Can an American please tell me what 'grits' are exactly?

Question

I know they're eaten, but what is it made from and how do you prepare it for consumption?

My friend from Atlanta explained it to me once, but know I've forgotten and he takes ages to reply to my emails, plus I know you lot out there haven't let me down yet!

Answer 1

Grits is a type of maize porridge and a food common in the Southern United States, and southern Manchuria (where it is called gezi in Mandarin) consisting of coarsely ground corn, traditionally by a stone mill. The results are passed through screens, with the finer part being corn meal, and the coarser being grits. Many communities in the South had a gristmill until the mid-20th century, with families bringing their own corn to be ground, and the miller retaining a portion of the corn for his fee. Grits aficionados still prefer stone ground grits, although modern milling tends to prefer faster methods.

The word "grits" comes from Old English grytta meaning a coarse meal of any kind. Yellow grits include the entire kernel, while white grits use hulled kernels. Grits are prepared by simply boiling into a porridge; normally they are boiled until enough water evaporates to leave them semi-solid. They are traditionally served at breakfast, but can also be used at any meal.

Hominy grits is another term for grits, but explicitly refers to grits made from nixtamalized corn, or hominy. These are the common grits sold in supermarkets outside of the Southern U.S.

Grits are also similar to farina and polenta. Polenta is also known in parts of the US as cornmeal mush, and is often sold precooked and chilled in sticks to be sliced and fried as a breakfast dish.

Grits are commonly eaten with a variety of added foods:

Butter
Red-eye gravy
Butter, salt and pepper
Butter and sugar
Gravy
Butter, milk, and brown sugar (more typical of the Midwest than the South)
Cheese
Cheese and eggs

Answer 2

There are a variety of answers to your question, but they all start with corn. Hominy grits are those corn kernels which are treated to a mild lye solution to soften the outer hull.
"In most of America "hominy" came to mean lye hominy, or whole kernels that had been skinned but not ground. In the South, however, "hominy" came to mean skinned kernels that were then ground coarsely to make "grits."
A recipe from the same site below is included here:
BREAKFAST GRITS
1 ½ cups milk
1 cup stone-ground or other good quality grits
2 cups boiling water
1 teaspoon salt
pepper to taste
4 tablespoons butter
In the top of a double boiler, stir the milk into the grits, then add the water and seasonings. Stir well, cover tightly and place over the bottom, filled with an inch or two of boiling water. Cook over low heat anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half, or more, depending on the coarseness of the grind. When the grits are soft, add butter and serve.
Serves 4

However you make them, they are an acquired taste, great with basted eggs,salt cured ham with red eye gravy and big fluffy biscuits.

Answer 3

Grits are basically cornmeal. I'm not sure where you're from, but basically in Italy, Polenta is closest to what grits are.

Grits are basically a southern food. They are made with either water or broth, and some butter and stirred until they're thick, just like when making Polenta. They're then served as a side dish, just the way the soft form of polenta is. I think they're more of the white cornmeal though instead of the yellow.

I've prepared polenta, but not grits, so someone else may know how to make them, but they are very similar to polenta. Try going to the food network website or any recipe site and type in grits and they can explain it better.

I hope this helps.

Answer 4

Hominy grits, or just plain grits, are an institution here in the South, though they can be hard to find in northern states. Hominy is made from flint or dent corn,varieties with hard kernels that are dried on the cob then removed and soaked in a solution of baking soda, lime, or wood ash. This process causes the hulls to soften and swell. The kernels are then hulled and degermed using friction, then dried. Grits, coarse whitish grains, are ground from hominy, as is masa harina, the flour used to make corn tortillas. If you really want to start from scratch, Mountain Laurel has instructions for the whole process, including making the lye solution with wood ashes.

Answer 5

Web definitions for Grits
Usually a breakfast item in the US Southern region. Made from the kernel of corn. When corn has been soaked in lye and the casing has been removed it becomes Hominy. The lye is rinsed out very well and the corn is left to harden. Then the swollen hominy is ground up to the texture of tiny pellets. When boiled with water, milk and butter it becomes a cereal similar to cream of wheat. It's used as a side dish for a good old fashioned Southern breakfast. ...

