"The crux of this problem is a brand called White Lily, whose name and logo is familiar to virtually all southerners but foreign to most people outside the region."
What a bullshit article!!!
I live in semi-rural upstate New York.
It's a depressed and depressing area! LOL
There isn't much here!
I can buy all the White Lily flour I'd ever want, if I did want it, just 2 miles away!
OMG! Many decades before White Lily flour was known here, my paternal grandmother was baking EXCELLENT biscuits from soft wheat flour in the mountains of north-central Pennsylvania!!!
I can remember my grand-aunt, who was an excellent cook and baker in her own right, saying that nobody could make a biscuit, pancake or pie crust as well or as good as Luella—my grandmother!
It's NOT just a Southern thing!!!