BS: Grits

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 10:20 AM

I had grits for the first and only time in the FAR south---Mexico City. I do believe that these were served with a healthy supply of invisible and not very tasty AMOEBAS on top. By the time I got back to the hotel room I was searching for a commode. That was over 40 years ago---the last time I ever dared to eat 'em.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 09:27 AM

As a matter of fact Banj, they're cookin' now. Connie and Wayne spent the night after doing the "Drive-In" and we're having a huge mix and match kinda' breakfast.....biscuits, egg casserole mess (cooked with last nite's leftover ribs, Scrapple, gravy.........you get the idea. We'll be so logged down the rest of the day ................. aw, who cares????

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Banjer
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 09:17 AM

Hey, Catspaw, while you're in the kitchen don't ferget to whip up a mess of grits....OK?

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 09:00 AM

I want to thank all you jerks on this thread for forcing me to have a Scrapple attack and cook up some beauties this AM. My Triglycerides thank you, my Cholesterol thanks you, and my cardiologist thanks you.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: paddymac
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 07:56 AM

Chet W. - Couldn't help but notice the seeming connection between canine tailings and Taco Bell. The really sad part is that there are probably millions of people who define "Taco" by the crap they serve up at TB. Ugh!

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Sep 99 - 07:54 AM

Point of pedantry (food safety tip of the day): Salmonella can take from 6 to 72 to make you sick. The average is somewhere around 24 hours. If you ate something and got sick immediately, it wasn't that meal that caused it, or it wasn't Salmonella. Symptoms include headache, abdominal pain, diarrhea, nausea, and sometimes vomiting. Fever is usually present.

And now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Chet W.
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 11:57 PM

We may not have had maple syrup, but we sure as hell had homemade cane syrup (similar to, but not the same as molasses). Used to take the cane to a guy that had a mule-driven squeezer to squeeze out all the cane juice, and then he boiled it down into syrup for a very reasonable price. Now where was it that someone mentioned that dogshit is a staple food?

Oh, and regarding Taco Bell, I had a wonderful experience with one in southern Louisiana a few years ago. I guess because I didn't know the local dialect I inadvertantly ordered the chicken salmonella burrito and spent four days of my vacation in a hospital in Lafayette. Wouldn't consider stopping at one now to pee.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Sourdough
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 07:32 PM

This is going to get to Regional food preferences and even traditional music but I have to go back to the beginning of the story which is travelling in a dugout canoe on the Marrowijne River that separates Suriname from French Guiana in the rainforests of Northeastern South America. I was with a group of people that were setting up arrangements for an anthropologist expedition the interior rainforest of the former Dutch Guiana the following summer.

There were five of us outsiders traveling in a 20 metre dugout canoe powered by a 75 horsepower outboard motor. We had two boatmen and a translator as well as a utility type who did most of the cooking.

In each village we wished to stay in we had to go through a welcoming ceremony which took quite some time because it required listening to long conversations in the dialect of these people which was made up of several West African languages. They were descendents of former slaves from the coastal plantations who had been living successfully for nearly three centuries in the bush. They were fiercely independent and took the cleansing ceremonies for outsiders very seriously. They had managed to keep their traditions as well as their self-respect even though they were well known to the coastal people where the cities are. Known as Djuka or Aucaner people, they disocuraged vistors but once you made it "in" they were warm and hospitable people.

Our boatman was very interested in one particular village, Manlobi which was several days upriver and along our route. There was an obiahman there who had the reputation of being able to cure very serious injuries and illnesses. The boatman knew him because he was one of the more frequent travellers on the river. He usually made a trip every year. He was Djuka but he had chosen to live on the coast.

I wish I could think of his name and it probably will come back to me later but I do remember he made a living taking tourists on short canoe trips up to Stoelman's Island and back to Albina, a one day round trip to the furthest settlement where there was electricity and direct communication with the outside world. If any of these place names sound familiar to you it may be because they are near the mouth of the river that leads to Devil's Island and the associated French city, St. Laurent.

