We have this giant monument in Georgia.



Saaaa-lute, Mittens.

He probably thinks they are from the book of Revelation

Somebody is fixing' to do it I'm sure.

be done right soon

I learned to like grits.

Took a 6 week tour through the South in my younger days with my best friend.

Every place we stopped to eat had this disgusting cream of wheat like stuff on the plate. Sometimes it had stuff mixed in with it sometimes just butter... we never ordered this crap it just appeared.

Started by trying a bit of it and then eating around the pile as best I could, after a week or so I kind of looked forward to seeing what kind of grits we'd get. By the end of the trip I was actually asking for extra and it hurt when I got back home and couldn't find them in the grocery store. They had instant grits sometimes but those ain't grits IMO. Finally when I started looking hard enough I was able to find suppliers, it sort of became a "habit" to hunt for grits and try new ways to cook them.

My wife never did develop a taste for them but I've got two of three kids that like them so far so I've got her outnumbered.

I guess you could say that I've always liked them just hadn't had a chance to experience them but I did learn to like grits.

Each to his own.

Lived with my grandma and granddad while my parents were off making the world safe for democracy and then while my dad was going to college.

Grits were pretty good served with fresh churned butter and salt. Sometimes with chicken gravy.

Then we moved to California and I rarely eat grits anymore and then only when sprinkled liberally with tabasco sauce.

Also something about calling all soft drinks, no matter who makes them, a 'coke'...

He does NOT have to like Country however...

Michael Stipe HATES country, and you tell me he's not a southerner

you have your "moon pah with a Arra-Cee co-cola" (RC or Royal Crown cola). Why the names are mashed together, I don't know, but I grew up here and heard it all my life. (Yeah, I thought it was odd, too, but that's how it is.)

A moon pah with a Arra-Cee co-cola is the deep south's caviar and champagne.

If you're from the very-rural south (like me), it's always "co-cola", not "coca cola" or "coke".

He has to complete those correctly before he even gets consideration to apply to become a Southerner!

My Grandmama used to ask us to get her a 'dope' when we went to the store. Coke used to have some cocaine in it, and she always called it by that nickname.

(Clemson University's President for years was R.C. Edwards. His wife was called 'Moonpie.' She was a good sport about it. When he died, the students lined the route to the cemetery and held up cans and bottles of RC Cola. Now that was a send off.)

PS- Yep. I know what co-cola is.

that was the first time I heard of someone putting cheese on their Grits. I only put sugar on mine.

Okay, that's blasphemy. We're liberated in the South, just not THAT liberated. Next you'll be wanting milk with them :shudder:

Although I now prefer the other variations, I will still go back to the brown sugar from time to time.
Milk? Never!

Milk in grits ... no, just no step-away-from-the-spoon...

LOL

'lasses for certain!

(Molasses is a bit of an acquired taste, but awesome on home-made buttermilk biscuits! Totally suthren!)

I was 13 years old before I knew ANYbody put sugar and milk on grits. My stepmother (from Ohio, bless her heart) served them that way. I just stared at the bowl of ruination in disbelief

One of the MOST disappointing things about Northern q-zine is they put sugar in the cornbread and don't in the tea. As my grandmother would say, "Y'all don't KNOW what's good!"

Will you keep him? Please?

Nobody is going that far.

He has to drink a shitload of Iced Tea, but it doesn't HAVE to be sweetened iced tea. See, this is drifting into the realm of the only legitimate toppings for grits are butter and red-eye gravy. Grits are perfectly acceptable with Tabasco, cheese and butter for many of us.

I say it's okay if you drink shitloads of Iced Tea, which I do (only unsweetened) and eat your grits how you like them. And it's okay if you eat your boiled peanuts and chat with the women instead of the men.

We're getting liberated here in the South, and it's time to change with the times. Unsweetened or sweetened tea, grits with whatever you want, and your boiled peanuts (and pork rinds) with whoever you want to chat with.

This was a public service announcement.

We still ain't havin' it. No RMoney for me, thanks!

PS: I loved your post on Amazon. Epic!!

No kidding - no RMoney for me either.

and I'm glad I could make you smile

There are many acceptable variations.

The true test for his ass would be to give him 4 ounces of cool spring water in a peanut butter jar, and 4 ounces of moonshine in another peanut butter jar.
Jam or jelly jars will do in a pinch.

Tell him to drink the first one, and then the 2nd one, in one big swaller, just gulp it down, no sipping, and then tell everyone else what he thinks the difference between the water and the moonshine tastes like.

After he drinks the first one, he might look okay, but he won't be able to talk after he drinks the 2nd one.
Because there was no cool spring water in either jar!!

That's what they done to me, and I couldn't even talk after that 2nd glass.
Hell, I couldn't even stay conscious!!

I put the glass down, bugged my eyes out a little, and then waltzed over to the sofa about 8 feet away doing the worst John Wayne imitation you ever saw of the way he walked in all of those cowboy movies, and then plopped down, face first, because I knew when the top of my head felt like it had turned to ice, I was in trouble, and I figured whatever it was, whether it was straight up turpentine or plain ol' moonshine that I had drunk, I was probably going to pass out.

Her grandpa laughed his ass off when that happened, and he told my wife that I was a-okay with him.
I had passed the test.

Preferably roadkilled.

I ate a roadkilled mud snake in South Carolina, which makes me an honorary southerner.

I wouldn't want to eat mud snake no matter how it was cooked and served.

That should be on the test. He has to eat road kill.

but shrimp and grits (with cheddar and Tabasco butter) for lunch or dinner, oh my God, it's become one of my favorite comfort foods. VERY easy to make!

Slideshow from the Shrimp-N-Grits Throwdown for charity (in Communist Chapel Hill):

http://www.wral.com/entertainment/out_and_about/image_gallery/10780525/

I raise my fork to the good Southerners out there!

Totally under appreciated and totally suthren!

(Chapel Hill? neighbor!)

in the smack-dab middle of Caswell County, about an hour's drive.

hiking, wineries and outlets. What an adventure.

the grit trees are the right height. The cotton bushes are the right color...

them grits trees!

I think it was crepe myrtles, something full of white pom-pom like flowers. He told her they were grits trees and went on and on about how near hey were to harvest and how they had to grind them, all the while grinning at my b-i-l, a SOutherner, in the rear view mirror.

For some reason up until fairly recently no stores in SF carried grits. I used to pick up boxes at my local market and bring them over to southern coworkers in SF. They couldn't even be found at the Church St Safeway or smaller markets in Bayview/Hunter's Point.
Just one of the many examples of what a cultural backwater SF can sometimes be.

Mercifully these days you can get grits at some of SF's finer dining establishments and supermarkets

Oakland & the east bay in general has always benefited from large southern transplants.

I've been eating grits since I was a baby.

.....south of the Mason-Dixon for almost 30 years -- North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida (for 20 of those years) -- and I canNOT eat a grit. Ugh! It's a taste thing AND a texture thing.

I've tried to eat them -- most of my friends are southern born & bred and they serve them as a side dish for dinner. I hate to be rude when someone has invited me over and gone to trouble of cooking, so I try to eat them.............gag! I just can't. I don't care how much cheese you cover them in, they will never be palatable to me.

So, you are absolutely right when you say that you can't learn to like grits.