Call this a biscuit? This US breakfast dish will confound Australians

The dish

Biscuits and gravy, US

Plate up

Australians could be forgiven for being confused when they first hear about this classic dish. Biscuits and gravy? So you’re tipping meaty sauce all over your Iced VoVos? What is going on in the United States? The thing you eventually realise, of course, is that biscuits ain’t biscuits in the US. In the likes of the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia, the things called biscuits are actually savoury scones (sometimes with buttermilk), which are split in half and then covered in “sawmill gravy”, a thick, rich sauce made with pork sausage, its rendered fat, flour and milk, with plenty of black pepper. This dish is a breakfast staple throughout much of the south and mid-west of the US, a hefty portion of carbs and fat that is rib-sticking, artery-clogging, heart-warming goodness.

First serve

There’s a classic story in the US that biscuits and gravy were created during the Revolutionary War, in the late 1700s, as a necessary stomach-filler for soldiers with little to eat. What’s more likely, however, is that biscuits and gravy emerged much later, in the mid-1800s, in the lumber yards of southern Appalachia (the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia) to feed hungry lumberjacks. That would help explain the name “sawmill gravy”. Then, as baking soda and powder became more readily available and the process to make the biscuits became easier, the dish’s popularity spread throughout the south, and eventually to the whole country.

Order there

Call into any truck stop or down-home diner through the US and you will find biscuits and gravy on the menu. One of the most famous purveyors of this dish, however, is Biscuit Head in Asheville, North Carolina (biscuitheads.com).

Order here