I’m Fixing to Cook Me Some Grits.

(Editor’s Note: Ted Dunagan is on Sabbatical from writing his column. For the next few weeks, The Monticello News will feature some columns that ran previously.)

I’m fixing to cook me some grits. Jim Dandy is my favorite brand, but if I can’t find them I’ll settle for some Martha White or Quaker.

Some unfortunate folks from places like Connecticut, New York, Chicago, and other far off places don’t even know what grits are. Well, if you are one of those uninformed individuals—let me enlighten you. Grits are corn. To be more specific, grits are the finely ground insides of kernels of dried corn, minus the outside hull.

I’m proud to say that I have converted two fine folks from New Jersey. Before I served them some, they thought grits meant Girls Raised In The South. Now when they come to visit they always take a supply home with them.

Can you imagine, the poor wretches can’t even buy them up there?

I remember my grandfather getting up early in the morning, grinding the grits and pouring the grains from pan-to-pan while he blew away the hulls of the kernels. His grits were a little more course than Jim Dandy’s, but they made up for that by having my grandmother’s fresh churned butter in them.

I really don’t know what is wrong with those fine folks up north, but for some reason they equate grits with ignorance, won’t even talk about them, and go to the extreme of pretending they do not even exist. If you mention grits around them, their eyes glaze over and they begin talking about a hockey game or something.

Lately, however, there has been a breakthrough. It seems that our Yankee friends have decided that shrimp and grits as an entree are quite acceptable as long as they are served in a fancy restaurant and not at a Waffle House.

I suspect that a large number of them who visit, or who have come here to live, are secretly sneaking large supplies of them up north on Delta or AirTran. Before you know it, they will discover cheese grits, baked garlic grits, grit cakes and grits casserole. Then they will probably buy up all the supply and run the price up so high that we can’t afford them ourselves.

The shelves of Ingles, Kroger and Publix will be bare while the folks up north are eating them with cream and sugar.

But I can’t worry about all that now because mine are ready, and I’m fixing to eat me some grits.