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When you have that gnawing hunger, small-town Indiana might just calm the morning belly growls. Circle the square twice, and you’ll know where to go. An old, neon sign will wink and invite you to a cafe and the smell of fresh biscuits.

Years ago a golf trip led to one of those communities. A friend shared, “I know a place.” It was in response to my asking if anyone besides me was more interested in sausage links than 18 holes. He elaborated, “I know a place here that serves food just like your grandma makes.”

Since my grandmother worked magic on a wood stove, I was intrigued, but cautious. Grandma couldn’t putt, but she could handle a cast-iron skillet and a rolling pin. Few had her penchant for baking. She may have been self-taught since her ancestors didn’t have the blessing of baking powder.

Keep in mind that in the pre-baking powder days, options were limited. The Mayflower galley could have mixed water, salt, and flour to make hardtack, the biscuit predecessor. Those dry, flat cakes were so tough they had to be dunked before they could be chewed. More than likely one of the barrels in the ship’s hull was filled with intentionally leftover hardtack and another with broken teeth. The Pilgrims smiled more than the Puritans, but not much more.

Wishbone might have baked those brick-like crackers for Rowdy Yates, but the cowboys possibly had a softer offer when they got to the chuck wagon. Baking-powder biscuits emerged in the mid-19th century. The powder allowed the dough to rise more quickly and transformed biscuits from hard cakes into a tender comfort food. Baking powder would have been welcome, but a Clabber Girl wasn’t allowed on the cattle drive. Gil Favor had rules.

By the 1930’s cooks around the world could save time with refrigerator biscuits. Pre-shaped and packaged in cardboard tubes, these allowed the kitchen folk extra time for fixing the gravy and eggs. My mom may have used this short cut at times, but she kept one eye on the oven and the other on whatever was on the burners. Not everyone was that skilled.

Speaking of unskilled, Green Acres offered us a looker but not a cooker. Lisa Douglas had better equipment than Wishbone, but not better results. Her hotcakes were tougher than a soldier’s hardtack, but her honesty was more refreshing than her meals. "When you married me you knew that I couldn't cook, I couldn't sew, and I couldn't keep house. All I could do was talk Hungarian and do imitations of Zsa Zsa Gabor.”

Ultimately the true measure of breakfast cookin’ starts with biscuits. Kacey Musgrave hinted at that with “Mind your own biscuits and life will be gravy.” Biscuits and business are sumptuously synonymous.

Currently my preference includes golden brown, firm biscuits that won’t crumble when I lift ‘em off the plate or get soggy when the gravy is ladled or the jelly jammed in the middle. When I don’t get that, my inner-Alan Jackson complains. "I'll be honest with you ma'am, it ain't like mama (or Grandma) fixed it.”

Here’s a hard fact, not hardtack. During the Great Depression “The Biscuit” was a favorite. That’s what affectionate fans called the racetrack star. The unexpected, undersized Seabiscuit won eleven of fifteen races and was the big, money winner in 1937. People bought Ye Olde Kentuckie Buttermilk Biscuits at the store but put their dough and hope on that unconventional, four-legged creature.

And, here’s a final sad fact about a Sad Sack. By the time I started coaching high school wrestling, I was working out less and adding more blackberry jam on my biscuits. The six-pack physique ballooned into a belly bulge, and my coaching buddies noticed. Looking to get a rise out of me, and to compliment my pale frame, I got a nickname too.

Oh, biscuits! My friends were “Poppin’ Fresh” when the called me Pillsbury, but Lumpy would have been worse.