Old Nates Biscuits

Bailey's Palomar Resort & Retreat Center, Palomar Mountain, CA

Bailey’s Palomar Resort
P.O. Box 87, Palomar Mountain, CA 92060

Phone: 760 / 742-1859

Email: Click to use our secure email form.

Old Nate Harrison’s Favorite Biscuits

My first recipe, and an absolute staple of any diet, is the ever present biscuit - the bread of life. The basic biscuit has a history that spans the world, and can be found in virtually every culture. This variation I’m sharing with you is the century old recipe for the Bailey Family Biscuit.

Perhaps the most famous of the old timers on Palomar Mountain was Uncle Nate Harrison. Born a slave around 1848, so the story goes, he ran away from his master in the 1860s and built a hovel on the remote west side of Palomar Mountain at the site of a little artesian spring - and the dirt road which now bares his name.

During his decades on the mountain, he enjoyed his visits to the Bailey place, which was the center of the small Palomar community from the 1880s onward. On one such visit, he took dinner with the young newlyweds, Adalind and Dr. Milton Bailey, who was the son of original Palomar homesteaders Theodore and Mary Bailey.

Adalind wrote in her diary, July 22, 1914:

”I am now more prepared for the appetite of Mr. N. Harrison. I was dismayed that I ran short of biscuits on his last visit up here, and, I didn't get [a single] biscuit myself!
That man can eat more biscuits than anyone I've ever met! I'm delighted to see him enjoy our home cooking here at the hotel, and I will make sure he takes a few home with him, next time, that is if he doesn't eat them all first. We always look forward (sic) and enjoy Old Nate’s visits. He is a great storyteller, and Father and Mother Bailey enjoy him so. He's quite a character.”

This biscuit recipe was passed down to Adalind, from her mother-in-law, Mary Tribue Bailey.

Nate Harrison's Favorite Biscuits
3 c. flour
3 rounded table spoons of shortening
1 c. milk
5 rounded teaspoons baking powder
1 large pinch of salt

In a bowl mix flour, baking powder, salt, combine all ingredients.
Add shortening until feels like small peas.
Add milk and kneed until soft dough ball is formed. Don't over kneed.
Roll dough flat about 2 inches thick, cut into a circle with a glass dipped in flour.

Bake at 450 degrees, about 7-8 min. bottoms will be light brown.
Or until your nose tells you they are done.

In the original recipe, Mrs. Bailey tells us to get the cook stove going in the morning, and when the fire has settled into coals, the oven is ready to go.

This was Mary Tribue Bailey's tried and true, all-seasons recipe. She used it often and received lots of compliments. She paired her biscuits with her famous (and award winning) Blackberry jam, or with Bailey's Cold Spring Apple Butter, made from the now heritage Bailey apples that still flourish here on the mountain.

Enjoy!
Terri Rubio Bailey