Grits: It Just Ain't For Breakfast

*from my culinary "mostly true life" archives*

Grits. Not an easy subject for a Colorado-based Yankee to broach. To hear it told, grits are symbolic of the South, like pecan pie, home, guns, women, mama, NASCAR and college football. Absolutely NONE of which is to be taken lightly or in jest down yonder. It's a sin, comparable to not opening a door for a lady, pooting in church, or saying "huh?" when references are made to Bear Bryant and the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Though, if you're a cultural and culinary Yankee barbarian like me, then it's probably expected by my southern acquaintances.

For those who have no dietary experience with this southern staple, allow me to briefly sum up what grits are: it starts life as corn. White corn. If it isn't a hybrid corn, it gets that color realizing what it's being prepped for. Then it is either ground up or soaked in lye water. They used to make soap out of lye. It'll clean anything. Not that they leave the lye in the grits, in the case of soaking (used on hominy grits): after a couple of days, the hominy is rinsed until the lye is gone. At least, that's what they say.

While I didn't delve into the recipe end of grits, I'm sure there's no end to them, like uses for zucchini: plain grits, cream of grits, grits soup, grits tortillas, fried grits, baked grits, grilled grits (don't ask me how), grits as a side dish, grits as a main dish, biscuits and grits, cheesed grits, grits pie, grits bread, etc. Back in my formative days, I first heard Granny (The Beverly Hillbillies) make reference to "possum grits"; I thought she meant the last facial expression on a possum a half-second before a pickup truck turned one into a roadside buffet for crows.

Fortunately, I had limited exposure to grits in my formative years. But then came a day in the late 1980s, and I had an unexpected, a near life-altering experience with them. It was at a restaurant in a Ramada Inn, overlooking I-75, just west of Sweetwater, TN. I had ordered my customary artery-hardening breakfast without a careful examination of the menu's fine print. My rather stunning waitress brought -- along with eggs, bacon grease and toast -- a bowl of what looked like thick, gritty mashed 'taters. Being somewhat testosteronally distracted, I half-heartedly asked her about the 'extra'. She, in a seductively sweet southern accent that melted my attention span, told me that it was grits and was included with the order.

Now, there are many foods I hated in my youth that I came to appreciate later, like broccoli and asparagus, drowned in melted cheddar cheese. So -- and because my waitress was a babe with great eyes and other parts -- I decided to give it a try. With no thought other than to get her phone number and her father's permission to marry her, I took an ample spoonful of grits and shoveled them home.

*Whoa*... I'm not sure how a mind-numbing brain lock and full 90 degree eye-crossing are medically explained, but that's where I found myself the instant the grits hit my tongue. Every alarm bell in my sensory system went *Buzzer...Warning, Warning*, yet I was stuck: I feared to swallow, yet I couldn't spit it out (the retch-force of the pending salvo might have carried to and through I-75, causing a multi-vehicle accident). Turning blue, I never thought I'd see single images again. I was convinced I was going to die like this: with a mouthful of grits, and my tombstone would read Grits and Couldn't Bear It.

But I had to do something, before the ever-heavier lump on my tongue ate my brain like a Billy Bob Thornton movie.

And then it became even more imperative: the no-longer-future mother of my children was coming back. Realizing that something had to give to save a rapidly-fading chance at winning this stone babe's heart, I had no choice. I became a very temporary in-crisis Catholic, crossed myself...and swallowed.

There were no words to describe it in the dictionary. I checked later.

When she arrived, my threadbare composure was barely concealing the WWE-style gopher Texas cage match now taking place in my stomach:

"How were the grits, hon?" she purred.
"Uh..." was about all that came out, since I didn't want to follow up with something solid.
"Y'all jst ask if ya want more, sugah".

And as she walked away, she giggled. She knowd. Another danged fool Yankee bit the grits. I reckoned I could put the phone call to her father on permanent hold.

At any rate, I know some great folks from the South. I know them to have great charm, traditions and heritage. I know them to be proud, industrious, chivalrous and upstanding. And if they eat grits, I know them to be incredibly tough and durable.

As for me...I suspect I now know where Stephen King got his idea for the horror story, Children Of The Corn. 'Course, he's a Yankee, too. Far as southerners are concerned, 'nuff said.