So, because you don’t like how something tastes, it must taste bad for everyone, huh? I said a little butter and salt, just enough to bring out the natural flavor of grits. Mom didn’t salt it down 'til it tasted like the Dead Sea, she just made a pot of plain grits, and we kids were responsible enough to put butter and salt into our own dishes. Heck, that was half of the fun, watching the yellow swirls twist and tangle in the beige base.
Many people, including myself, like the taste of grits. Apparently, you don’t. Fine. You’re entitled to your opinion.
I don’t like olives, but if I droned on about how awful olives taste, and how I had to drown them in ketchup to get them down, and kept talking about it, most folks would tire of it quickly. Hint, hint.
Pun, look at what forum you’re in. This isn’t the area for reasoned debates on anything, much less Southern culture/cuisine. This thread was started, by me, as a way of harmlessly, humorously venting steam about little things that don’t really matter that much. Like grits, like being called a ‘yankee’ etc. etc. If my hatred of grits offends you, I’m sincerely sorry but hell, it’s not like I’m calling your mom a whore because she shoveled that shit down your throat like it was going out of style, right? I mean that’s offensive and you’d be well within your rights to shoot me down like the low-down Western dawg I am if I’d said that.
In all seriousness though, I’m glad you like them. Hell, somebody’s gotta eat 'em and better you than me I say.
To each his/her own etc. etc.
I am a half-breed: Alabamian, Baptist, from-a-coal-mining-family mother, and a Minnesotan, Lutheran, staid, Scandihoovian father. I’ve eaten lefse, grits, lutefisk, black-eyed peas with ham hocks, Swedish meat balls, and sausage gravy on baking powder biscuits. (Not all at once. You’d die a horrible, schizophrenic death.)
Grits by themselves don’t have any taste, really. They’re just a kind of gummy filler with an odd texture. You have to flavor them with something in order to pretend they’re food.
As a True Suhthunuh ™, let me just say that I have seriously heard someone opine that anyone from any further north than Birmingham or from any further South than Jacksonville is a Yankee.
That, you will notice, includes you Virginnyans. Damn Yankees.
Ah, Lyllyan. I note from your profile that you reside in Atlanta, Georgia. Obviously, the charcoal residue from Sherman’s march has infiltrated the water table, resulting in your sadly misinformed opinions. It also probably explains why Altanta can’t get enough water to meet its needs, and may have something to do with the interminable road construction and godawful traffic in your fair city.
You are not seriously suggesting that Kellog’s Frosted Flakes are nothing more than dried grits with sugar on them, are you? Because that would be sadly wrong. At any rate, I was not speaking of some of the wonderful things into which corn can be processed, such as KFF; I was speaking of CORN, the actual living, breathing, fresh-off-the-ear vegetable. Since the only processing involved in the creation of grits is to mash the corn into little pieces, it is still corn. It is not a palatable substance at the breakfast table.
I enjoy a good bowl of buttered shoepeg with my dinner just as much as the next person. Do not, however, attempt to grind it into a paste and convince me to gulp it down for breakfast. There are even Biblical injunctions against such heresy (in Second Deuteronomy, if I’m not mistaken).
With all due respect, good sir, I submit that you are mistaken in this here matter. There are indisputably three variations of that peculiar breed, Domesticus Yankee:
1. There are Yankess, our good neighbors to the North betwixt us and them damned Canadians. 2. There are Damned Yankess, who come down to our beloved South and kindly leave large quantities of greenbacks for the privelege of partaking in our civilized culture, before exhibiting their only instance of good manners by departing for their northern abodes.
**3.**Then there are Gawddamned Yankees; similar in nature to #2 above, this most pernicious category elects to stay.
Xgemina: it is absolutely not “okay” to put syrup on your grits! If you absolutely must indulge in sweetenin’, then molasses or honey are the only acceptable alternatives to a true Southener!
Spavined Gelding: your unsophisticated Yankee palate is obviously unsuited to sampling the culinary wonders of Southern Culture. Heh, next thing you know, you’ll be soundin’ off again’ Mint Juleps, greens with fatback and black-eyed peas. You don’t have a problem with any of those, do you?
No. Rhode Freakin’ Island has a higher population density that Canada, and you’re only bigger than us until your country melts. Now go harpoon a walrus, or something, Moose Boy.
As far as grits: I think they make great caulk.
Wabbit, the next time you confuse grits and cream of wheat, I’m gonna feed you a plateful of Scrapple!
That said, I can understand, a little, your angst. I was born in CA, and have lived in CO, CT, DE, IL, FL, MA, MD, PA, and various overseas locations (not necessarily in that order). No one has any clue what name to hang on me, so I inherit whatever local perjorative is most common.
Gelding, you obviously didn’t get a proper sweet potatoe pie. SPP is God’s reward on earth. I’d send you one of Mrs. Tranq’s creations, except I eat it as fast as she bakes it, and all you’d get is a pie-tin.
I have to admit that my only exposures to sweet potato pie was some 30 years ago at the U of VA. It may well be that the stuff I got was not the best of its class. The experience was sufficiently traumatic, however, that I would just as soon not experiment. Once burnt, twice warned. What, however, can compare with pumpkin pie. When eaten cold over the sink without benefit of silver wear or plate it is the best breakfast that can be conceived. Pumpkin pie for breakfast is what gives a man the strength to shovel out the calf pin on a 20 below morning. Try to do that on grits, or SPP, and you’ll freeze solid before you take three steps.
