grits/cornmeal/polenta

Factual Questions
1

Okay, I’m trying a new recipe tonight. I’m making a pan of Awendaw, a classic Low Country spoon bread named for an Indian settlement north of Charleston, SC.

Calls for 3/4 of a cup of grits, plus 1/2 cup of yellow cornmeal.

My understanding of grits is that it’s simply a coarser grind of cornmeal.

Can I get away with using my Bob’s Red Mill Stoneground whole-grain coarse-ground yellow cornmeal for the grits, and my regular Indian Head white cornmeal (usually used for skillet cornbread) for the yellow cornmeal?

Also, on the polenta front, I usually use the regular white stuff, which is always on hand. I bought the Bob’s Red Mill stuff to use for polenta, as I always felt the normal grind of cornmeal made it too smooth. No one ever complained about the flavor, though.

This thread could have gone into IMHO, I suppose, but I thought it might bring some illuminations about corn and its various processings.

Feel free to discuss hominy as well…

2

No. Nothing that still calls itself “corn meal” will do as a substitute for grits.

I will stop there because that is the limit of the OP that I can answer factually.

Congrats on trying some down-home cuisine and good luck. I hope it turns out well! I can’t remember the last time I had spoon bread. Do you eat yours with sour cream or syrup?

3

specifically, one way grits differ from cornmeal is that grits are processed with lye (actualy, I think its hominy that’s processed with lye, and grits are ground hominy?)

4

Hominy is made by soaking dried corn in lye. The kernels swell up and the outer coating sloughs off. When this is dried and ground (the expanded kernel not the skin) the result is grits.

5

Damn if I know. I’ll be eating THIS spoon bread with veal cutlets dipped in fresh bread crumbs and crushed pecans and sauteed, and slow-cooked string beans with stewed tomatoes.

And hell-FAHR, my man, down-home cuisine is my middle name! Drop by Ukulele House some dinnertime for pan-fried chicken with butter beans and skillet cornbread…or some Steuben yellow-eyes baked with molasses, mustard, and Black Seal rum in a hundred-year-old beanpot…or ropa vieja with yellow rice…or barrel-dipped sauerkraut cooked with Sheboygan bratwurst…or chicken-and-andouille gumbo…or slow-BBQ’d pulled-pork on cheap white bread with vinegar/red pepper sauce…or veal paprikash with homemade potato dumplings…

…okay, so what I get from rmariamp and Diver is that I CAN substitute the coarse cornmeal (it is REALLY coarse, and includes the corn germ, which is usually milled out), and thereby proudly serve a lye-free dinner to my family?

6

:slight_smile: Thanks for the invite, Uke, if I may be so forward. Unfortunately, last time I tried to visit NYC, I was turned back at the “You must be at least this tall and be willing to be mugged” sign.

7

Just as corn and hominy have different tastes, so does cornmeal and grits. You can make the substitution, but the flavor will probably be a little different.
I doubt if it will be a real big difference though, grits don’t have a strong flavor.

Regarding the lye, don’t think much if any is left after the processing, so the family is pretty safe even if you use grits. Heck, I have been eating them for some 60 years and all my parts still work - more or less.

8

Now, let’s be fair. Things have changed a lot in the past ten years.

We no longer have a height requirement.

9

The late Southern chef extraordinaire Bill Neal was a master at making grits chic in the 80’s. His signature dish, Shrimp & Grits, was made famous when Craig Claiborne praised it in the NY Times. The following is from Bill’s Good Old Grits Cookbook:

“The Indians who met the first Virginia colonists offered the newcomers steaming bowls of cracked grains of maize cooked into a kind of stew. They called it * ustatahamen*, thought to be the source of today’s term “hominy”. The word “grits” came in with the settlers. Grits originally meant the bran and chaff that was left over from grinding Old World grains. By the sixteenth century, grits had come to mean any coarsely ground grain, especially oats.”

Of course, to a Southerner, grits means corn. Today, it’s not made with lye soaked hominy, even though the Quaker Oats package still uses the term.

The best grits are stone ground grits. After grinding, the grain is sifted; the larger pieces are “grits”, and the smaller siftings are meal. Processing this way preserves the oily germ and the starchy endosperm, resulting in superior flavor and nutritional value. Unfortunately, they don’t keep well, so are hard to come by on the grocery shelf.

Again, from Bill Neal:

“In the supermarket, you are likely to encounter standard-or old fashioned-grits, quick grits, and instant grits. During the milling quick grits are lightly steamed and lightly compressed so as to fracture the particles. The result is that quick grits cook in two to five minutes instead of the thirty to forty recommended for standard grits. Concerning instant grits, the less said, the better. Let’s put it this way: If you like instant coffee, you’re ready for instant grits.”

Uke: Stone ground grits are a totally different texture and realm of flavor than polenta. The two fine Southern gourmet cooks I’ve worked for do use polenta as a substitute, though, due to the volume and quick cooking times. Just make sure to cook it to a fluffy consistency, or it’s what is politely referred to as Mush.

If ya want some Real Grits, a mill about five miles from my house still does stone ground (organic, even) grits. They’re delicious, and I’d be more than happy to ship ya some.

10

Now there’s a band name waiting to happen.

11

Much as I’d love to be in correspondence with the luscious elelle, opening packages lovingly wrapped by her rosepetal-like little hands…even if limited to corn products…I got to point out the Bob’s Red Mill (AND Brooklyn-supermarket-obtainable Indian Head) are both stoneground cornmealios.

While my spoonbread was in the oven earlier this evening, I toddled into the next room and looked up the subject in John Egerton’s magisterial SOUTHERN FOOD, University of North Carolina Press, 1993…to my surprise, his recipe called for cornmeal ONLY…and incorporated less milk and fewer eggs than the recipe I was using (provided by my wife, a pathetic addict of COOKING LIGHT magazine).

John’s method: Combine 1 cup of white cornmeal with two cups of water and 1 tsp. salt in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and cook for five minutes, stirring constantly. The mixture will be very stiff…do NOT add more water. Remove from heat and gradually stir in 1 cup of cold sweet milk, followed by two beaten eggs and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. Pour the batter into a hot, greased baking dish and bake it in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 40 minutes, or until set and well-browned over the top. Serves 4.

The stuff I baked was pretty darn good, by the way, even if overly-egged. Sort of a corn-pudding thing.

I have a feeling that the Bob’s Red Mill product is actually grits. It’s milled and packaged in Oregon, and West Coasters are even more apprehensive when encountering grits than regular East Coast-style Yankees.

12

I really miss grits.
I spent part of my childhood in Georgia and now I live in Sydney. Noone here gets grits.
mmmm, grits.