We needed a thread about grits yesterday, and I'm afraid in not doing so we may have alienated or offended forbiddencokedrinker. Brethren and Cistern, I will not have that. We SHOULD talk about grits, even if it's always so difficult to do so. The subject just lingers out there in a sort of culinary limbo and no one talks about it. Ah, we know what we're all thinking, to be sure. But people are loathe to speak of the subject of grits due to its inherently difficult and often terrifying and embarrassing nature.

I was raised in Southern California. You don't eat grits there. The thought "makes reason stare," as Eliza R. Snow once quipped when asked about grits. But when I was in my 20s, I joined the military and went to far off exotic places, like West Texas. When I sampled their exotic cuisine, I was introduced to grits for breakfast. I thought, "What a hair-brained idea, to eat ground lye-treated hominy with eggs and bacon." But they also introduced to me the even more exotic "ranch-style egg," where you cook the egg by flipping an inch of hot bacon grease over the top of it until it is done, while keeping the yolk runny. I found that the buttered, salted, and adequately peppered grits mixed well with the egg yolk and that they went down, as they say in West Texas, "reel gud."

So the part that everyone is always loathe to speak about--a subject that we should broach today--is just how one should be punished for eating their grits in an unorthodox way, with, say, sugar instead of salt, pepper, and butter. Should these individuals be hanged? Should they be beaten about the head? Horse-whipped, perhaps? With a real horse?

For the sake of forbiddencokedrinker, let's make this a real discussion that will not allow him or possibly her (I actually forget) to go away dejected and offended.

I LOVE grits! And I eat them the proper southern way... with butter and salt, or with shrimp and tasso ham gravy. I do not understand people who put sugar on grits. Ick.

I've never had real grits, just instant ones. They taste a lot like cream of wheat to me. What's not to like? And I ate them with buttuh and salt.

You really need to try real grits. They are so much better than instant ones. And when I say "real grits", I mean the kind that have to be boiled for 30 minutes or so, not quick grits.

I am a southern girl and I love grits. I have to admit that I put sugar on them, though. Butter and sugar! And for the record, I am NOT a bone-head! :>)

I live in TX and I think there's a law against sugar on grits, at least in some jurisdictions. A few drops of Tabasco makes them even better.

Grits are one of the few foods I truly dislike. I'll try them to be polite, (just like with yams at T-day), but I really can't stand the texture or the taste.

There may be a recipe someday that makes them more palatable for me.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2012 10:33AM by Itzpapalotl.

I feel the same way about mushrooms, though I won't even try them to be polite. I actually have a phobia of them. One time when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, a woman invited me over for dinner. She had made a main dish loaded with mushrooms. I had to tell her I couldn't eat it. Luckily, when I explained why, she thought it was funny. It would probably be easier if I just said I was deathly allergic to them instead of phobic!

She absolutely loathes mushrooms.

I like to host, so I try to be sensitive to everyone's tastes and allergies. Overly picky eaters annoy the hell outta me, but I get that everyone has their own food quirks. :)

I don't mind if someone serves mushrooms as long as they realize that I won't eat them under any circumstances. My husband is a sweetie pie. One time, one of his co-workers invited us over for spaghetti. My husband asked if his friend planned to put mushrooms in the sauce. His friend said he did. So my husband warned him about my psychotic hatred of all things fungus and his friend reserved some 'shroom free sauce for me! Everybody was happy!

Just for the record, let me be firm. Forbiddencokedrinker is a male. I mean, just because I occasionally like to watch lifetime, or to wear pretty things, that should not confuse you.

You forgot the most sacred grit of all, cheesy grits.

Apparently, Mitt Romney is a cheesy grits fan and thought his love of grits would endear him to southerners.

Ah, grits -- one of my favorite foods on this planet!


As for dopey Romney and his "cheesy grits," all he did with that comment was ALIENATE SOUTHERN VOTERS.


We LAUGHED AT HIM!


If he thought that his "love for cheesy grits" would endear him to those of us who graced the inside of southern voting booths, he'd better think again!


NO real southerner eats "cheesy grits."


I am born and raised in the deep south. I'll die in the deep south. I never lived anywhere else. Why live elsewhere, when you already live in the best place on the planet?


At any rate, I have found that REAL southerners are about evenly split on how they eat their grits.


About half will eat them with sugar and milk.


The other half will eat them with real butter and some salt.


