grits are worthy of the old bold, large font, eh? I do miss the south.
Well, I lived 12 years in Texas and another in the big easy, so it may not come as a surprise that I have more than a passing acquaintance with grits–but certainly not as much a boy from Bama or Mississip. BTW, a little salt, a good bit of butter, and a blast of Tabasco is my choice. Oh, and I spent way too many high school nights inebriated at 3 am in a Wafflehouse in Dallas. I was not proud, nor smart…
I still think flies would improve anything from Wafflehouse.
Are Southerners that passionate about grits? I’ve only been in the South once, and that was fairly briefly. This was in Virginia. I felt all kind of out of place. I never even thought I had an accent until when in Virginia it was obvious I was speaking in a funny accent. (I’m a Michigander.) Fortunately, I found the folks in Virginia friendly. Even though I talked kinda strange.
A good government ought to suppress any coercion that the majority might exercise over the minority. As Thomas Jefferson put it, “The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society”.
Tongue-in-cheekily, yeah: they’re about as iconic a food as you can get. New York has its pizza, Chicago has its hot dogs, England has its fish and chips, and we’ve got our grits.
It’s pretty fun to make them for someone that’s never had them before, someone that likes to mock the South in all ways, and watch their eyes widen as they savor their first mouthful of slow-cooked cheese grits. That’s some fine eating.
And there’s all kinds of variants. My favorite, which exists somewhere between grits and polenta, involves slow-cooking them (for like 45 minutes or so, stirring constantly), seasoning them with herbs, chilling them, cutting them into squares, battering and deep-fat-frying them, and serving them with a spicy celery/bell-pepper/onion tomato sauce and boiled shrimp. Ohh, that’s good.
It’s an old frog joke, and I do love me a good frog joke!
Daniel
I’m from Ohio, but moved to Avondale Estates in 1947 (which just may be before you were born). I learned to eat grits at a fish camp right outside the Okefenokee Swamp which means they were fixed using sulfur water. Today, the grits I purchase come from Falls Mill. Unfortunately, most grits come in the instant form. Shrimp and Grits is very popular in the Charlestown, SC area or as they say “the Lowcountry.”
First lesson in eating out - don’t piss off either the waiters or the cooks, for ye know not (and want to know not) what they are capable of.
I worked as a dishwasher for a short time, and the stuff the cooks did was simply unbelievable. I had to scrub my brain to ever enjoy eating out again.
IIRC, the Waffle House application only requires that you have a 5th grade education. I’m just saying.
I had a run-in with Waffle House-style racism. They refused to serve my group and were quite clear in letting us know that it was because it was a mixed group. The cops eating at the restaurant even told us that it might be better if we left. Which was cool cause Waffle House serves porkchops. And that just seems wrong.
Grits are a state of mind, not just a food. I can get behind them. But I wil never be in the South long enough to understand the biscuit and sausage thing.
Just to amplify on this, I knew a white girl from the South who had the word “grits” tattooed on the inside of her lip. Meanwhile, up here in Boston, nobody, black or white, who isn’t southern, eats grits. I myself have never once had grits in my life. Hell, I coulbn’t even pick grits out of a food police lineup until college when I saw them pictured on the menu at Denny’s. I don’t think we have Waffle Houses in this area either.
