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Ummm GRITS

Grits are a staple of the southern breakfast. Keep those hash browns away from me.

First of all, grits are nothing more than coarsely ground dried corn. If you grind it finely, it is corn meal. Grind it coarsely and it's grits. Soak it in a mild lye solution and it's called hominy. I never tried hominy. Can't figure out why you'd soak grits in lye.

Anyway, there's not too much to cooking grits. You just pour it in a pot of boiling water according to the instructions on the bag or container. You cook it over medium to low heat stirring as it cooks. If you don't stir it occasionally it clumps up and may even stick.

There are a lot of things you can do to enhance the flavor.

My grandmother used to stir in raw eggs as her grits cooked. It gave it a unique flavor.

We also used to add fatback to our grits. Fatback is salted pork with the skin attached. It is mostly fat so when you fry it your get a lot of salty grease and a crispy piece of skin. We used to sprinkle to cooked fatback over our grits to add a little flavor. We also used to pour a little of the grease onto the grits to add a little flavor.

Some people add Accent (monosodium glutamate) to their grits. This is a flavor enhancer and it does add a lot to the flavor.

Others just add a pat of butter and sprinkle a little salt and pepper on their grits.

There is no wrong way to fix grits. It's just a filler to go along with your bacon and eggs. Grits sort of takes on the flavor of whatever you eat it with. If you eat it by itself, it just tastes a little "gritty."

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