What's happened to biscuits?

I was in Georgia and Tennessee over an extended Memorial Day weekend and had some great food.   A variety of fried foods and barbecue were exceptionally good.   (I am craving more fried okra).  My biggest disappointment?   the biscuits.   My mom grew up in Mississippi Delta country and her mother made great biscuits.   They were flaky, crusty and had a small amount of fluffy center for contrast.   She used lard in the biscuits and baked them on a preheated cast iron skillet, then served them slathered them with butter and cane sugar syrup.  It was my favorite breakfast.  I make my biscuits similarly, but substitute butter for the lard and bake them on a preheated "pizza" stone.  I also substitute cake flour for about 1/8th of the all purpose flour, since all purpose flour in most areas has higher gluten content than Southern all purpose flour.  I too love them slathered with butter, but don't usually do it, because I know how much fat is already in them!

Somehow biscuits keep getting taller and fluffier.   (Sort of like bagels, which are much bigger and fluffier than the smaller, chewier ones of my youth.)  They are barely browned and are soft and doughy (yuck) or soft and fluffy (better, but not the best)  rather than crusty and flaky.   I thought in the South, they would have retained more of the original biscuit ideals, but apparently not.   I had biscuits at three places and was disappointed with all.   One place wasn't bad, with browned but somehow flavorless biscuits (The Smokehouse, Monteagle, Tn), another place just made them way too tall and fluffy (The Flying Biscuit, Atlanta, GA), and in another place, they seemed more like big soft buns than biscuits (The Barbecue Kitchen of College Park, GA.)     Do go to those places anyway-the Smokehouse had good salty country ham, the Flying Biscuit made a yummy Fried Green Tomato BLT (with turkey bacon), and the brisket at the Barbecue Kitchen was great!   But not for the biscuits- get cornbread instead.

Sakoon

Tried a relatively new Indian restaurant in Mountain View last night; Sakoon (http://www.sakoonrestaurant.com/).  It has traditional items, but also many that could be considered a fusion of Indian and California cuisine.  There were only two of us, and we decided not to go for the tasting menus, so we didn't try a large variety of menu items.  But most of what we had was very good to excellent.   First, the excellent:  a very tender tandoori rack of lamb.  Perfectly seasoned.   So good, I nibbled the remains directly off the bones. Also had some very good samosas and enjoyed their special chicken curry.   I didn't particularly care for the "nouveau" samosas but the more traditional one with potatoes and peas was probably one of the best samosas I ever had.  The coconut rice was very good, but a bit disconcerting that it had chiles in it- I often use rice to temper the hotness of the curries, but couldn't do that last night.  Had to use the garlic naan for that purpose.   Even though we were full , we decided to try a dessert sampler of "Indian Sweets".   Not very good.  The flavors were muddled to the point of not being able to recognize exactly what we were eating.  One dessert had a very off-putting, almost moldy taste to it. Our waiter was unable to tell us what each dessert  item was, and gave us the wrong bill at the end, but otherwise the service was very fast and good.   Definitely want to go back, but will have dessert elsewhere!