Let me tell you about cheesy grits and Mitt.

[chieftain]

This Mid-Westerner had lived in the Florida Panhandle for a few years when I told a native Floridian that I was acclimating to the South. My evidence was that I had started to like cheese grits. My friend looked at me dismissively and said that putting cheese in grits was only done for the carpet bagging Yankees that had moved in.
Mitt, you are not fooling anyone.

[wendylaroux]

1. what kind of cheese?

and what do the natives put on their grits?

[chieftain]

2. 'Merican. Butter, salt and pepper.

It seems the grits main purpose is to sop up the egg yolk. At least that's what this observer could glean.

[Bryn]

9. We don't. At least not my families who have been in the South for generations.

We use butter or white gravy with sausage bits or fried eggs mixed in grits. I've never put cheese in mine, but I don't see why not if someone likes it that way, just don't know a Southerner who does. But NO Sugar! lol

[lacrew]

14. I grew up near Birmingham

...and ate at a cafeteria most mornings.

The local cuisine always included grits. Sometimnes we had panckaes, sometimes scrambled eggs...but grits were always a side dish.

There were grits.
Or grits with a pool of butter on top.
Or cheese grits (seemed to be authentic southern cuisine at the time...and matched the cheese eggs)
Or bacon grits - yes bacon grease was incorporated
And really my favorite was grit fritters - day old grits fried up into a pattie.

[onethatcares]

3. slap of butter,

no cheese.

[lunatica]

4. Now if he said he loved fat back in his collards he'd be more believable

And if he said he had the leftovers for breakfast the next morning he'd be a true Southerner.

LOL!

[chieftain]

7. Very true and very funny. eom

[zbdent]

5. Well, kiss my ...

[wendylaroux]

6. lol lol and another lol

[Lochloosa]

8. Ok...From someone that was born in the Florida Panhandle, I'll 'xplain it to y'all.

Grits in the morning is just butter. And you had better salt it while it's cooking or it's just no good. These grits are for sopping up the yoke of your overeasy...cooked in bacon fat...eggs. Three for me please.

Cheese Grits are what you eat at a Mullet Fry with your Beer-battered Hush Puppies and Cole Slaw.

And you don't fucking "learn" to like grits. You like 'em or you don't. If you don't, you're not from around here.

Clear enough?

[sharp_stick]

10. I learned to like em'

took a couple of weeks of travel through the South but I did learn to like grits.

[pangaia]

11. Nice comments.

Made my day. Thanks :&gt )

I'm a Yankee..Raachaastaa NY..will actually NJ.. First time I had grits was in Muscle Shoals in ..oh, about 1969 or so..b'fast and yes w/butter and over easy. Loved grits from the first bite so much that I still remember...

[tosh]

12. +1.

Thanks for saving me that effort.

[JackintheGreen]

20. Gotta agree with sharp stick

My mother is southerner. She raised me in the midwest eating grits, and I hated them with a fiery passion that eclipsed the heat of the sun.

Three decades later and I'd eat grits every day if my wife wouldn't divorce me over it. Like pollacks know how to cook...

That's a joke, ya'll. Don't report me.

[Major Nikon]

31. Grits have been a staple of the South for generations

In many areas you either ate them or you went hungry. Like or dislike was irrelevant.

[Bryn]

13. Think of good old fashioned movie popcorn

made with just butter and salt. Cheese/caramel in popcorn... yucky to me. Good grits are like that. Mostly just salt/butter. Cheese? Sugar? Milk? Yuck!

[excuse not to write]

30. Basic is Best

[wendylaroux]

15. So grits are eaten instead of a potato? nt

[SoCalDem]

16. Pretty much.. In Kansas we had greasy hash browns to sop up the yolks

In the South, it's grits

I like both, but with grits you have the advantage of slicing up the left over (congealed) grits & frying them up with tomorrow's breakfast..

[wendylaroux]

17. well I shall buy some tomorrow.

[SoCalDem]

18. Do skip the cheese though

a dab of butter (I don't use it, but my husband does) id all you need.

My grandfather used to put milk on it & add brown sugar

[wendylaroux]

19. no cheese for me

plus I'll bet they are lots cheaper than potatoes.

[chieftain]

21. One of my favorite books is "The Great Santini"

The Marine pilot that is the great one is from Chicago while his wife is from the South. Every morning she fixes his breakfast and includes a heaping helping of grits. And every day Santini ignores them in an act that demonstrates the continuing cultural divide even among spouses from different regional persuasions.

[onestepforward]

22. Red-eye gravy and grits

Yum! My grandmother in Tennessee would make that on occasion. If not the gravy, then just butter and salt. She never used cheese.

[chieftain]

23. And country ham and biscuits. And that's what I liked about the South

[onestepforward]

26. Me too.

I haven't had country ham in decades, but I clearly remember the rich flavor and the salty crust when you pan fry it. Put it in between a hot buttermilk biscuit and you have a breakfast made in heaven

[sylvi]

24. I have to disagree about the cheese grits

At least in my region of N. Florida, cheese grits are a common side dish with fried fish along with hushpuppies. They even serve them in the school cafeterias on days that they have fish sticks, or used to anyway. I have seen some old-timers just mix in a spoon or two of the grease the fish were fried in as a flavoring when there was no cheese.

Grits 'n' egg
Grits 'n' gravy
Grits 'n' stewed tuhmaters
Grits 'n' butter

All are acceptable in Cracker Florida. I have also heard grits called "Georgia ice cream".

[ScreamingMeemie]

25. I was just about to post about Low Country shrimp and grits...but I see I don't have to.

[HopeHoops]

27. I'm a heathen. I put Tabasco on my grits. No cheese.

[Buns_of_Fire]

28. Cheesy grits, no. Cheesy eggs, si.

Along with a side of bacon, orange juice, toast with apple butter (on request), a cup of the World's Best Coffee (tm), and some scattered, smothered, covered, peppered, squeezed, tossed, dropped, scraped, pounded, beaten, and humiliated hash browns.

Grits, just butter and pepper and salt. Then you can wait for them to solidify a little while you're eating your cheesy eggs, etc. so you can cut them into little grit-blocks and build castles in your plate. Betcha Willard never thought of THAT, elitist dork that he is!

(I've probably spent way too much time at Waffle Houses in my life. Does it show? )

[Amaril]

29. Jeebus!

..........scattered, smothered, covered, peppered, squeezed, tossed, dropped, scraped, pounded, beaten, and humiliated hash browns.

Now I do love my WH hash browns scattered and smothered (like a heart attack on a plate!), but after all that, what else could you possibly do that would "humiliate" them??

N'ermind -- on second thought, I don't think I wanna know.

Oh, and