The boatman had a little farm on the coast and, a few months before, while clearing brush with a "cutlass" (what I had always called a machete) he had hit a stone and the blade had glanced off, struck his leg and severed his Achilles tendon. His impaiment was pretty serious and he had been anxious to take this trip because it meant he would be able to stop off and see Papa Mato in Manlobi. He was convinced Papa Mato would be able to cure him.

When we came ashore in Manlobi, even we outsiders could tell that there was something wrong. The people looked listless and paid little attention to our crew. Soon, our interpreter was able to tell us what was wrong. The village had a kind of idol(when I did get to see it quite a while after all of this, it reminded me of an oversized sofa pillow). It was of enormous significance to the people there and it had been stolen. Papa Mato as the religios leader had decreed that there would be no religious celebrations of any sort, including drumming, for a period of time that I don't remember exactly but it was longer than we were going to be there. It also meant that he was not going to be able to treat the boatman's Achilles Tendon.

(I have a choice where to go with this story now, to the food or to the music. I think I'll go to the food.)

The staple food in this part of South America is manioc root but the variety that grows there is poisonous. The Indians taught the Djuka people how to grind it up by pounding it mercilessly and endlessly in hollowed out tree trunls with a very heavy pole. Then they showed them how to place it in a woven cylindrical sack that is hung from a tree with weights attached to the bottom of the sack. If you've ever seen a Chinese finger-trap toy, you will easily understand how this works. The more pressure i.e. wieght, you hang on the sack, the greater the squeexe. What comes out is a juice with the poison in it. The poison is used on hunting arrows and the 150 pound log of ground manioc, now quite dry, is ready to be cooked in one of the two main ways it is served there. It can be prepared as something like Grape Nuts, little hardirregular balls of the stuff or baked on griddles into a thin round flatbread. In either case, the texture is dry and hard. Since most of the food is stews of one sort or another, the bread can be added as we might rice or used as an implement with which to eat it. It is tasteless and so hard that it makes stale tortilla chips seem flavorful and delicate. If you ar enot careful, it can rip up the insides of your mouth. (I remembered being on the Arizona desert watching a javelina eating cactus, thorns and all and thinking with a mouth like that I could eat the manioc bread.) It was extrememly hard to see how anyone could get excited about sitting down for a meal in which manioc made up the central portion but when I saw not only the villagers eating with pleasure but the boatman and crew who were returning home, eating with the enthusiasm of a Bostonian reclaiming his baked beans or a Texan his barbecue, I could see how much associations have to do with taste. I guess comfort food can be nearly anything.

After dinner, I sat next to Papa Mato in his home, a thatched hut with a dirt floor on which no one ever sat. There were always chairs and stools. The translator was busy but when it was my turn to talk, I mentioned music. I had been recording the music of the Djuka whenever I could but it appeared that in this village, because of the recent desecration of their shrine, this would not be possible. There was to be no music. What was particularly disappointing was that the Djuka have a separate tradition of religious drumming that I hadn't heard and Papa Mato was reputed to be an outstanding exponent of the form.

I asked if I could play. Would that be all right with Papa Mato and with the villagers? He encouraged me to do so and I brought into the cabin my appalachian dulcimer. Wildwood Flower, Buffalo Gals and Cripple Creek were well received. Then Papa Mato asked to inspect the dulcimer. I passed it to him. He did the usual things of tapping the face, hitting the strings randomly, that sort of exploration. Then he handed it back to me. Everything had gone so well that I now took a chance. I turned it over and beat out a little paradiddle on the back of the instrument. Then I handed it back to the old obiahman. Slowly, at first, and then with increasing strength and purpose, he began drumming with his hands. No one said anything or interrupted him until fifteen minutes or so later he was through. He was transformed, his eyes were clearer, his face more expressive. I don't know exactly what happened but the music had done something to him and for him and even if we didn't know any details, all of us outsiders knew that we had just been a part of something special. We had seen another aspect of the power of music.

Hmmm, maybe this should have been better placed in "Why We Sing."

