True Grits

Should someone in your vicinity begin to muse - spontaneously - about what little boys or little girls are made of, before he can begin to quote the old rhyming recipe about snips and snails or sugar and spice, you should ask him where the little boy or girl in question comes from. Because if said child should hail from the south, the recipe invariably will have to be expanded to include grits.

People say that in the south cotton was King. And in the minds of many surely tobacco had its heyday. But grits are the true regent of the southern realm, and don’t let anyone ever tell you any diff’rent.

Most people (myself included) that were raised north of the Mason-Dixon line probably think or thought at one point that grits are breakfast food, something akin to Cream of Wheat or oatmeal (or porridge, to our Aussie and British kin). While it is true that grits are eaten at breakfast, they’re not just for breakfast anymore. Cheese grits are a common accompaniment to lunchtime fair, and many is the table that has been graced with grits in the evening alongside fried okra, fried squash, fried hushpuppies, fried catfish, or collared greens (not fried, but certainly fried if southerners could figure out a way to make it palatable).

I have come to enjoy grits a great deal ... at breakfast only, I’m afraid. With a pat of butter. Alongside my southern-fried steak and country biscuits smothered with sausage gravy. It don’t git no better ‘n this.