Grits and the People That Eat Them

As Southerns, we enjoy a special infatuation with our food. Especially those that are uniquely our own. Like grits.

For most of time I was on the radio, I co-opted Lewis Grizzard’s line that inferred grits grew on trees. I don’t know if anyone else found it funny, but it never got old for me.

Recently, on a trip through North Carolina, my wife and I wound up at a nice little bed and breakfast. For breakfast, they served very traditional Southern fare: biscuits, gravy, eggs, waffles… and grits. Grits with your choice of redeye gravy or a cream gravy.

Hearing the ‘you’re not from here’ people discover that grits were a part the buffet was a lot of fun. 

“Hey, look at this. He says it’s grits!”

For them, grits was more of an attraction than it was food. One lady took a picture but didn’t eat any, despite my insistence that it was only corn.

I chose cream with mine, only because that’s an option not usually available. I usually eat grits with butter, cheese, salt, pepper, and sometimes bacon or ham. On this day, I decided to be a sophisticate of some sort for no apparent reason. Besides, I was having milk gravy with my biscuits. If I had redeye gravy on my grits, the gravies would be confused. 

I have personal litmus test for the proper way to load up on biscuits and gravy, by the way. If you can still see biscuit, you ain’t got enough gravy! Feel free to co-opt that as your own.

Full disclaimer: I have had triple bypass surgery. 

I do not believe it has anything to do with gravy.