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 06:26 PM

funny..*grin*...I sit here reading complaints about what they 'do' to grits in Boston, or fajitas in Oregon or BBQ almost ANYWHERE....and all reasonable comments."They have messed up my traditional food with foreign and gratuitous additions and ingredients"..............and there don't seem to be the vociferous arguments that surface when I complain about it being done to songs!....Thought I suppose there are recipe trading bulletin boards where it DOES get nasty....

Just idly musing...

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 06:07 PM

My Mom sent me a chocolate chip bundt cake for my birthday when I was in England. It took a month to get there and went from New York to California to Germany and a couple other places. I was damned if I was gonna give up - cut the green stuff off and ate it anyway!

(When did we have saurkraut?)

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 05:54 PM

Yeah Caroline...kinda' hard to get sentimental over mold, I gotta' agree. Reminds me of my single and twenty something days when Ely Lily bought my fridge to make pennicillin.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Pelrad
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 05:50 PM

LOL Barry, nope, I'm not quite old enough to remember White Castles around here. :-) And poi is icky, but it might have been a good experience for you. Doesn't really taste like much, just mashed tubers.

And I agree, the fajitas in restaurants around here taste kinda like dirt, after you've had the real thing. I blame it on the bland green things that pass as chilis around here. Anyone want to send some REAL chilis up north?

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: bob schwarer
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 05:10 PM

Chef Paul P. came up with blackened redfish and almost caused the demise of a previous trash fish (red drum).

Also, I read somewhere that the local name for orange roughy is "slime fish". Anyone from Australia or New Zealand confirm that?

Bob S.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:36 PM

Soak that corn in a lye solution, Barbara, as the masochistic Swedes used to do to make lutefisk. Them little ol' kernels'll swell right up and become hominy. Then wash it long enough to get rid of the lye leavin's, theoretically. In order to choke that stuff down, you grind it up into grits. As Utah and Kendall Morse would say, "Good though!"

You mean the fajitas at Taco Bell don't cut the mustard, Barry? They may not be Texas, but they're ubiquitous!

Kendall, I really like the "seafood" mystery-mix that imitates crabmeat. Make up a "seafood salad" with it now and then, as a break from peanut-butter sandwiches.

Caroline reminds me that her mother almost never bothered to fry the mush until it was growing some little blue friends all over the top. Now that might discourage even a fried mush lover dreaming of old family times. Let's hear it for "pooch poop!"

Sandy

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: K~~
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:34 PM

I read this whole thread on my break and now I'm all hungry and it's still an hour before quitting time **pout**

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:17 PM

Yup, Kendall, I believe, known as slave food in eariler times & to much of it given to servants or slaves was outlawed, used to wash up & litter the beaches after a storm (seacoast's version of a windfall), so I've read, I'm not that old yet. Mussels & mako is another example, you couldn't have given that to a one eyed cat 20 years ago now it's found in fancy resturants at a price that would make any fishmen think that Y2K will be the year to beat all, as long as their fishfinders don't belly up first. Barry, who's now craving a fresh half cooked slab of bluefish smothered in green peppers & onions with a side of sweet butter & sugar corn or is that salt & pepper corn, no, could that be brown & black indian corn, alright please pass the dogshit. Thanks

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:13 PM

Ain't it amazing Kendall? And that's like Caroline's comment in a way too.......Sandy talked about her hating mush possibly because she knew it was a cheap fixin'. Maybe I'm the "backlash" of that same feeling. As a kid I HATED mush and now I'm thinking that it's presence was so common that I somehow knew this "wasn't what they ate uptown." And now do I enjoy it because of the nostalgia, the great memories of childhood? Meals were a fantastic time in my family. Is that what makes mush so good now?

