A pall as thick as a white cloud of flour has settled over biscuit lovers. White Lily, the most Southern of flours, is leaving the South. Milling operations shifted to two Ohio facilities in June, leaving the Knoxville, Tenn., factory that had produced White Lily for 125 years.

Supermarket shelves still stock the Tennessee-produced flour, but as supplies dwindle, bags made in Ohio will replace them.

For bakers accustomed to the ultra-fine flour, which is milled to produce more tender biscuits, cakes and pie crusts than a conventional, higher protein flour, it's alarming news. For Southern food devotees, it's a strike at a cherished tradition, one handed down from mothers and grandmothers for generations.

''What's next -- Duke's Mayonnaise?'' asks Donna Looper, who learned to bake yeast rolls and biscuits with White Lily from a great-aunt.

In Atlanta, White Lily keeps the biscuits high and light at the Flying Biscuit Cafe. It makes the Very Good Chocolate Cake at Watershed so tender that to cut a slice is to risk collapse. Like Duke's Mayonnaise, it's a product rooted in the South.

''It's passed down from generation to generation, and the secret of your biscuit,'' says Delia Champion, the founder of Flying Biscuit.

Cookbook author Nathalie Dupree was so concerned that she called White Lily's parent company, the J.M. Smucker Co. of Orrville, Ohio, for reassurance. Several seasons of her PBS cooking shows were sponsored by White Lily, and she has tested the flour in 50 cake and 20 biscuit recipes in an upcoming book, Mastering the Artof Southern Cooking.

''I will slit my wrists if it changes,'' says Dupree. ``But I am assured it will not.''

The Knoxville mill produced White Lily through eight changes in ownership, but it wasn't the only one to make the flour. Smucker won't identify the milling operation now producing White Lily, but spokeswoman Maribeth Badertscher says it has been a secondary miller of the flour for generations.

Smucker bought the brand two years ago from C.H. Guenther & Sons, a Texas-based milling company. Smucker also owns Martha White and Pillsbury flour.

Guenther continued to produce White Lily under contract in Knoxville through April. That mill will close at the end of this month.

Amanda Moore of Lawrenceville, Ga., wouldn't think of using anything else. She goes through a 5-pound bag every six weeks, using it for everything from fried okra to pound cakes, pancakes and the buttermilk biscuits her husband loves.

''There's a little bit of Southern pride in that product,'' she says. ``I've had experiences with other flours and have come to the conclusion that it's definitely a superior product.''

Like many White Lily fans, Moore is worried about whether flour produced in a Midwestern mill will look and act the same.

Smucker is reassuring customers that nothing has changed.

''We are definitely committed to maintaining that regional presence and recognize the loyalty of those consumers,'' Badertscher says.

White Lily is the top-selling regional flour brand in America, with sales of $13.2 million in the 52-week period ending May 18, according to the Chicago-based market research firm Information Resources. Still, it's a niche product, with just 3.7 percent of the overall flour market. Those figures include supermarkets and mass merchandisers, but not Wal-Mart, which doesn't provide sales data.

White Lily is different from its competitors in the way it is milled and the type of wheat used. Made from soft winter wheat, it is lower in protein than many other flours. Lower-protein means less gluten, ideal for delicate baked goods. Higher protein flours provide the gluten needed to support hearty baked goods, like apple cakes and bread.

''You have a moister, more tender product with the low protein,'' says Shirley Corriher, an Atlanta-based food chemist and the author of Cookwise.

On the side of the bag, White Lily explains what makes it different from other brands. The wheat is ground finer and sifted longer. Almost half of what's milled isn't good enough to wind up in the finished product, and goes into other flours. White Lily weighs up to 15 percent less than other brands, cup for cup.

The flour looks different, too, bakers say. It is whiter, finer and silkier.

White Lily is also lightly chlorinated, which helps it bind to fat particles more readily and produces baked goods with better texture, Corriher says. Fat particles contain air bubbles, which help produce flaky biscuits and pie crusts. The chlorination helps in other ways, too, such as helping cakes set faster, also making for better texture. Corriher has worked with White Lily over the years, including writing an explanation of what makes the flour unique for Sunday Best Baking, a White Lily recipe collection now out of print.

Corriher hasn't seen the Midwestern-produced flour yet.

An informal test organized by The New York Times sent unlabeled bags of flour from the old and new mills to several bakers. All said they could tell the difference - and wanted their old White Lily back.

Smucker says the flour is still the same.

''We really took great care to maintain White Lily's recipe and production process, including continued use of the soft red winter wheat,'' Badertscher says. ``There have been no changes to the product specification and milling process.''

Two of Atlanta's best-known biscuit makers, Champion and Scott Peacock of Watershed, say they can adapt their recipes if the product has changed.

Still, they find the idea of change in such a staple hard to believe.

''It's really upsetting,'' Peacock says. ``It's just a Southern tradition.''

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