Robert St. John is a big player on the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, restaurant scene, and when he opened the Midtowner in 2017, he knew he wanted to serve a big biscuit. So while he chased the flavor profile of his grandmother’s acidic buttermilk recipe (not that there existed an actual recipe), he upgraded her “petite, old lady biscuits” to catheads.
For those not in the know, “cathead” is a Southernism for a biscuit that’s as big as a cat’s head. One could ponder if a less evocative size comparison might have been found, but the name just kind of works (and is certainly preferable to “tuna can biscuits” or “ashtray biscuits”). For biscuit sticklers—try to say that three times fast—yes, catheads are often formed by hand. But because the Midtowner’s customers consume 1,500 of them a week with breakfast and blue-plate lunches, an oversized three-inch round cutter is deployed for the sake of efficiency.
For best results, St. John advises using high-quality butter such as Kerrygold or Plugra, plus full-fat buttermilk, which can require reaching past the commonly low-fat supermarket buttermilk. His grandmother’s somewhat unorthodox use of eggs is maintained because he finds that the yolks lend richness and the whites lend “fluff and air.” He also freezes and grates the butter to help it remain very cold until baking and achieve even distribution in the dough, an innovative prep trick he calls “one of the things that makes this biscuit what it is.”
The results are impressive in size and taste. Take it from St. John himself: “I start most mornings in booth nineteen at the Midtowner, and when I eat this cathead, I think it’s the best biscuit I’ve ever eaten. Period. End of story.”