Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Grits: That's What's for Breakfast

If you are not fortunate enough to be from the South, or live in the South, you may never have encountered the (mostly) breakfast dish called grits.

We Southerners love our grits. No self-respecting Southerner would ever make instant grits. We cook grits until they are creamy, smooth, lump-free. Then we add plenty of butter, a little salt, and a sprinkle of black pepper, and dig in.

You can eat grits alone. Or you can eat grits as part of a big ol' breakfast platter.

I love grits with fried eggs over easy. I like the way the golden yellow yolk runs into the grits, and I love sopping it up with toast.

I have no problem with a little of that skillet gravy slopping over onto the grits; I just sop that up with a biscuit.

Sausage is good with grits. So is ham. And bacon, of course.

Some people add a little syrup over their sausage, or pancakes, and like for the syrup to run into the grits. I don't care for syrup on my grits, but hey, if they like it, I am fine with it.

What I do not like is grits with sugar. You can put sugar on oatmeal, or cream of wheat, or whatever other kind of hot cereal you like. You can add it to your cold cereal, even your frosted flakes. I don't mind. But sugar on grits is just not right.

What brings all this up is that Wick and I had breakfast at the Shed, in Chandler, last Saturday. The Shed is an East Texas legend, and serves up all kinds of down-home cooking, but what we like best to eat there is breakfast; we ordered fried eggs with runny yolks, biscuits with gravy, and a side of sausage, with a big bowl of grits.

As we were waiting for our food, we saw a couple at the next table. She had grits with lots of butter, and salt and pepper. He, however, was pouring sugar on his grits.

Not just a little sugar. A lot of sugar. As in, about an inch of sugar topping his grits, so much sugar that when he stirred, the sugar ran over the side of the bowl.

He must have put half a cup of sugar on his grits. We stared in amazement.

Then we looked at each other, and started laughing, and saying, "did you see that??"
"what was he doing??"

When we finally stopped laughing, I said, " Well...what I say is...if you don't like grits, don't order grits, and then ruin them with sugar."

Next time you go to the store, get you some grits. Go home and cook you up a big pot. Add plenty of real butter, and some salt and pepper. While you are at it, cook you up some sausage and fried eggs and buttered toast. Enjoy.

And if you have plenty left over, I can give you some recipes for great stuff to do with left-over grits.

Just don't add any sugar.

9 comments:

MotherT said...

I love fried ham with a side of grits! There's just something wonderful about the taste of grits with a piece of ham. I, also, like my grits with gravy. And in the area my family is from, fried grits (similar to fried mush) is served with maple syrup.

Jan/lost-strayed-or-stolen.blogspot.com said...

Yum! I also like cheese grits casserole, fried grits patties, pretty much any way they can be served. Have you ever tried mixing yellow hominy with grits and a can of green chilies?

MotherT said...

One of my cousins makes a mexi-cheddar grits casserole that is to die for, but she won't give up the recipe. It has hominy and green chilies in it.

Jan/lost-strayed-or-stolen.blogspot.com said...

My recipe is more like, what do I have in the pantry that will go in this? A little taco seasoning, a lot of cheese, a bit of chopped onion, a can of hominy--not much of a recipe, is it? ;)

Linda said...

Hi Jan...
My condolences on the loss of your precious little one. Only a fellow dog mom can understand the impact of your sadness.

Thanks so much for commenting at my blog. I'm very flattered! I love my little Niles like I can't even explain. I hope I didn't sound uncaring in the story that you read. He means the world to my husband and me...

I hope your heart somehow heals. It's hard, I know.

Hugs to you,
Linda

Jan/lost-strayed-or-stolen.blogspot.com said...

Linda, thanks for your response. I can see from your posts how much you love your little guy. We will always miss Frankie, of course, but we felt the best way to heal was to adopt. So we now have a little Chihuahua named Sissy, who was a puppy mill rescue, and a chihuahua puppy named Cassie, to help Sissy come out of her shell and learn to play and enjoy life instead of constantly hiding and shivering. I appreciate your kind words.

Linda said...

I'm so happy for you and your two new ChiChi's! What a fun journey this will be! : )

Just wanted to let you know I put a message in my current comments to ask my wonderful and devout readers to pray as well...

Blessings to you... : )

HolyMama! said...

sugar? oh no.

i'm not a big grit fan, but cheese always helps and sugar is just WRONG! : )

Jan/lost-strayed-or-stolen.blogspot.com said...

Exactly!! Sugar in grits is just wrong!!