David Tamarkin
speaker
1,765 appearances
15 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 4d ago
David Tamarkin’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 9 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 3.
Appearances
And in particular, the influence of black bakers on biscuits. Deb Freeman, welcome to Thinks Bakers Know. It's a pleasure to have you.
Can you give us a quick introduction for listeners who may not be familiar with you yet? Tell us what you do, where you do it.
To talk about biscuits. Absolutely. Yes, yes. You wrote one of my favorite pieces of all time on King Arthur's site, a history of biscuits and how it came to America. So we're going to talk a lot about that. But first, you mentioned you grew up in the South and you mentioned in the piece that biscuits were a big part of your upbringing. Can you share your first memory of biscuits?
In your story for King Arthur, you trace the origins of the American biscuit to ancient Rome. But those early biscuits sound like they were absolutely horrible. Tell us about those.
This is the time before dentists, like how did they even bite those? I mean, they must have been like, just like putting them in their mouth and letting them disintegrate. I mean, it just sounds so gross.
But somehow that biscuit turned into the variety of biscuits that we know and love. And one thing that you illustrate in your story is that Europeans brought these hard unseasoned biscuits to America. Thank you very much. But then innovation started happening. And can you tell us a little bit how that happened?
Yeah.
You talk about the beaten biscuit, which seems like that was a pivotal moment in the history of biscuits. What is the beaten biscuit?
Okay. So we're at the point in biscuit history where, you know, they're starting to get lighter. This is, I feel like the point where we got lots of contributions from black chefs and inventors that are pivotal to, you know, making the biscuit what it is today. Can you talk a little bit about one of them? Unless we don't know the person saying, but a Pullman porter.
First of all, what is a Pullman porter?
I love that. But one of my favorite details in your piece is this idea that Northerners had at one point that hot bread was evil. And so they looked down on Southerners who were eating hot biscuits as their bread. They wanted a room temperature. They wanted a cold bread. They wanted room temperature, a slice of bread, not a hot biscuit. What were they thinking?
I think so. Yeah. As a Northerner, I will say yes. Yeah.
I think that's pretty wild. It's so wild. I mean, people have these people never like, obviously, they never experienced the joy of eating a hot, fresh, you know, biscuit warm. I mean, come on, people. All right, Deb Freeman, thank you so much. It's been amazing to talk to you about biscuits. Where can people find you?
All right, Deb, thank you so much for being here. It's a pleasure to speak to you.
This episode is brought to you by King Arthur's new buttermilk biscuit flour blend. It's made with unbleached soft wheat flour, baking powder, a little bit of salt, and real buttermilk.
Totally. Like, I don't keep buttermilk around because how do you know when it goes bad? It smells like it's off even when it's good. Anyway, you can find our new buttermilk biscuit flour blend on grocery store shelves, which is very exciting. Or, of course, at KingArthurBaking.com.
And of course, if you have a burning baking question that you just can't wait to get answered, you can always reach out to our Baker's Hotline via phone, email, or online chat. Just go to kingarthurbaking.com slash bakers dash hotline. kingarthurbaking.com slash bakers dash hotline.
Let's answer them.
It's perfect for us.
Yeah. You know, it's not that all-purpose flour is bad for biscuits. It's just that it requires a more gentle touch. If all you have is AP flour and you want to make biscuits right now, go for it. But just make sure that you're handling that dough really gently because the more you mess with it, the more gluten you're going to develop and the less tender your biscuit's going to be.
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