The flawless biscuit that took years to master

Acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens spent years perfecting a flawless recipe for the iconic Southern food. Now, a new festival reveals the similar journeys of Black music and cuisine.

"Womp, womp, womp." That's the sound, according to Grammy Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens, of a sharp-rimmed glass cutting into just-right biscuit dough. Coming from Giddens' mouth, the timbre translates as a low note plucked from a double bass. 

Giddens is an American scholar-musician whose folk, country and blues music illuminates the African lineage of the banjo and celebrates the legacy of the Black string band. But in 2020, at the outset of pandemic lockdowns, Giddens found herself craving something seemingly less academic: biscuits. Not the crisp British variety that Americans call "cookies" and "crackers". Not crumbly, sweetened scones – those she could buy in abundance in her adopted city of Limerick, Ireland. No, what Giddens wanted were flaky, buttery biscuits with a definitive rise, the kind that are ubiquitous across the American South.

Five years later, after tweaking her formula and method, Giddens has landed on what she believes is a near-perfect biscuit recipe. Her pandemic baking obsession even inspired her new Biscuits & Banjos music festival, which showcases the similarly winding journeys of Black music and food.

During the pandemic, Giddens was collaborating with Italian musician sco Turrisi on the album They're Calling Me Home. "sco and I were thinking about the food that we couldn't get because we couldn't go home," said Giddens, who grew up in Greensboro, North Carolina. "For me, that turned into, 'How do I make biscuits">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });