Sister Schubert

Down South, some folks have "an elastic concept of what constitutes home cooking," and that helps explain why Sister Schubert’s frozen biscuits are so popular, reports John T. Edge in the New York Times (4/15/09). Sister Schubert’s got started "about 20 years ago," in Alabama, when Patricia Schubert "baked 20 pans of rolls for a frozen-foods fair" to benefit her church. Using her grandmother’s recipe, she baked the rolls until they were done but not browned "and packaged them in round tins. She quickly sold out."

The demand kept growing and Patricia (who has since re-married and is known as Patricia Barnes), today "cranks out more than 500,000 biscuits a week." She sold her company for "more than $40 million" in 2000, to T. Marzetti, and now "sells 12 vareties of Sister Schubert’s products, including an orange yeast roll with bits of orange peel, in outlets nationwide, including Walmart and Sam’s Club." Two years ago, T. Marzetti bought Marshall Biscuit Company, another Alabama bakery specialized in frozen rolls, for $20 million.

This success is partly because of the unadulterated recipe: "Flour, salt, baking powder, shortening and buttermilk — that’s it," says Kent Duitt, who mixes the dough for Marshall’s. "We mix slow. We use a blend of cake flour and bread flour for softness and rise. And we still do lots of the work by hand." It seems that down South, warm hands and warm bread — formerly frozen, yes, but now fresh from the oven — can’t miss. As cookbook author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings explains: "We serve cold baker’s bread to our enemies, trusting that they will never impose on our hospitality again."