Answer 6

Grits are small broken grains of corn. They were first produced by Native Americans centuries ago. They made both "corn" grits and "hominy" grits. Falls Mill produces "corn" grits.


Corn Grits
Falls Mill mills locally grown whole white hybrid corn. The corn is dried to a 14% moisture content, then each kernel is cleaned with forced air. The kernels of grain are run through the mill stone where they are ground to a certain texture and then sifted through two wire mesh screens. The three products sorted are white corn meal, white corn grits and the bran that pops off. There is a fine bran still in the grits product. This bran will never soften up with cooking. Depending on personal preference, the bran can be left in or removed by rinsing the grits before cooking.

Yummy!

Hominy
Is made from field corn that is soaked in lye water (potash water in the old days) and stirred over the next day or two until the entire shell or bran comes loose and rises to the top. The kernel itself swells to twice its original size. After the remaining kernels have been rinsed several times, they are spread to dry either on cloth or screen dryers.

How Corn Grits are made at Falls Mill
The first step in the production of our whole corn grits is the purchase of hybrid white corn from a local farmer. We pull a small grain wagon to his storage bin and auger out about 125 bushels of corn at a time. We weigh the corn and then bring it to the mill for unloading and cleaning. We auger it from the wagon into the mill building, where it is deposited in a floor bin. An elevator, running off our water wheel, picks up the corn a bucket at a time and carries it to the second floor grain cleaner. The cleaner has two shaker screens and a bottom blast fan, which operate to remove stalk, cob, unwanted seeds, cockleburs, and other field trash from the corn. The cleaned corn then drops into a basement auger, which moves it to a second elevator, where it is again carried upstairs and may be conveyed to one of four grain storage bins (usually the grinding bin above the millstones). It takes about five hours for us to unload and clean the 125 bushels.

When ready to mill, we belt up the millstones, fan suction system, and grits separator, and step up the speed of the water wheel, which drives all the machinery through a series of gears, flats belts, line shafts, and pulleys. The millstones we use are a set of 42-inch horizontal granite buhrs manufactured by the R.D. Cole Company of Newnan, Georgia, around the turn of the century. The granite was quarried at the Esopus Quarry in New York state. The millstones rotate about 125 revolutions per minute, and the upper (runner) stone weighs more than 1,500 pounds. Corn is fed into the stones via the hopper and shoe, from the upstairs storage bin. The stones are separated wider than when milling pure corn meal to obtain a coarser product. However, the milled product is a mixture of cracked corn, grits, and corn meal, so must be separated in a sifter (grits separator). As it comes off the stones, it falls into a pipe where the fan suction carries it to the second floor and drops it into the sifter. The corn meal is first sifted through a #20 screen and drops into a bagging bin on the first floor. The coarser product travels over this screen and grits drop through a #12 screen next, into a second bin below. The cracked corn tails off the end of the sifting drum and we regrind it to obtain more grits. The final yield is roughly 55% corn meal, 40% grits, and 5% light bran. The grits, however, will still contain a little bran or chaff. This is usually skimmed off prior to cooking.

No lye products are used in the processing of Falls Mill's grits.

John and Jane Lovett, Owners, Falls Mill & Country Store, 1873

Answer 7

It is made from corn that was dried and crushed or ground. Like hominy. Or Polenta. Think of it like a really coarsely ground cornmeal - the pieces are not fine like flour, but large like cut oats.

You take the dried grits, boil them like rice and serve with butter.

Answer 8

Grits are cooked white hominy - a grain similar to corn, I believe. I wouldn't know how to prepare it from it's natural form - I've only had the kind that comes in a container with directions on it! ;)

Answer 9

Hey, I'm from Atlanta, GA too, and I have always lived here and I still am not 100% sure what grits are but, I think they are coarsely ground white corn. Not yellow!

Answer 10

It's a cream of wheatish oatmealish delicious with sugar breakfast food. YUM