I first tried them at that soul food restaurant that we tried, Sarom’s Southern Kitchen, and very much liked their Shrimp and Grits.
During a time when I was working on one project, where the whole crew usually went to lunch together, one restaurant at which we had lunch once was Sauced BBQ & Spirits. On that occasion, I had, as a side, their cheese jalepeño grits, which I also very much liked.
My experience with instant grits at home has been inconsistent, and not entirely satisfactory. It seems to have at least an even chance of coming out with a very unpleasant paste-like consistently, very unpleasant to eat.
I very much wish that I knew of an easy, inexpensive way to obtain grits as an at-home food item, that were anywhere close to my experience with restaurant-based grits. It is, perhaps, a bit carby for me, as a diabetic, to eat as a main staple item, but I have found the restaurant versions to be very tasty and satisfying to eat, and it seems to me like a very good thing to eat on a work day—very filling, and it seems to give me a lot of energy.
That would be almost consistent with my experiences so far. I have consistently very much liked what few instances of grits I have had from restaurants.
My attempts at preparing instant grits at home, has more often than not resulted in something barely edible, and for which I would not consider it at all invalid to liken it to spackling paste. I did manage, on a few occasions, to get it to come out edible, but not nearly as good as restaurant grits.
Instant grits are to regular grits like instant potatoes to real mashed potatoes.
Don’t buy them.
Hush puppies are a good idea. And can be good. Like said above, grease soaked balls are often what you get. It’s like a good cornbread recipe. You get light fluffy tasty corn bread or you get a plank-o’-corn crud. All in the recipe.
In 1972 our family traveled from Minnesota south to a conference hosted by the company that one of our parents worked for. It was at a lake resort, and the meals were all buffet style. They had grits on the buffet for breakfast everyday. I asked my mother what was that (disgusting) stuff, and she explained it was grits. “You should eat them, you’re in the South now. Just put lots of sugar on it.” We were at Lake Okijobi, in far-northern Iowa. Yes, Iowa, home of exotic southern cuisine.
I like Italian grits otherwise known as polenta. Grits were served in every Army chow hall across the world for breakfast. I never ate it. I have seen Shrimp and grits showing up on menus in fancier restaurants even in New Jersey. Or they sometimes call it polenta. It’s usually quite good.
Having grown up in the upper Midwest (northern Illinois and Wisconsin), I’m pretty certain that those areas are well north of the “natural range” of either dish.
I had never heard of hush puppies (as a food, that is) before vacationing in Kentucky. I suspect that the northern bound of its range is around there.
Grits are probably similar, at least originally, though the expansion of restaurants which serve Southern specialties have helped them expand beyond that original range – for example, there are Cracker Barrel restaurants in the upper Midwest now, and grits are on the menu there.
For what it’s worth, when I worked at Quaker Oats (based in Chicago) in the late 1990s, we had grits in our cafeteria all the time, largely because Quaker was (and is) a major producer of grits, despite being based in the North. I even worked on Quaker Grits for a couple of years.
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Hush puppies are a great way to use up the leftover breading mix when you are making fried catfish. That’s why you see them in fish restaurants. Plus they are just a PITA to make if you don’t have a deep fryer. But dang they are delicious. Y’all got me started wanting some now!
I’ll eat grits in any form, but @Bob_Blaylock you need to stop buying instant grits. Get some real grits and put them in the pressure cooker. Use milk instead of water, and add about 1/3 milk more than the instructions say. The restaurant ones are good because they’ve been cooking on low for about 4 hours. The pressure cooker will simulate that process in about 35 minutes (15ish min on high pressure). And don’t forget a pinch of salt.
As for geographic range, grits are not usual in Northern Virginia. I’d be surprised not to find them in a Richmond breakfast joint. I think the line has moved north to about Fredericksburg these days. But if you go West of the Blue Ridge then it moves even North of me. Grits are a hard-working-farm-boy thing. They are too many calories for office workers. I’m betting you’d find plenty of regular grit eaters in Ohio.
Hush puppies are just anywhere people are breading seafood.
I was born and raised in Western North Carolina. Here any restaurant that serves breakfast has grits. Any that primarily serves seafood has hush puppies.
I grew up eating grits with sugar (and butter). Still do. I also put sugar on rice and green peas. This was how my paternal great grandmother ate them and she taught me to do the same.
In my twenties, I learned to eat rice and peas without sugar (to be healthier) but I draw the line at grits.
Yolk needs to be fairly firm.