Okay, southerners...

[bort]

How do you cook grits? My last 2 attempts (following the directions on the package) have failed (too much water, too soupy... or burned on the bottom). It seems like a legit bag of grits, I bought them in the south...

[bort]

Ancient redneck secret...

Damn you! Er... Damn y'all!

[iiipopes]

And then there's the question and debate over yellow grits or white grits...

Google "best grits recipe ever."

[Donn]

In these parts we call it polenta. I use a double boiler gimmick that's sold as a "Carolina rice cooker" but is really an Italian risotto pan.

I put the two pans together, water in the bottom and dry polenta in the top pan, and put it on to boil; meanwhile, start another pan or kettle of water to boil, and when it boils I mix it somewhat gradually into the polenta until it stays a little soupy. Then put on the lid and let the double boiler cook for some time, half an hour is more than enough.

Then, departing somewhat from the point where grits and polenta are the same thing, you can do various things with it if you want to spend some time cooling it off and re-cooking it. A nearby restaurant does very tasty polenta french fries. For this reason, we're typically going to make polenta a good deal stiffer than I expect grits would normally be, and my technique might require considerable adaptation to get that mushier consistency, if you really want it. It's easy though, and you don't burn anything onto the pan.

[bort]

I know this English guy who was driving around in the South. And he stopped for breakfast one morning somewhere in southeast Georgia. He saw "grits" on the menu. He’d never heard of grits so he asked the waitress, "What are grits, anyway?"

She said, “Grits are fifty.”

He said, “Yes, but what *are* they?”

She said, “They’re extra.”

He said, “Yes, I’ll have the grits, please.”

Reminds me of a time my brother and I went to a restaurant while passing through the VA/NC border (haha, that's "south" for us folk).

Me: What kind of pie do you have?

Waitress: Apple, cherry (about 10 more kinds), and mincemeat.

Me: What is mincemeat anyway?

Waitress: You wouldn't like it. I'll bring apple.

[oldbandnerd]

I'm a master at cooking grits and it's easier than you think. Bring the water to a boil first. Pour the grits in slowly. A little at a time. Stir as you pour in. Let the water boil with the grits in it for 1 minute . Lower heat to a simmer and cover the pot. Let simmer for 5 minutes. Stir a couple of times during that 5 minutes. Viola! mmmmmmmmm...... yummy grits.
Think or thin depends on how you like them. Less water and more grits for the thick. More water less grits for the thin. If they are too thin for your taste let them sit for a while. They'll harden up. They always eventually do .........

[bort]

HA! Forgot about that!

I'll have to try adding a bit at a time to the water. Until now, I've just dumped it in.

[Dan Schultz]

In these parts we call it polenta. I use a double boiler gimmick that's sold as a "Carolina rice cooker" but is really an Italian risotto pan....

What amazes me around here is that even the Cracker Barrel places don't know how to serve grits! Too soupy! My wife loves grits but has to send them back to the kitchen sometimes twice before they get it right.

Speaking of odd foods... you're pretty close to Canada. Do you find poutine at the fast food joints? We've discovered this mess of carbohydrates at truck stops and burger joints in the northeast states.

[Donn]

Grits are made from hominy. Polenta is made from (I think) yellow corn.

That would be a key difference, if it were true. From the information that leaks out to the outside world, though, it appears that grits haven't been made from hominy for generations. I forget, probably we're talking 19th century. It's just corn, albeit usually white. If there really is hominy grits going on down there, it would be interesting to find out about a source. All we get up here is Albers or similar, choice of colors.

[Donn]

What amazes me around here is that even the Cracker Barrel places don't know how to serve grits! Too soupy! My wife loves grits but has to send them back to the kitchen sometimes twice before they get it right.

Who knows, likely there are regional differences.

Speaking of odd foods... you're pretty close to Canada. Do you find poutine at the fast food joints? We've discovered this mess of carbohydrates at truck stops and burger joints in the northeast states.

People have heard of it here, but it's a novelty. Truck stops and burger joints aren't for me, so wouldn't know if it's on the menu at any of them here. I would guess likely you'd find them in some more up scale location where they're trying to keep things interesting, more likely than at a truck stop, but that's just a guess. I would also guess that it's more of an eastern Canada thing, than western.

[Donn]

I know you use the word, but ... like I say, from the outside, it looks like there's some confusion about the reality behind it.

