grits

Grits

Grits served with eggs, bacon and toast.
Origin
Place of origin	United States
Dish details
Serving temperature	Hot
Main ingredient(s)	Corn
Variations	Hominy grits Yellow speckled grits
Other information	Soul food

Grits is an aboriginal American corn-based food common in the Southern United States, consisting of coarsely ground corn.

Grits is similar to other thick maize-based porridges from around the world such as polenta. It also has a resemblance to farina, a thinner porridge. The word leads back to the traditional Northern European grit gruels. Grits can be served hot or cold and as a base for a multitude of dishes from breakfast to dessert, depending on the additives. Additives can include salt and butter, meats (especially shrimp on the east or gulf coast), cheese, and rarely (but in nouvelle Southern cuisine) vegetables. It is also common for people from above the Mason-Dixon Line to have sugar with their grits.

Hominy grits is grits made from nixtamalized corn, or hominy. It is sometimes called sofkee or sofkey from the Creek word.^[1][2]

Origins

Traditionally the corn for grits is ground by a stone mill. The results are passed through screens, with the finer part being corn meal, and the coarser being grits. Many communities in the U.S. used a gristmill up until the mid-20th century, with families bringing their own corn to be ground, and the miller retaining a portion of the corn for his fee. In South Carolina, state law requires grits and corn meal to be enriched, similar to the requirements for flour, unless the grits is ground from corn where the miller keeps part of the product for his fee.^[3]

Three-quarters of grits sold in the United States is sold in the South stretching from Texas to Virginia, also known as the "grits belt".^[4] The state of Georgia declared grits its official prepared food in 2002.^[5] Similar bills have been introduced in South Carolina, with one declaring, "Whereas, throughout its history, the South has relished its grits, making them a symbol of its diet, its customs, its humour, and its hospitality, and whereas, every community in the State of South Carolina used to be the site of a grits mill and every local economy in the State used to be dependent on its product; and whereas, grits has been a part of the life of every South Carolinian of whatever race, background, gender, and income; and whereas, grits could very well play a vital role in the future of not only this State, but also the world", if as Charleston's The Post and Courier proclaimed in 1952, "An inexpensive, simple, and thoroughly digestible food, grits should be made popular throughout the world. Given enough of it, the inhabitants of planet Earth would have nothing to fight about. A man full of grits is a man of peace."^[6]

Yellow grits include the whole kernel, while white grits use hulled kernels. Grits is prepared by simply boiling the ground kernels into a porridge; normally it is boiled until enough water evaporates to leave it semi-solid.

Use as ant killer

It is sometimes said that dry grits can be used to kill ants by causing them to explode as the grits expand inside them^[7][8]; however, laboratory results conducted on fire ants suggest that grits are ineffective.^[9]

See also

• Cuisine of the Southern United States
• Cuisine of the United States

References

External links

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Hominy Grits

Look up grits in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Grist Mills, Grits Festivals, Recipes, and Photos - SCIway.net, South Carolina Information Highway