Cat Head Biscuit Question

The restaurant of the day today(11/18) is the Tomato Jam Cafe and their cat head biscuits are shown. I was under the impression that cat head biscuits were drop biscuits(what my Mom always made). We called them cat heads because of the little spikes that would be sticking up like the fur on a cat's head. The biscuits in the picture look like they were cut with a biscuit cutter. Can anyone else clear this up for me?

I always thought it referred to the size of the biscuit - BIG AS a cat's head.

Agnesrob, +1. I also thought of cat head biscuits as drop biscuits, as big and knobby (and spikey) as a cat's head -- more round than flat. Tomato Jam Cafe's indeed are cut in neat circles, but they call them cat heads. They do puff up pretty good and they definitely are bigger than normal, and -- call them what you will -- they are delish.

It looks like they do derive their name from their size but there's probably no way to say 100% that's where it came from:

Those biscuits were always light, fluffy and huge - that's why they are called cat head biscuits - because they are as big as a cat's head!

....to make "cat head" biscuits (so called because they are large--about the size of a cat's head)...

Cat Head Biscuits (as big as a cat's head)...

It does however seem that they are traditionally measured by hand rather than cut and that makes them distinct in that manner too:

....simply pinch off a ball of dough about 2 1/2 inches across and pat it into a thick patty.

Pinch off about a lemon-sized ball of dough for each biscuit and pat out with your hands.

I remember my grandmother held the bowl under one arm and mixed the dough with a twisting motion of her fingers. She never used a spoon. When the dough was mixed, she would start pinching off big pieces of dough and rolling them in the palm of her hand. Then she would place the newly formed biscuit in a pan that was blackened from many years of use. the pan would always be full of biscuits, no spaces between and if there was a little dough left, she would make it into a tiny baby biscuit and tuck it away in a small hole between the other biscuits. This would be my special biscuit.

....but I think I found the real reason:


...although this guy looks almost like a biscuit too:

Whatever the reason I love all kinds of biscuits, no matter what their called!

I was always told that it was due to the size of the biscuit.

A "cathead" on a ship is a kind of steel fixture or bollard around which a chain or rope is wound to prevent slippage. It is also the drum on a winch on which a rope or cable is wound in  raising or lowering a load. I was on a ship or two where the cooks called their biscuits "catheads" ( if memory serves, these were always African-American cooks) and I always thought is had something to do with the devices on deck, although until now I had never thought about it enough to try to find any resemblance between the biscuits and the devices - and now that you folks have made me think about it - I don't see any resemblance, so maybe it does have to do with size or "furriness"...

Cheers, John  

At Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, KY, they call their breakfast biscuits "cathead" biscuits.  They're pretty good-sized, but appear to be cut with a biscuit cutter or a glass. They certainly aren't drop biscuits.
 
http://www.beaumontinn.com/breakfast.htm 

Here's the real, honest to goodness, 100% True description of Cathead Biscuits.
It's a fun read:

http://www.deltablues.net/biscuit.html

Eating the road!!!!!  too funny!!!

If you want some more down home Louisiana recipes, go to the main page of the website Foodbme listed above:
http://www.deltablues.net/recipe.html

Like others have said...I have always been told that it was because of the size, "big as a cat's head".

6star, what a great site. I'm from the Mississippi Delta, so reading all that is really like going home. Evidently, they are in LA Delta, right across the river (around there, there is only one river) and a bit south from the MS Delta.