“True Grit” Takes More Than An Eye Patch

I ate breakfast last week at a local church and caught a little grief from the cooks for passing on the grits. The good pastor even questioned my country roots as I settled for the eggs and sausage. Listen, I took it all in stride. It’s hard to get a free meal off of a Methodist!

Me and grits go way back.  Mom would add a tad extra water and force them into us via a baby bottle. Before we could walk, we learned to grind corn between two rocks. Leon would bust it up with a hammer. That little fine dust would get in your hair, your eyes, your nose, your mouth……I brushed some out of my left ear last week; been stuck there for sixty years.

I’ve eaten grits for breakfast when there wasn’t nothing else. I’ve eaten grits for lunch when we’d mix it with Polk salad or pork rinds. I’ve eaten it for supper when we’d wet our appetite on a rack of squirrel legs and then fill up on grits. I’ve had it baked, seared, fried, grilled, boiled, broiled, sautéed and blackened.

On cold winter days Mom would treat us to hominy grits and chitlens. I’ve stirred it in amongst eggs, hog brains, bacon bits, red-eye gravy and Cheerios. I’ve poured’em over biscuits, sausage patties, toast, pancakes, chicken livers and mayonnaise sandwiches. I’ve had grits served to me so runny they wouldn’t hardly stay on the plate. I’ve seen’em so lumpy you’d a’thought it was a bad batch of mashed potatoes. I’ve eaten grits when they were as thick as a bowl of Quaker oats left out overnight. I’ve had them things grow in my mouth to the point I near ’bout couldn’t get enough sweet tea to wash them down. I’ve had them swell up in my belly. There ain’t no other feeling in the world like “grit stomach”!

I asked Mom every day “why was it always” grits. She didn’t lecture on being frugal; or how we needed to sell a hog or two; or how much better off we were than a couple of neighbors just down the road. She would mention those starving children in India and remind us how good grits were for us. I didn’t figure the nutritional value of any foods back in those days. We didn’t know polyunsaturated from amino acids. We went strictly on how it faired on your palate.  “But Mom, they don’t taste like nothing!” I could be a little persistent in my younger days. “Son, let’s put some more butter on yours……”

I’ve eaten grits that were swimming in margarine. I’ve smothered them with pepper and salt. I tried cheese. I’ve thrown in chunks of onion. I’ve put ketchup on grits. I’ve poured buttermilk, sorghum molasses, cane syrup and honey over them. Mom would compress them into little balls and we’d eat them like hush puppies. She would slice fresh cornbread open and stuff the grits in to make a sandwich. We celebrated David’s fourth birthday with a five layer grit cake. 

In the first grade Miss Carolyn had us gluing those Pilgrims and turkeys onto the poster board with some kind of white sticky paste. Yogi allowed that, finally, someone had invented a practical use for grits. And I know for a fact that “grit stomach” worked on fire ants. We got invaded one summer. They were all over the yard. Dad sprinkled a big handful of grits around every hill. The ants would eat their fill, even take some extra grits down to the queen. Dad would wait an hour or so and water down the hills real good. As soon as the ants took a drink and the water hit those grits in their bellies…..it would blow them little fellers up from the inside out!   

If you went down to the City Café between 4:30 and 10:00am you were going to get grits. Period! Me and David would both order a breakfast of cheeseburgers and French fries. Dixie Faye would somehow manage to get a bowl of grits in there between the pickle and the toasted bun. Mr. Jack Cantrell took it upon himself to point out as we stood up to leave, “You boys didn’t finish your grits.” It was like it was un-American or something!

I know grits are like ice cream in Georgia. And I certainly understand heritage, tradition, truth, justice and the American way! The terms “finger licking” and “southern fried” warm all of our hearts. And I’m almost dead positive certain there is a statistic out there somewhere that reports that 97.3% of all the grits sold in the world are purchased in the South. I think that is wonderful. I never said I didn’t like grits….or that I don’t like them today. I just believe that God, in His infinite wisdom, allotted each person a certain amount of grits to eat in his or her lifetime. I ate my appointed share before I was 10 years old!

Respectfully,

Kes