to what my mother had always known as hibiscus.  They were truly beautiful and they were worth the wait, but it took mother about 20 years before she felt confident about her ability to understand the spoken Southern word.