But the price of "fashionable" foods never ceases to amaze me. Fashionable isn't the right word, but when you look at the price of grits, as Jeri just did...........get real. As soon as someone "discovers" a food, the price takes off. Frozen White Castles for gawdsakes! And yeah, I know there is a difference, but I'd just as soon have "puddin'" as mousse(sp). But I DO wonder exactly what chemical concoctions I'm eating that makes whitefish taste like lobster, scallops, and crab!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Barbara
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 03:53 PM

Say Barry, I think that wonderful Texas food you're talking about and misspelling as Phaetas, is actually the Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food called Fajitas. A variety of burrito with spicy chicken and fried onions & peppers as the main ingredient? Around HERE (ORegon)they sell permutations of those at Subways and -- hold onto your shorts -- Wendy's (as a Fajita Pita, I'm afraid). Not going to tell you they are anything like what you had in Texas, but they might evoke a memory or two.
After all this talk, I had to go out and buy a box of grits yesterday, and I sure like 'em. We got tons of sweet corn around here too, tho ours isn't ripe yet. Just put your mouth up to the drive door, Jeri and I'll shove one in, dang, won't fit.
If I were going to grind it myself, anyone know where I could order whole dried hominy? Is that the way you'd do it? Hominy is what, the puffed rice of corn? how do you get from corn to hominy?
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: kendall morse (don't use)
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 03:38 PM

hey catspaw.. Your comment about some foods having a history of being cheap.. then gaining popularity is true. No one is going to believe this, but, many years ago here in Maine, Lobster was so plentiful and under utilized, that people used to use them for fertilizer in their gardens. They were also given to the residents of the "poor house". The times are still a changing.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Jeri
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 03:21 PM

Will y'all quit talking about FOOD!!! I had to go get some grits today and ended up with a pound of Quaker "Quick Grits" for a buck-thirty-five. Then I simply had to have some sweet corn because Catspaw's been talking about it and I needed a butter facial. The store was completely out!!! Boy, am I bummed - sheer maizery! (No, I haven't yet experienced a craving for dogshit and maple syrup...or frog legs.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: bob schwarer
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 03:21 PM

Yeah, Sandy. I have Jerry Rasmussen's recordings. I grew up across the street from a bunch of Rasmussens. I asked Jerry if he was one of them, but he said that he wasn't. That particular house was torn down years ago, probably right after WWII.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 02:51 PM

Bob Schwarer: You're from Janesville? Do you know Jerry Rasmussen's songs? He grew up in Janesville and writes about everything from "Living on the River" to "County Fair" by way of "32nd Army Tank Division Band."

Pelrad: The great powers have smiled upon you recently. In spite of Wyo Woman's unfavorable remarks (she takes everything with hot peppers and salsa!), White Castles are now available in the frozen food section of our local grocery store. If we can get 'em here in the northwest corner, you ought to be able to find 'em, too. Instant bite-sized heartburn, but...

You've lost Caroline, CatsPaw. Fried mush was something her Georgia-raised mother made for the family, and Caroline loathed it, possibly because she knew it was mostly an economical way to use up yesterday's left-over breakfast. Maybe it was the Karo syrup that killed it for her. They never had real maple syrup in those depression times.

Sandy

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Barry Finn
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 02:50 PM

Hi Pelrad, your probably a bit young to remember White Castle, haven't seen one around these northern parts (Boston) for over 30 years, didn't even know they still existed, always thought that they were driven out when the rail came in. Kinda like a modern Joe & Nemo's without the hot dogs, ugh, not as bad as Boston Baked Beans though. I'd been through the deep south a few time & when traveling once through there with RiGGy we stopped at a truck stop & I wanted to try it (GRITS), well it was alright even pleasent then I some how passed over & ended up in Texas (South America to us far northerners "chuckle") & low & behold in Austin were I got my first & only RCA cowboy hat as a gift from Manny of Texas Hatters I was taken to Falcone's & had Fhaetas (sorry this norther can't spell southern food) & I've never had anything by that name again that was even close to what they served up, spoiled for life. I've tried most of what I could get my hands on when somewhere else except when in Hawaii, it was lunch time & I went to the roach coach (better know as the puke wagon) along with the rest of the guys I worked with & spotted "poi" on the board, said I'm gonna try that. Poi is a staple food along with rice, of the islands that's a mushed root that had a sheen of heavenly blue (Maxwell Parish sp? must've painted that food) well all the guys started laughing & saying no-no you don't wanta do that, to which I replied that like rice the Hawaiians have been eating it with everything for as far back as water. With that they all said ya they were raised on it but it as still god awful & if they hated it & wouldn't touch it then someone from a far distant shore would no doubt die a death of gagging. I thought to myself, I had once nearly been thrown of a boat during a storm because as the greenest crew member I alone was not only holding down my food but was looking to whip up something good to eat, this was a first but I passed on the poi. Sorry to further the thread leap. Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 01:47 PM

W ehaven't really touched on the virtues of grits yellow cousin, MUSH......Fried up right, it's hard to beat on a winter morning, covered in butter and drowned in REAL maple syrup. 'Course dogshit would probably be good covered in butter and drowned in maple syrup...........but anyway, I do love mush!!!

