The International Biscuit Festival is a downtown event that celebrates the heritage of home cooking.
The first annual International Biscuit Festival was a tremendous success! Thanks so much to all of you who attended. We are already in the planning process for next summer and promise a lot more biscuits and a lot more biscuit action. Please plan on joining us Memorial Day weekend 2011 to fill up your belly!
Questions regarding 2011? Please email amy@knoxvillemarketsquare.com!
Biscuit Bake Off
Put the competitive edge in your biscuit! Finalists are asked to join us for the International Biscuit Bake-off. Try your hand (and your wooden spoon) with a variety of biscuit making! This event has four categories that include traditional buttermilk biscuits, savory biscuits, sweet biscuits, and most original biscuit. Hot! Hot! Hot!
The Fat Elvis!
Biscuit Bake Off GRAND PRIZE
Kimberly Pack with the Fat Elvis!
A very special Honorable Mention to Drama Watson with her now infamous Flitter Bread.
Basic Biscuits
First Place ~ Ann Farrar with her signature “Annie’s No-Buttermilk Buttermilk Biscuits”
Second Place ~ Justin Fee with his “Granny Annie Ruth Gryder’s Drop Biscuits”
Third Place ~ Mark Mohundro with his darling “Aunt Nancy’s Old Fashioned Biscuits”
Sweet Biscuits
First Place ~ James R. Hayes with his yummy “Orange Sunshine Biscuits”
Second Place ~ Judy Davis with the never before seen “Blackberry Shine Biscuits”
Third Place ~ Bill Wagner with his fabulous “Cinnamon Pecan Cranberry Biscuits”
Savory Biscuits
First Place ~ Casey Littell with the delightful “Cheddar and Chive Biscuits”
Second Place ~ Jackson Walker with the incomparable “Cheesy Pork Butt Cream Cheese Biscuits”
Third Place ~ Sharon Wagner with her delectable “Herb Biscuits”
Most Creative Biscuits
First Place ~ Kimberly Pack with the catchy and tasty “Fat Elvis-Taking Care of Biscuits”
Second Place ~ Drama Watson with her amazing “Flitter Bread”
Third Place ~ Joseph Lowery with his “Big Island Biscuits”
Biscuit Boulevard
Help your community and help your tummy by taking a stroll down Biscuit Boulevard. A plethora of biscuit tastes and smells brought to you by local non-profit organizations and restaurants. Five dollars purchases a ticket to a variety of biscuit samples from 10am to 2pm. MORE BISCUITS IN 2011!
Biscuit Breakfast
Starting at 9am on Saturday June 4th. There will be a selection of gourmet biscuits and sides from notorious area biscuitmakers. $10 at the door gets you under the tent to enjoyment!
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Blackberry Brunch
Join us under the big tent at the Krutch Park Extension for a special brunch from Blackberry Farms. Guest speakers, live
music and unbelievable food! 11am – 12:30pm.
Signature Biscuit!
In celebration of the biscuit and the International Biscuit Festival, several area restaurants are offered a Signature Biscuit from May 15 through June 15. What a delight!
Cafe Four ~ Chocolate Chip Biscuit with Brandied Cherries!
La Costa ~ Cheddar Jalapeno Pork Biscuit! (Sunday brunch only)
Oodles ~ Best Bacon Biscuit! Benton’s Bacon and Tomato Strawberry Jam.
Latitude 35 ~ Sweet Strawberry Biscuit! Cinnamon biscuit with white chocolate gravy and macerated strawberries.
S&W Grand ~ Pig and Biscuit! Pork cheek, fennel slaw and pimento cheese.
Trio ~ On the Go Biscuit! Ham and cheese.
Tomato Head ~ Biscuit and Jam! (Sunday Brunch only)
Lenny’s ~ Cheddar Herb Philly Biscuit! (Saturdays and Sundays at their Gay Street location)
Rankin’s ~ Rankin’s Famous Sweet Milk Biscuit!
Gluten Free Goodies ~ Gluten-Free Biscuit with Gluten-Free Sausage Gravy!
Biscuit Entertainment from 2010! We’ll have a mouth-watering line-up for you in 2011 ~ June 3rd and 4th!
Friday June 4th
The Square Room~
White Lightnin’ Burlesque does biscuit dancing to please.
www.myspace.com/whitelightninburlesque.
Closing out the night with Southern Culture on the Skids. True story! SCOTS
has been known to rock out with some all kindly fried chicken and more! www.scots.com.
$12 in advance and $15 on the day of. Visit www.thesquareroom.com to purchase tickets.
Saturday June 5th
Market Street Flatbed Stage! Free to all biscuit lovers!
Black Bottom Biscuits (12:30pm – 1:45pm) come to town to show you why biscuits aren’t just for breakfast anymore. www.blackbottombiscuits.com
Naughty Knots (2:15pm – 3:30pm) throw caution to the wind and sing pretty just for you. www.myspace.com/thenaughtyknots
The Square Room!
Einstein Simplified, a comedy improv troupe, will have you laughing so hard you’ll have to loosen your belt on your biscuit filled belly. www.einsteinsimplified.com.
