Biscuits are a Southern staple. They are found on the breakfast table and can be smeared with butter or covered with gravy. Some like them with syrup; others with sorghum and a few like jam or jelly.

Biscuits can be found at any meal and are great with fried chicken, gumbo, or a mess of catfish. Best of all, real Southern style biscuits are not difficult to make, not when you have an authenic down home Southern buttermilk biscuit recipe!

To prepare buttermmilk biscuits, these are the necessary ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons shortening, lard, or butter

3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk

1 tablespoon shortening (to grease baking sheet or you can use pan spray)

Heat oven to 400 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Now add the six tablespoons shortening with a pastry knife and blend until it has been cut into small pieces about the size of a pea.

Make a hole in the middle of the mixture and add the buttermilk. Add 3/4 a cup, stir and if the mixture seems too dry, add the remaining buttermilk.

Dust a surface (cutting board, plate, etc) with additional flour and turn the biscuit dough onto this surface. Dust with flour (keeps your fingers from sticking) and knead dough about twenty times. Roll dough out and use a biscuit cutter (if you don't have one, use the top of a drinking glass).

Prepare the baking sheet by lightly greasing it and place biscuits on the sheet.

Bake for about twenty minutes or until the biscuits are a nice golden brown.

Serve hot and enjoy!

If you can make buttermilk biscuits, you are well on your way to becoming a Southern cook.