Kiss my grits
By BILL DUNCAN On the wall in my office there is a framed cartoon drawn by Jake Vest from his cartoon series, “That’s Jake.” You’d have to be a Southerner to understand its message. The cartoon shows the backs of two men sitting at a restaurant counter. Hovering over them is Vest’s character, Jake, complete with chef’s hat. The caption says: “If you didn’t want grits why did you order breakfast?” Why is the cartoon in my office? Because I am a Southerner and I would have the same question as Jake. I’ve long ago lost my Southern accent, except when I am tired and my words lapse back to my Georgia roots. But I have not lost my taste for Southern food and grits (God Rendered it Totally Sacred) is a delicacy that is married to eggs over easy, warm biscuits, with butter and red eye gravy. There are some who claim that the manna God rained down from heaven to feed Moses and the Israelites in the Sinai Desert was really grits, but that is like saying it was Gen. Grant who surrendered his sword at Appomattox. Grits have become the object of endless humor on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. If they weren’t so good why did the Yankees try to imitate the dish by inventing Cream of Wheat, synthetic grits that taste something like Elmer’s Glue mixed with shredded wheat? You know the difference immediately when the Yankees pour cream over the dish instead of a large patty of butter – I do mean butter, not margarine, another Yankee invention. Considering that comment, it is number eight in the Ten Commandments of Grits and warns “Thou shalt not put margarine on thy grits.” The sixth commandment refers to another Yankee invention. It says, “Thou shalt not eat instant grits.” I’ve never understood the term instant when it comes to grits because how instant can you get with grits? It doesn’t take a Rachel Ray to cook up a mess of grits. The recipe is even simpler than flipping an egg without breaking the yoke. For a single serving (I do this often because my Arizona born wife likes eggs over Spanish rice), boil 1 1/2 cups of water, add a pinch of salt and a little butter, then five tablespoons of grits. Reduce the boiling water to a simmer and wait for the grits to soak up the water and expand into the food of the gods. With a fork mix a healthy pat of butter into the grits, and pour on the red eye gravy. While in my house leftover grits are rare, there are hundreds of ways to make delicious leftover dishes with what remains. Sometimes you have to search for them, but from the South have come hundreds of ways to make grits into a full-blown dinner. But the first commandment of grits is that “thou shalt not put syrup on thy grits,” that is unless you speak with a Bostonian accent. For years I was deprived of my grits since I lived outside a state that had Piggly Wiggly grocery stores, but my relatives who remained in the South would ship Aunt Jemima West. Finally, the grocery stores began stocking it, but you had to be careful and read the label, least you get “instant grits.” There was such a hankering for Southern foods by the displaced Southerners, that there is a mail order catalog for Southern Foods called, you got it, “True Grits,” a publication billed as a complete source guide to hard-to-find, must have Southern foods. It comes packed with regional lore, spicy sidebars and even a final blessing to be prayed over a mess of grits: “May the Lord bless my grits And may I die with a mouthful of grits.” (Y’all can write to Bill Duncan at P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470 you hear.)
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