Leanne Morgan, Knoxville’s homegrown housewife comedian closes out the festival. www.leannemorgan.com.
$12 in advance and $15 on the day of. Visit www.thesquareroom.com to purchase tickets.
*Check out the Biscuit Bundle below!
Biscuit Bazaar
Market Square will be host to several vendors specializing in biscuits and biscuit accessories! Our Biscuit Bazaar will take place from 9am to 5pm on Market Street. Of course, come early to visit the Market Square Farmers’ Market between 9amand 2pm to shop for local produce, honey, plants and baked goods as well as artisan crafts.
Biscuit Art
Do you love your biscuit, skillet or Memaw so much you want to paint a picture? Then the Biscuit Art competition is for you! We welcome all kinds of art in line with our statement of purpose. It doesn’t even have to be of a biscuit but just something that relates to a biscuit. We’ll be exhibiting beginning on First Friday June 3rd and throughout the month of June.
Here are 2010’s favorites!
1st Place ~ Robin Surber for “Warm Biscuits”
2nd Place ~ Brian Wagner, untitled
3rd Place ~ Rachel Travis (boxiepets), “Dog and Biscuit”
Biscuit Songs
We hear the sounds of biscuits. A songwriting category? Really? Yep. This was developed to give a voice to that feeling of home that only a biscuit can inspire. We have a wide variety of songwriting categories to please all tastes. The top three songs will be performed at the conclusion of our festival!
Winners for 2010!
1st Place ~ Kevin Buchmeier, “Risk it for Her Biscuits”
2nd Place ~ Jimmy Brown Johnson, “Biscuit Felt Love”
3rd Place ~ Brook Henderson, “Love and Biscuits”
Honorable Mention ~ Emily Ellis, “Mama’s Biscuits”
Biscuit Books and Films from 2010! We’ll be updating for 2011 when we have our foodies confirmed.
Join us at the East Tennessee History Center from Noon until 5pm to enjoy an afternoon of southern cooking via food writing and food filming! Carpe Librum Booksellers will be on hand with some of the best food writing in the South.
We’ll be featuring Fred W. Sauceman of CORNBREAD NATION 5, Jack Neely of MARKET SQUARE: A HISTORY OF THE MOST DEMOCRATIC PLACE ON EARTH and Maryann Byrd of THE BISCUIT DIVE GUIDE and the film THE RISE OF THE SOUTHERN BISCUIT.
The fifth volume in this popular series from the Southern Foodways Alliance spans the food cultures of the South. Cornbread Nation 5, lovingly edited by accomplished food writer Fred W. Sauceman, celebrates food and the ways in which it forges unexpected relationships between people and places. In this collection of more than seventy essays and poems, we read about the food that provides nourishment as well as a sense of community and shared history. Cornbread Nation 5 is a feast for the eyes, and if you’re not hungry or thirsty when you pick up this book, you will be when you put it down.
Two-time Emmy and three-time Telly Award winning producer Maryann Byrd wrote, directed, and produced The 
Rise of the Southern Biscuit. Based out of Nashville, Tennessee, Maryann works independently under her own company Byrdword Productions. It took hundreds of miles of travel and 35 hours of video tape to capture the interesting characters and tantalizing biscuits featured in The Rise of the Southern Biscuit. The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the Telly Awards for Film and Television awarded Maryann and her company, Byrdword Productions, a total of five top honors for Program Writing, Best Cultural Documentary, Best Use of Music, Best Cultural Program, and Outstanding Documentary for The Rise of the Southern Biscuit.
Maryann also authored The Biscuit Dive Guide by interviewing biscuit makers throughout the South who agreed to share their biscuit recipes and biscuit making advice.
Working Schedule ~
10:30am – 11:30 – Vintage Cartoons from TAMIS (Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound)
12:05pm – 1pm – Fred Sauceman with Cornbread Nation 5
1:10pm – 1:30pm – Jack Neely, a local food discussion
1:45pm – 3:15pm – Maryann Byrd with The Rise of the Southern Biscuit and The Biscuit Dive Guide
3:30pm – 5pm – Flatt and Scruggs television show 1956 sponsored by Martha White Hot Rize Flour restored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Roy Acuff’s Open House Party – extremely rare vintage film from TAMIS
The Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to collecting, preserving and providing access to the moving image and recorded sound heritage of our region.
Biscuit Fun
It’s all fun and games until someone loses a biscuit! Join us for the mayhem of biscuit themed fun on Saturday June 5th. Minimal entry fees may apply. Teams are encouraged!
Biscuit Eating Competition ~ 1:30pm on Krutch Park Extension
Downtown Biscuit Scavenger Hunt ~ 2pm from Market Square
Miss Biscuit or Mister Biscuit
Jenna and company
Beauty comes in all forms and our unconventional Miss Biscuit competition will include talent, runway and biscuit skills.
2010 was a huge hit! There will be lots more fanciness in 2011. Check back for details!
Reigning Queen – Jenna Hancock
Apron Exhibit 2010
Do you love aprons? Guest curator Dale Mackey will be exhibiting select collections of vintage and handmade aprons at Rita’s Italian Ice! The exhibit will open on First Friday June 4th at 5pm and be available for viewing through the month of June. Lovely! 