Only dimwitted, silver spoon fed, NORTHERN IGNORMANOUSES eat "cheesy grits."

I heartily agree. My husband and I are both southerners and we both thought Mitt's cheesy grits comment was particularly daft.

But then, we think most of the things Mitt says are pretty daft.

Here's a weird thing... When my husband and I lived in Georgia, we could only get quick grits at the Publix. We had to go to Atlanta Whole Foods to buy decent grits! Here in North Carolina, we can get some good stone ground grits at the local Lowe's (a grocery store started by the same family that started the hardware empire). When we lived in Germany, we had people send us grits in the mail!

I think the only time I have ever had grits was in Schoneys restaurant.
I can't believe that people would actually do that to perfectly good corn.

And don't even get me started on boiled peanuts ! There ought to be a law against desecrating peanuts like that !

Boiled peanuts are pretty nasty.

I have lived in Idaho. You don't tell the waitress you don't want hash browns (or other potatoes.)

I have lived in South Carolina. You don't tell the waitress you don't like okra.

I have lived in Georgia. You don't tell the waitress you don't want grits.

"You ain't from around here, are you, Boy?"

They're good with melted butter with bacon and scrambled eggs. Haven't had them since that time but remember them fondly.

My boss was from the deep South and she knew all about grits.

Once in the 70s my boyfriend and I were going cross country. Somewhere on Rt 66 we stopped at a diner. I had the nerve to put "4 dead in Ohio" on the jukebook. I was shocked it was even offered.

Upon leaving we resumed hitch-hicking. Shortly we were visited by local cops. They took us to the jail where they offered us a shower. We did. The were not very nice but we were young and scared.

Then they took us to county line and bid us farewell.

Should of ordered grits

I'm all for respecting the beliefs and opinions of my fellow posters, but.......I was raised in the Deep South and am firmly convinced that the recipe for grits calls for equal parts wallpaper paste and course sand, moistened with dishwater. Yechhh

and i never liked those little gritty thangs!! ucky!!no okra or black eyed peas neither!! i guess i am a true Yankee living "south of the border" ...the Dade-Broward border(Miami)

Jan,


You feel that way about grits, and still dare to live in the Deep South?


I'm surprised you haven't been tar and feathered, then run out of God's blessed South!


I think it is against the law to voice a negative opinion about the grits in my southern community. In fact, I didn't even think any southern person COULD dislike grits!


Are you SURE you are a Southerner?

Kind like boiled wheat. I might gag them down if I were starving.

Mushrooms.....I would rather starve.

I would eat cheese grits morning, noon and night if I could. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE grits. I like them with shrimp, and I LOVE them with blackened fish and greens with tabasco. I never heard of putting sugar in them- that sounds unconscionable.

One time I ordered cheese grits at a waffle house and the waitress brought me a cold bowl with a slab of kraft plastic cheese on the top. I have no idea what that was about. She clearly didn't understand grits. I haven't been to an awful house since.

Grits are like little grains of goodness from heaven. Fantastic comfort food-- especially with extra-sharp natural cheddar & freshly ground black pepper. Oh my lord, I am so hungry right now.

Instant grits are an abomination.

Agreed.


Instant grits are not REAL grits!


(I wonder if some of these misguided folks who dislike grits have never had REAL grits, and have just had instant grits. Real Southerners have REAL grits.)

The really great thing about grits, is that if you don't eat them within a minute or so of them being put on your plate, you can peel it off and use it as a frisbee.

Re. Boiled peanuts . . . Jimmy Carter (everyone's favorite president) wrote: "Boiled peanuts should be considered one of the great gifts of god to mankind." and I agree. It don't get much better 'n good boiled peanuts.

sugar on grits is an abomination. Now cheese and bacon on grits is where it's at!

When talking or even typing about grits, it seems the natural thing to do it with an accent, faux or not.

I was born in east central Missouri - it's not possible to type in that accent.

Southerners have accents? I thought it was the rest of the world that couldn't talk right.

This thread has done enough to convince me that we can have a regional apostate conference for the deep south.

I had never tasted grits until I moved to Houston 12 years ago. Love them, and it sucks that I can't get them here in Utah. There's a place in Orem that brags about its grits, but when I tried them, they had been sweetened. Ugh.

I've never had grits. Maybe I will buy some and try them. Is it hominy smashed up?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/25/2012 03:27PM by suckafoo.