Here Anson Mills gets into it. http://www.ansonmills.com/grain_notes/13 This is a South Carolina business that's way into traditional grains (though to be fair we have to note that it's run by a French horn player from San Diego.) This makes him the authority for situations like the NPR article on it, and he pushes the traditional angle - so for example I would be a wee bit skeptical that just because he talks about how grits is traditionally made from dent corn, one could assume that Albers at the supermarket was dent corn. Anyway -

And how about hominy? Anson Mills grows specific Southern heirloom corn varieties that were popular hominy corns during our Antebellum era—and some from much earlier. In America we know hominy as dried whole kernel corn that has been first steeped and then cooked in a culinary lime solution to remove the outer clear coating of the corn kernel, or pericarp, and also to work a miraculous nutrition and flavor transformation within the kernel in a process called nixtamalization. Fresh hominy can be used as is for stews (posole in Spanish), or it can be ground, still wet, to masa or chopped into fresh hominy grits (an extinct foodway). Or it can be dried to make whole hominy (also known as posole or hominy). Dried hominy can then be milled to grits or cornmeal (both are extinct in the United States), or to flour (called “instant masa”). This next definition of hominy is arcane: hominy grist (not “grits”) is any fresh-milled corn grits that comes out of a stone mill. The last statement about hominy is a classic Southern take on confusing terms: the popular Southern term for a dish of freshly prepared coarse grits is “hominy.” In New Orleans and now fading in other Southern ports, whole hominy is called “big hominy” and freshly prepared coarse grits is called “little hominy.”

As for the wikipedia entry - you can find this in the "Talk" section:

-I think grits are actually ground hominy. This is what I've always been told growing up in Oklahoma.

Unsigned comment was not me.

Yes, proper grits are ground hominy, although most of what's sold as grits today are actually polenta. I almost corrected the article, but looking in the revision history it looks like this has been done MANY times before and one particular editor keeps reverting inaccurate texts. I don't feel like an edit war right now. Arker 21:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

[tbn.al]

We grow our own corn on the 3 acres out back and then dry it. Once dry we cook it in lime water in the big black pot over a wood fire. Once the resulting mash is dry we separate the husks from the kernels. Once that is done we hook up ol' Annie our mule to the gristmill and then collect our grits. Ifin' you do it disaway 'dem grits is cheep and gud.

[Uncle Buck]

I don't live in the South any longer and I haven't been able to convert any of my family to eating grits, so I don't have them often.

However, it seems to me it is still easy in the U.S. to obtain hominy grits.

[Donn]

However, it seems to me it is still easy in the U.S. to obtain hominy grits.

If you look through the online retail options for grits, some say "hominy grits." Quaker's particularly. The ones that really describe what they did to make it, though, are apparently selling you plain corn, and the main question seems to be whether there's going to be any germ in it - with germ is claimed to be more traditional by those who do it. I'd love to know about a source for hominy grits that were explicitly made using lye or lime. I remain more than skeptical that Quaker's, Albers etc. are made that way, but surely someone makes the stuff?

[Uncle Buck]

I ate hominy two nights ago.

Before they moved away, a former neighbor family used to have dinner with my family pretty regularly. They often brought a wonderful spicy soup that included chicken and hominy. I miss it very much.

[Donn]

Again, Donn, you are guessing and presenting it as fact. In FACT we eat hominy here every week. Extinct here, maybe, but we still eat it all the time. Unless you actually ever drag yourself down here to see, you need to stop making pronouncements about life in the South until you live down here for a few years. It is not about what you find in books.

We were talking about grits. I do not doubt the existence of hominy, only that it's what grits are (is?) made of.

As a matter of fact, will be in Louisiana next month, but as my visit will last only a week, that's probably not enough time for the oral history approach to learning and I will remain without Southern credentials.

[Uncle Buck]

"Chick peas" on the salad bars at restaurants = "hominy".

Sorry, but I think those are garbanzo beans. The main ingredient in hummus, not grits.

[Donn]

Hush, dude! You're not in the South, what if they are putting hominy on their salad in restaurants? I'm not sure it sounds like a good idea, but it really depends on what else is in the salad.



Hominy salad with basil shallot vinaigrette

[THE TUBA]

This thread has reminded me... I need to run to the store and get some more grits.

[oldbandnerd]

Breakfast S.O.S. ( "Stuff" on a Shingle ). You former Army guys know what S.O.S is . This is my own recipe . You fry up some bacon, scramble some eggs , and make some toast and pot of grits. You mix the bacon and eggs into the grits and slop that "stuff" onto a piece of toast dripping with butter. MMMMMMMMMM ....... that's some good eating !