The Soul Southern Eating: Grits

Shrimp over grits, recipes below

Last week I drove down south in an RV and did field work with my family along for the ride. You cannot say you have eaten southern cuisine with out enjoying a plate of grits which I would argue is one of the several staples that make up the core or soul of southern cuisine. What I like most about eating breakfast in the south is that people don't play; the they feed you and you don't need to eat again  in most cases until 1 or 2 pm! As a largely agricultural and fishing societies southerners developed foodways that overtime had the family cook and or operators of boarding houses, and eateries preparing a large breakfast including seafood and other similarly lunch or dinner time foods in other cultures to help workers complete rigorous calorie burning manual labor.  The problem is now most of us simply don't do that that much manual labor from sun up to sun down six days a week. I also enjoy grits because like rice you can serve all kinds of food on top of them and they absorb flavors very well. Aretha Franklin, who was born in south,  had a favorite eatery when performing in New York City called Kelly’s restaurant in Atlantic City where she had a reputation for ordering after-hours meals of hot sauced wings and grits. Like fried chicken and waffles, hot wings and grits are closely associated with entertainer whose jobs had them getting off work early in the morning. Grits are made from ground hominy and  that's where I derived part of the title of my book Hog and Hominy . As the link below shows, the origins of hominy are ancient Guatemala maize culture and from there it migrated to the Indians of North America who introduced it to European settlers and enslaved Africans. Today it is very popular on the menu of many southern and Latin American restaurants. Here’s a New Year’s cooking resolution; try cooking with grits this year or serving them as a side dish. Here are some recipes:

Shrimp and Grits: http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=443571


Vegetarian Menudo: http://recipes.chef2chef.net/recipe-archive/56/299250.shtml


Vegetarian Pozole: http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/soup/recipe-vegetarian-posole-075578


Garlic cheese grits: http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=853994

Maize culture and recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/2011/11/native-american-foodways-corn.html

Aretha Franklin stories with recipes: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Aretha