And since we're off on this food thread, I once again bring up my favorite breakfast meat, well sorta'...Krepples or Scrapple which you can read about by CLICKING HERE and of course this is Mudcat where no food discussion would be complete without Possum

Bone uh Poteat

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: bob schwarer
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 01:35 PM

I guess they may be edible that way. (BG)

Bob S.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: annamill
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 01:06 PM

You, my friends, will love this. Grits (I love em') are sold at my place of employment as a breakfast hot cereal, right next to the oatmeal and Cream of Wheat. I work at Bank of New York, Wall Street , New York. I guess there pretty popular here , or, we have a lot of Southerners working there.

My love of grits comes from my mom who was born and raised in Greenville, SC. I love 'em with a fried egg on top so I can break the egg and have the yolk drip down into the mound of grits. Then I put a little salt and pepper. Hmmm Hmmm..

Love, annap

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Pelrad
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 12:21 PM

I think this is a thread leap rather than a creep, but I'm gonna post it anyway. :-þ

Several of you have said that in the deep South they don't bother to put grits on the menu but they are automatically put on your plate...The Tunisian equivalent of that seems to be canned tuna fish. A friend of mine was there for six weeks, and it didn't matter what he ordered (even a PLAIN cheese pizza with emphasized CHEESE ONLY), it came adorned with tuna. So, if you order something in a restaurant someday and it arrives with tuna fish plopped on top, you'll know you've strayed across borders and oceans into northern Africa.

I can't say anything about grits, as I am such a Yankee that I've never had them. No White Castles around here either...

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: paddymac
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 11:02 AM

I grew up in the Chicago area, so never had any exposure to grits until I joined the marines, where I became quite fond of them. Many a cold morning in Chicago was met with a steaming bowl Farina and the like, but my personal favorite was "Choco-o-Wheat". When my ex and I were raising our boys, she, being a native born southerner, tried serving grits, but the kids wouldn't eat 'em. I solved the problem by sprinkling a spoon full of Nestle's Quick on them. The kids loved 'em that way, but wifey nearly graced the table with a tecnicolor yawn. Maybe that's a part of why we're "exes" now.

Penny, dahlin', puhleeze don' be bad-mouthin' frogs. Frog legs and grits is an early morning treat beyond compare. 'Course, it might have something to do with being out giggin' (as in stickin' frogs, not playin' music) all night, with more than the occasional beer.

Take the cleaned frog legs, dip 'em in a wash of eggs & sweetened condensed milk (diluted a bit with whole milk), roll 'em in corn flake crumbs, then slow fry 'em in butter in a cast iron skillet. Delicious! With grits and eggs along with 'em, you're fully prepared for a long nap.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: bob schwarer
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 07:07 AM

Joe: I was "sure" there was a White Castle in Janesville, WI back in the 40's. Maybe my memory is sliping more than I think it is. Old Timers disease?

Bob S.

Subject: White Castle
From: Joe Offer
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 05:10 AM

Penny - White Castle "sliders" are paper-thin, square hamburgers from a chain of hamburger joints that's far older than McDonald's. The restaurants look like a mix between a gasoline station and a miniature castle. There was one by Grandma's house in Detroit and my folks let me get a hamburger there just once, since we usually couldn't afford to eat out with five kids in the family. The hamburgers tasted absolutely wonderful to me, since they were kind of forbidden fruit. I spent my teenage years in Wisconsin, which didn't have White Castle, so I had to find other things to eat at two in the morning.
The frozen ones you get in the grocery store aren't so good.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Penny S.
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 04:03 AM

Boy did I start something! And aren't I now more determined to try adding grits to my range of Real English Breakfast foods. (Anybody know how an Ulster Fry differs from the English version?).

