Grits

• 1. Introduction

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  Grits, the boiled cornmeal porridge of the American South, became Georgia's official prepared food in 2002. A bowl of it is simple. Coarsely ground corn is stirred into warm salted water or milk until it thickens. Yet this plain dish has drawn the attention of lawmakers, shaped regional identity, and settled into breakfast, lunch and supper tables alike. Who first made it, and where did its odd little name come from? What separates the quick kind on a supermarket shelf from the speckled kind sold as stone ground? And how does one pot of porridge end up under shrimp in one coastal town and under fried fish in another?

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• 2. Muscogee Kitchens

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  The Muscogee people were the first to make this dish, and their grain was maize. American colonists learned the method from Native Americans, and the porridge quickly became an American staple. In those early days, maize or hominy was ground on a stone mill. The ground material was then passed through screens. The finer sifted portion became grit meal, while the coarser portion kept the name grits. That name is older than the colonies themselves. It comes from the Old English word grytt, which meant coarse meal. Around Charleston, South Carolina, cooked hominy grits were mostly just called hominy until the 1980s, and hominy turns out to describe a very particular treatment of the corn.

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• 3. Nixtamalization and Quick Grits

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  Nixtamalization is the long name for treating maize with an alkali, and the result is hominy. Grits can be made from hominy or from plain dried corn, and the pericarp, the ovary wall of the kernel, is removed in either case. The finished grits may be yellow or white, depending on the color of the maize behind them. The version most shoppers find in supermarkets is quick grits. These come from non-hominy maize with the germ and hull taken away. Whole kernel grits are sometimes called speckled, and they are often marketed as stone ground grits. Cooking them means mixing the dry grits with water or milk and stirring over heat. Whole-grain grits take much longer to turn soft than the quick kind. Use plain cornmeal in the same pot, and the cook has made something with a different name: mush.

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• 4. The Grits Belt

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  Three-quarters of the grits sold in the United States are bought in the South, in a region stretching from Lower Texas to Washington, D.C. People sometimes call that stretch the grits belt. South Carolina tried to honor the dish at the highest level. A bill there would have named grits the official state food, but it did not advance. The state still devotes an entire chapter of its legislation to corn meal and grits. South Carolina law also requires grits and rice meal to be enriched, just as flour must be. Though the dish began in the South, it is now available nationwide.

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• 5. On the Plate

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  Eggs and bacon, fried catfish, salmon croquettes and country ham all share the table with grits. Most often the seasoning is savory, though sweet versions exist, and the dish appears at breakfast, lunch or supper, especially beside meat. Coastal communities in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Georgia's Lower Coastal Plain treat shrimp and grits as a traditional dinner. Florida has its own signature. Grits and grunts is a breakfast dish considered a staple of Floridian cuisine, made by laying small fried fish fillets, typically white grunts, over cooked grits. It was invented in the colonial period and grew popular in Key West in the early 20th century. Barry Popik stated that this popularization came around 1900. Stetson Kennedy later borrowed the dish's name for his book Grits and Grunts: Folkloric Key West. Leftovers have a future too. Solidified cooked grits can be sliced and fried in vegetable oil, butter or bacon grease, or breaded first in beaten egg and bread crumbs.

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• 6. Cousins Around the World

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  Polenta, mieliepap and mămăligă are all thick maize porridges, and each is a close relation of grits. Italian-Americans living in the delta of Arkansas and Mississippi noticed the likeness. They began substituting grits for polenta in their traditional dishes. In that delta country, a dish with Muscogee roots now sits where an Italian one once stood.

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