Sweet Potato Biscuits

My original idea was to make sweet potato muffins, but I had a bit of buttermilk left over from last week, so I thought this would be a good way to use it up. I also forgot to soften the butter before I headed to work in the morning, so it worked out pretty well. They turned out great, although next time I might use pastry flour for a hopefully lighter effect. These could go sweet or savory, I think, though we embraced their sweetness with black locust honey and a little zesty orange butter (clementine butter, actually.) We had this with braised mustard greens and sausage. Awesome weeknight dinner.

½ lb. sweet potatoes
2 tbs. light brown sugar
½ cup cold unsalted butter
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
¾ cup buttermilk

Peel and chop sweet potatoes. Steam until soft, about 15 minutes, and mash with a fork or whatever you have around. You could also probably roast them whole and scoop out the flesh, but I think that would take too long. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder & salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, mix the sweet potato, brown sugar and butter. Beat at a low speed until fluffy. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk. Stir buttermilk & sweet potato mixture alternately into dry ingredients. Roll dough 1" thick. Cut with floured 2" round cutter. Bake on a cookie sheet or cake pan for 15-20 minutes.

Full disclosure

Here is my humble attempt to integrate the two things I think about most during my day.

Across history and cultures, women have had a contentious relationship with food and appetite, on the one hand, and body image, eating, and sexuality, on the other. Women, through the everyday routines of family meals, are often the transmitters of cultural codes pertaining to food and eating. Arguing for the centrality of women and food in industrialized societies sometimes poses a problem for feminist analysts who see the dangers in essentializing women and overstressing their nurturing capacities.

Another fundamental narrative in feminist history is that of women’s struggle to gain the right to pleasure. While earlier periods in our culture demonized women’s sexuality (and some elements in our culture certainly continue to do so…) a healthy percentage of American society, at least, has become reluctant to use moral terms to describe sexual behavior. But today, we demonize women’s appetite for food using the same language our forebears used for sex: “sinful”, “decadent”, “bad.” We have stopped condemning one essential human activity and begun to attack another.

Despite all these heady issues, I don’t intend to trace the cultural history of women’s shame in America, particularly in regards to sexual pleasure, food, and other “selfish” desires. I also don’t intend to dissect the division of labor or gendering of domestic food preparation or examine how the other “F” word (I mean “farming”- get your head out of the gutter!) plays into the discussion. This would all be good fodder for a dissertation, maybe, but not for a blog. Not this blog, anyway.

I hope to draw some connections, but mostly give a sounding board for issues that I often deal with at work, at home and in life as I try to balance the world I live in with the world I’m working to create. The food element will be mostly pretty pictures and recipes because that’s how I deal with the sometimes necessary outrage of confronting pushed-under-the-rug realities. Enjoy!