To be fair to our visitor, there was a very subtle intonation to his voice which could have been either "why on earth is this Englishwoman so interested in this extraordinarily unattractive food, I had better indicate, very politely, that she won't like it" or "I don't expect this woman will like these if she tries them, even though I do, so I had better forewarn her". He did recommend I ate them at source, remember.

As to cheap foods becoming sought-after, I have never been able to understand the attractions to people not a hundred miles away of frogs and snails and very small birds eaten in one mouthful. They are not cheap, but they are the stuff you eat when you are really desperate in a famine. So how come the high status?

And what are White Castle sliders?

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: WyoWoman
Date: 05 Sep 99 - 12:02 AM

At the risk of commiting sacrilege, I have to say that I tried White Castle sliders once and THAT's one culinary treat to which I respond, "Huh?"

OF course, it was for a fund-raiser when I live in Santa Fe and some organization had a truck load of them driven in from Chicago or wherever their homeland is, and we paid big bucks for boxes of frozen White Castle burgers and ... well, I guess something got lost in the translation. Obviously I need to be drunk in ??? and looking for an open restaurant at 2 a.m., right?

Maybe White Castle sliders with grits on the side.

AND ... the VERY BEST chicken-fried steak is found right here in my kitchen! ww

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Arkie
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 10:38 PM

Had a speaker from Wisconsin in the Ozarks a few years back. He made the statement in his introductory remarks that he knew he was in the south when he saw grits on the menu. I told him afterwards that he was in the south when he found grits on his plate not on the menu. Some of the border states accomodate visitors from the north, by placing grits on the menu, but in the deeper south, at least it used to be true, restaurants simply served grits with breakfast and saw no need to place them (it)on the menu.

As for country ham, I grew up in Southampton County, Virginia and dined on country ham with some regularity. My father and his brothers cured their own hams and supplied my mother's family with ham. I did not have to eat Smithfield ham or any other storebought ham until well into adulthood. Having had my taste for commercially cured ham forever ruined, I rarely take a chance on it anymore. My ancestral ham curers are all gone and not a one of my generation took up the art. Are Peanut fed hogs are a things of the past.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Chet W.
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 09:36 PM

Okay, you take a dead chicken, feathers off, head off, feet off, and cut up into the usual pieces (legs, thighs, wings and (dare I say it) breasts). You boil the chicken pieces and traditionally you would leave them as they are, with the bones, but I take the bones out. Save the broth, cut up lots of onions, slice some smoked sausage, add salt and a Lot of black pepper, and add the chicken meat back in. Make sure that the broth is adjusted so that there is about 10-15% more than you would normally put in your intended amount of rice. Bring to a boil, add the rice (two cups is about right for one chicken, so there should be about 4 and a half cups of broth. Bring back to a boil after rice is added, then turn it down low until rice is done, stirring a little bit. The rice is, as the name suggests, a little soggier than usual. Great for feeding large groups of people cheaply. You can dress it up with free-range herbs, boullion cubes, some vegetables like carrots. It is the subject of cooking contests and festivals, but only in the northeast corner of South Carolina. Tell people you cook it with swamp water.

I left out the part about pre-preparing the yardbird.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Barbara
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:47 PM

Yay-yus! Yayus Ah dew! Tail us 'bou dit awl!

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Chet W.
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:40 PM

And I was introduced to the sins of White Castle when I went away to college in Greenville, SC, which, being close to the mountains, was not considered to be particularly southern, especially by those in the super-township of Charleston. It was there I learned, since most of our students were from Florida or New York, that not everybody knew about grits, or even frequent rice-eating, or God-forbid, CHICKEN BOG! Wanna hear about that?

