About the Book
It started in the late 1800s when chemical leavening became widely accepted, mills across the country began offering self-rising flour as a value-added convenience targeted to daily biscuit and cornbread bakers. In the South, it took off like nothing else. Every mill in the region (there were hundreds of brands) marketed these products to homemakers as foolproof, fast, economical, and family-pleasing—and they were right.
Nashville was at the center of it all. By 1925, the city led the world in self-rising flour production—enough to make 60 million biscuits every day. It was home to the Self-Rising Flour Institute, whose test kitchen recipes ran regularly in Southern newspapers. And it was home to Martha White, the longest-running sponsor of the Grand Ole Opry on WSM-AM, whose savvy embrace of clear-channel radio is the reason the brand survives to this day.
Self-Rising documents this important history that has been ignored until now—with a nostalgic narrative that stirs together milling, transportation, radio, electrification, home economics, and targeted advertising, alongside timeless foolproof recipes that prove these products are just as valuable to today’s home cook as they have always been.
About the Authors
Mindy Merrell is the coauthor of Cheater BBQ and two Jack Daniel’s cookbooks. She won the Food Network competition Chopped in 2014 and is a former columnist for The Tennessean and NFocus. She has worked closely with Martha White, bringing deep knowledge of Southern cooking and baking traditions to her writing.
R.B. Quinn is an attorney, historian, and writer and coauthor of Cheater BBQ and former columnist for The Tennessean and NFocus. His work blends legal insight, historical research, and cultural storytelling on Southern foodways and heritage.
Linda Carman is the former consumer affairs director, test kitchen director, and baking consultant for Martha White, and a consultant for White Lily. She brings decades of hands-on baking expertise to the traditions explored in Self-Rising.
Praise
“An approachable and lively look into the history of food, baking, and the US South.” — Deirdre A. Scaggs, coauthor of Simplicity and Excellence
“The authors skillfully intertwine the ‘rise’ of self-rising flour with scientific discoveries, public health considerations, marketing strategies, and cultural events. Self-Rising captures important history that even people living in the South are forgetting.” — Johnisha Matthews Levi, author of Number’s Up
Interview Topics
- Why self-rising flour is the great unwritten chapter of Southern food history
- The Nashville connection: how one city led the world in biscuit flour production
- Martha White, the Grand Ole Opry, and the birth of food radio advertising
- Why biscuits and cornbread are experiencing a new wave of popularity
- What today’s home baker can learn from 20th-century convenience culture
- The self-rising gap in Southern food culture—and why it matters
Press Contact
For review copies, interviews, appearances, or additional materials, please contact:
Jackie Wilson, Marketing Manager – Publicity University Press of Kentucky Jackie.wilson@uky.edu 859-257-2817
