Those Smuckers!
As I mentioned in the other thread on the subject, it appears Smuckers has also assimilated Martha White. But at least Martha White flour is still milled in Tennessee. And Martha White has the advantage of a kick-ass bluegrass jingle.
I didn’t know that Martha White was a Smuckers company now. Crap. I’m glad it’s still milled in Jackson, but Smuckers has made my shitlist. I’ll have to try to find a locally milled flour.
Nice. Rome’s just about 2 hours from me.
Words to live by
As a “Damn Yankee,” I find your thread title slightly offensive. I truly am sorry about your biscuits; they sound like an extremely important part of Southern culture, but I hardly think this was an act of Northern aggression. I don’t think the CEO of Smuckers is cavorting around his office exclaiming “Take that Dixie!”
I’m not too worked up… my point is that I think the (hopeful) hyperbole in your thread title can only lead to trouble and detracts from the true purpose of your rant, the flour.
I’m sorry you’re offended, but after all the “Southern Pride - Why?” and “It’s hate, not heritage” threads I’ve seen spewed all over this board recently, I feel that a relatively mild “damn Yankee” or two is entirely justified…especially since 1) the is the Pit, 2) Smucker’s is, in fact, a damn Yankee company, and 3) SDMB is starting to piss me off more and more.
Fair enough. I guess what irked me a little was the thought of millions of southerners going to the supermarket and thinking “Damn Yankees, fuck all of them with a cactus for taking our biscuits away,” instead of “Damn Smuckers,” or something along those lines.
Congratulations on your expeditious retreat from the moral high ground.
Just calm down and take some Goody’s Powder.
I’ve never inhabited the moral high ground in my life. I’m merely amazed that a lot of Dopers, normally well adjusted and tolerant, have this giant, Dixie-sized blind spot. I don’t have to be standing on the Holy Mount for that to piss me off.
Worked well for them last time.
Of course he did. AND he held a gun to the head of the owner of White Lily, forcing him to sell the mills.
All while cackling, stroking his beard, and shouting 'Take that Johnny Reb!"
You missed the shibboleth. You never take SOME Goody’s powder, you take A Goody’s powder.
Ah, yes. Trust a smug Doper to miss the point. The offensive thing is not that Smucker’s bought the company, but that they both took it out of the South, where it has been for 125 years, and changed the product.
It is well known in Smuckers company lore that way back in 1897 when Jerome Monroe Smucker was making his first batches of cider and apple butter, he put a little bit of Dixie in each jar.
Until they caught him at it one day (Dixie had mysteriously disappeared). :eek:
Cake flour is generally 6-8% protein, while AP flour is usually 10-11%. According to a 1999 Cook’s Illustrated article (sub. required), White Lily is 8-9% protein. This lends some credence to Alton Brown’s original biscuit recipe, which used 1/2 AP and 1/2 cake flour. (His later books include revised recipes that use all AP.)
CI says that the biscuits made with White Lily were “extremely fluffy, tender, and light”, but they preferred those made with King Arthur AP (11.7% protein), which were “buttery, fresh flavor; crispy, crunchy exterior; hearty”. This is probably a difference of style, perhaps a northern vs. southern thing.
FWIW, I use King Arthur flours almost exclusively, but I still hate to see a Southern institution like White Lily moving up north.
How is that more offensive than the original owners selling?
Perhaps my smugness is getting in the way of my comprehension.
As a dyed in the maple-syrup northerner, I too was saddened by this article. Our family came late to White Lily flour. We only started using it in the last few years, having found out about it from Gourmet magazine. We don’t use it for biscuits, but for fantastic scones and pancakes. My mother has a friend in Durham NC from whom we receive shipments of that essential white powder. He’s sending us a couple of bags now, which I expect will be hoarded.