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:35 PM

Aine. your point is well taken, and I was more or less joshin' y'all because I know how proud Texans are of their heritage, and Texas brigades served valiantly in the Confederate armies of both West and East. But you have to admit that West Texas has more in common with the geography and culture of New Mexico and Arizona than it does with Virginia and South Carolina. Maybe because I was raised in Kentucky, Texas always seemed like a land way out West full of Cattle and Cowboys. And I just never figured y'all for grits and hamhocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Áine
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:35 PM

Dear Chet,

I'm glad you took it in the spirit in which in was intended -- and it'll work just fine in a South Carolina accent too -- my mother's people came over to Texas from the Carolinas (by way of Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana). My Grand-daddy was a railroad engineer on one of the last steam powered engines in the South, so the family travelled a lot. I have aunts & uncles born in every state in the South. Mother was born in Montgomery, Alabama. So, I guess you could say we speak the same 'lingo'. Now, don't be squinching your lil face up about those silly ole grits anymore darlin', all right?

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Chet W.
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:26 PM

Aine, that was beautiful. Thanks, really, I loved it. But I'm smack in the middle of South Carolina, and I don't quite know a north Texas accent, but your words above felt just like home.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 08:10 PM

Well the body feature isn't up on the forum search and I think we were on a thread totally unrelated to food (gee thread creep is so unusual too), but Sandy I've been running across a lot of other food references from groundhogs and scrapple and hominy and we've had White Castle "talks" before too. We must all be nuts around here.............

BTW Caroline, you're right...and the holes in the burger(5)....add in those minced onions and steam those buns on top of them (funny kinda' dinner roll bun too)...slap it together with a pickle ......OHMYGAWD!!! I may have to make a Columbus run tonight. Oh yea, There was some movement afoot to name the new Columbus NHL team the "SLIDERS"....cute, but they didn't go for it.

Oh, and Aine......Grant didn't consider Texas south. it was part of the west, as was Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky.............Anything that lay across the mountains was west and the term "South" was very much reserved for the deep south (AL-LA-MI), southern Virginia,Georgia and the (ESPECIALLY South) Carolinas.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 07:31 PM

Shot my wad telling it the first time, 'sPaw! Maybe one of the super-nerds that frequent these pages can locate it for us. Can you search for a word? If so, try LUMPKIN, the town in Georgia where the great adventure occurred. If we can't find it, I'll dutifully re-tell it, out of pure loyalty to the cause.

Caroline says the secret of White Castle "sliders" (those must be the bite-sized tasties that used to cost 5 cents each or two-bits a bag) is that they are "steamed over a bed of onions." Makes sense to me. Smell a White Castle a block away and be salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs by the time you reach the door.

The guy that wrote "Everything I Need to Know, I Learned, etc." says the best chicken fried steak is to be had up in Idaho somewhere. Obviously, he's never been to Lambert's in Sykeston, Missouri! Even Texas can't do any better than that, Aine!

Sandy

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Áine
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 07:30 PM

Dear Chet, please read the following out loud with your best authentic North Texas accent:

Chet, baby, come on over here to Mama. That's it, now sit down on the settee here beside me. That's right. Oh, you're lil' glasses are slipping down your nose agin. Push 'em back up, now. That's right. Now, Mama didn't raise too much of a fuss last July when you lit up that lil' rocket and burned the back forty, now did I? That's right. Now, as long as your lil' high-top sneakered feet are under my table, we won't have any more talk about how Mama should fix her grits, now will we? Good boy. Now, you just jump down here and run off and play with your rockets. Mama loves ya. An' be sure and come inside when I call ya for dinner, ya hear?

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Banjer
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 07:21 PM

Here again goes the great grits discussion....Grits ARE GOOD...I love 'em, they are best when fried eggs are mixed in with them, lotsa butter, salt & pepper....Or as a side when ya'll have a mess of catfish fried just right....You folks that knock 'em just haven't found the best there is. And as for the brains....Pork brains with eggs, scrambled together, a mess of collards on the side...Hummm! Go-oood! Mustard greens, turnip greens, when cooked right are also next to ambrosia...Haven' thad a lot of that good eatin' for a while, wife is a Connecticut yankee, doncha know....Seems like the only thing them Yanke wimmen can do is boil the bejessus out of anything!