There are Northern food abominations. Watery school lunch chili is a leading candidate. Most people know it for what it is and call it chili soup, to distinguish it from the real thing. Tuna hot dish made with canned mushroom soup and broken potato chips is ubiquitous at church pot-lucks and is universally despised by all people of taste and culture. I’d still rather eat the most virulent tuna hot dish before I ever would try another piece of SPP.
On a happier note, the historians of “The Late Unpleasantness” generally illustrate the hardships suffered by Lee’s army on the retreat from Petersburg to Appomattox by saying that the troops, and even Bobby Lee himself had nothing to eat but parched corn. As I understand it parched corn is the sole raw material needed to make grits. If so, it may be that the Southern affinity for grits is in commemoration of the Civil War, just as Norwegian descendants profess to just love lutefisk, not because it tastes good but because it reminds them of why their people left the Old Country. Uff Da, just t’ink how bad it vould be to eat this stuff all a time, Lars?
Yankees (including people from Wyoming or Montana, or what was it?) can’t appreciate grits for the same reason that monkeys can’t appreciate music. It’s amazing how they elbow their way in down here, take advantage of our ameneties and hospitality, and then turn around and badmouth our finest traditions on anonymous message boards.
Grits: the culinary equivalent of Yanni (or maybe Poison).
You know, the fact that you think grits are one of your ‘finest traditions’ means you’re essentially insulting yourself. You’re venerating a tasteless paste fer chrissake! I could see if it was barbeque or honey ham or something equally good, but grits!! I guess IQ’s are lower in the South…
And I’m not even going to get into your failure to differentiate between Wyoming and Mont-bhaaaa-na…
Yes, Wabbit. Obviously, I am not your intellectual equal. After all, I didn’t have the good sense to move myself to a foreign culture I knew nothing about and make an ass of myself the first time I sat down for breakfast. That takes a friggin’ genius.
Grits have a flavor. It’s called hominy. Salt and butter enhance purt-near any food, not just grits. Think like, oh, I don’t know, maybe {{{BREAD}}} or something. Does bread not have a flavor either? Maybe the cold just froze your taste buds up in Montana-Idaho-Whatever.
[celestina wiping the tears from her eyes, she’s laughing so hard]
Oh dear. Wabbit, I’m sorry you’re having a difficult time adjusting to our Southern quirks, but I’m so glad you started this thread. I can’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard. It made my day. I LOVE THE SOUTH!
As far as grits go, I wonder what kind of grits you got. There’s that runny, instant crap people put in the microwave or cook for a few minutes, and then there’s REAL grits, the stick-to-the-pot kind. Before you give up on grits, try the stick-to-the-pot kind and put whatever the hell you want on them, and if someone complains, you just thank them politely for their concern and then go back to doing whatever the hell it was you were doing, or depending on the situation, just tell them to get the hell out of your plate. If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s other folks messin’ in where their noses don’t belong. It’s downright rude and gives the notion of Southern hospitality and politeness a bad name. Oh, wait a minute. Messin’ in folks business is another beloved Southern quirk. We can’t help it, especially since there’s not much else to do. Just think about it, you really made quite a few people’s day when you had your grits incident. I’ll bet folks are still talking about that Yankee that had the gall to eat grits the WRONG way. I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to good old Southern nosiness. But I digress.
Wabbit, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you’ll never be a true Southerner anyway, so why try? It doesn’t matter if you get called a Yankee, a Damned Yankee, a Goddamned Yankee, or a Westerner, the point is you’re not a Southerner, even if you live in Georgia now. Welcome to the South! So I say, as an outsider, be a trendsetter. Devise new ways of eating grits. Or, don’t eat them at all. There’s plenty of other excellent Southern cuisine that’ll more than keep you occupied.
Oh, and Wabbit, until you get a better clue about the South and/or find a Southerner to take with you, stay away from them redneck bars. They’re dangerous places.
Um, Libertarian, if you’ll note the first time I had grits was in Basic Training. I don’t know how much you know about military training but I really didn’t have much choice of where I was assigned. Was I an idiot to have joined the Army? Possibly. Was I an idiot not to have known the ‘correct’ way to eat grits? Nope. I’m not in a position to judge your intellectual capabilities but you are showing a stubborn refusal to face reason in the face of overwhelming evidence (another ‘Southern’ trait, I’m sure…)
And I like the South: like I said, no jackalopes.
Well, that’s one word for it. The other’s involve various verbal and non-verbal expressions of pure disgust and almost universal loathing.
Right, and I always salt the living bejesus out of my bread. Now I’ll admit that, say, Wonder Bread tastes like grits and is only edible after you smear tons of other crap on it but real bread (not the over-processed garbage we American’s tend to eat) has it’s own distinct flavor. Don’t believe me? Go to Europe and eat their bread: it’s almost a meal in and of itself and it actually tastes good. If you can tell me, eyeball to eyeball, that you prefer Wonder Bread to a good chunk of German rye then I’ll be convinced you actually like grits. Of course, that means you’ll need to start freebasing Prozac to get better but at least I’ll know it’s a medical rather than a cultural condition.
Why can’t y’all just admit that grits suck? They taste like, and have the consistency of, Spackle. I can almost feel another Civil War looming…
Glad you enjoyed it and are not taking too seriously. I must say I really enjoy living here in Athens with the weather, people, food–with the obvious exceptions, music, etc. and I don’t really get too much crap for being from out of state (being from a Western rather than Northern state make a lot of difference). And it actually rains here! I can still remember wandering around in my first Southern downpour thinking “Wow, so these rumors of non-frozen precipitation were true!”