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Chet W.
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 07:09 PM

Aine, my friend, and all: Being a science teacher, I have a sometimes unfortunate habit of explaining why simple things are the way they are; drives some of my friends crazy. Forget the history of refrigeration; that just lets us store them longer without having to have our own mill to grind fresh grits. If you can get them fresh ground, they take longer to cook but after one try you'll say, like I did, "I never really had grits before this!". I'm not demanding that you try them. This is a hot tip.

Chet

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: bob schwarer
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 06:40 PM

Didn't know that. The places here in Lakeland, FL serve real butter. But then, some say Florida isn't really the south.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: RWilhelm
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 06:29 PM

I first had grits about 15 years ago on a trip to the south. Now we have grits every week with Sunday breakfast. In Massachusetts instant grits are the only choice. For me, the product has come to represent the southern experience and I even wrote a song called "Grits for Breakfast" in praise of spending the winter in the south.

Grits are great but can someone tell me why southern restaurants don't serve real butter?

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 05:04 PM

Hey Sandy....If you get back here, can you tell that story again about "No grits-No Eggs"....I'm looking, but I can't find it.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: Áine
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 04:49 PM

Ah now, 'Spaw, you're trying to get on my good side, aren't ya? I'm glad to know that you've been to the Lone Star State -- now I know that you know how nice we are down here! Come back down for some chicken fried steak with white gravy and homemade biscuits anytime, darlin'!

And Dear Lonesome EJ -- Maybe you're lonesome because you haven't studied your history very well. I believe that Ulysses S. Grant and a lot of other folks around that time thought that Texas was a part of the South . . . And thank you, I will fold my tortilla and take it home -- and I'll wrap it right 'round some braised beef, grated cheese and salsa (no cilantro, thank you - my Daddy used to call it pissweed!!) and I'll pick up my Corona Extra (with 2 slices of lime, please) and I'll take a big ole bite and a big ole sip and say Thank you, Jesus, for making me a Texan!

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: catspaw49
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 04:25 PM

Ah Sandy...ME??? No I freely admit to loving those little square gems. Had a summer job once where there was one a half block away and I damn near lived off of them. But like millions of others I found later that the TRUE power of the White Castle 'slider' was at 2 AM, when you were drunk and there was nothing else open!!! HooBoy........Now my digestive system can't really takem' anymore, but every month or so the urge hits and.........well, it's worth it now and again.

And Aine, c'mon now, you been around here long enough to know that if I don't insult people and poke around at them all the time, half this bunch thinks I'm sick again!!! Texas has it's spots and San Antonio for me is the best of them....used to love going there for trade shows and any other chance I could wangle out of the company. A native told the guy I was with one time to "keep your boots out of the sun" and the fella', having never been there before thought it was a joke. A little while later he said his feet were burning up. So I guess he thought I was serious about the lip movement joke too!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Grits
From: WyoWoman
Date: 04 Sep 99 - 04:03 PM

This is soooo cosmic! I just got back from the grocery store, where I purchased some grits to make my famous

Green Chile/Cheese Grits

to take to a barbecue tonight. It's one of my favorite dishes and tasty as all get-out. Sort of souffle-ish, with a nice bite from the green chile. I love cheese grits with plenty of garlic and a little cayenne sprinkled on top. (These dishes are a reflection of my semi-Southern upbringing and the fact that I lived in New Mexico for 16 years. Definitely a dish for that "ethnic-crossover" thread.

And, I ate plenty of polenta, livin' in Santa Fe, living with a fancy schmancy chef and all, and I truly can't see what the difference is between polenta and grits. I use them interchangeably, pretty much, e.g., grits/polenta smothered in red, green and yellow bell peppers cooked with onions and covered with a delicate gorgonzola cream sauce. Either grits or polenta work fine, whichever I have in my pantry at the time...

And sometimes, such as today when I came back from a long bike ride in which I got caught in a downpour for about ten miles and soaked to the bone, absolutely NOTHING soothes and warms the cockles like a bowl of grits with corn stirred in 'em and butter and salt and pepper. And a nice cup of hot tea with mil. Yummy. I'm so international...

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