Stone Ground Grits!

" Ahhh, yes. Tonight on the menu, the chef has prepared a fabulous Tenderloin Of Pork with a mango chutney, served over a lovely rissoto---um, I mean a lovely bed of stone ground grits."

The reputation of grits, in the culinary world, is quickly changing from rednecked southern porridge to  the cool person’s rissoto.  Being from the south, I have always had a fondness for grits and am glad to see them embraced by the fine dining community.  However all grits are not the same and the type of grits that you purchase can make all the difference in your cooking!
Growing up, my family relied on grits as an all-inclusive breakfast meal. Many mornings, breakfast would consist of a large bowl of grits mixed with salt and butter, a slice of  bacon and juice. We rarely had grits for our evening meal unless there were lots of leftovers from breakfast. Then my mother would pull them out cold, slice them in to wedges and fry them in a pan, similar to polenta.  When I was younger, I remember visiting relatives that lived further north and the thought of grits just sickened my cousins. I couldnt figure out how they could be turned off by grits when they were eating lots of oatmeal and Cream of Wheat.  I later discovered the reason when they came to visit my family and had them.  My cousins were eating grits with sugar!!! EWWWW! Once they discovered that salt and butter goes on grits, their world was changed. (Sugar also does not go into cornbread, but that is another article!)
My mother purchased our grits at the supermarket and they came in three varieties;  grits, quick grits and instant grits. These are listed in order from really good to positively gross!  Regular grits and quick grits are similar in taste. The big difference is the cooking time. Quick grits takes about five minutes to cook and regular grits fifteen to twenty minutes. For people who dont have FIVE MINUTES, there is instant grits.  These taste terrible and are not worth the four minutes you save, trust me! To make matters worse, the companies sometimes add flavors to the grits, like bacon or cheese flavors.  I guess this is for people too busy to put cheese on top of their grits. The flavorings are very artificial tasting, but then, so are the grits.
All of my knowledge of grits changed the day I visited a Grist Mill on a scouting field trip. The mill, in southern Tennessee, ground grits and cornmeal and sold it to mill visitors. I purchased a bag (mainly because my parents had given me souvenier money and that was all that they sold) and my life was changed! Okay, maybe it wasnt a life-altering purchase, but it definitely changed my taste for grits.  While stone ground grits can be a bit hard to find, they are absolutely worth the hunt, as well as the thirty minutes that they take to cook!
Stone ground grits are a coarse grind of corn, coarser than regular grits. When cooked, they have a pronounced corn flavor and a texture that is not quite chewy but definitely not mealy.  The taste is absolutely light- years above regular grits! These are the grits that you eat in fine dining establishment versions of Shrimp and Grits, as well as most of the other new gourmet uses for grits.  Garlic cheese grits sing when made with the stone ground variety!  The difference is astonishing even when served as the plain breakfast dish with butter and salt! There is no substitute!
Finding stone ground grits can be impossible, north of the Mason-Dixon Line but can even be difficult down here in the south! The company that I like to get my stone ground grits from  is McEwen & Sons. They are in a few supermarkets here in Birmingham and other parts of Alabama but are also suppliers for many of the fine dining restaurants across the country. They have a wonderful online shop and I find their prices to be reasonable and their service fabulous. McEwen & Sons‘ grits are organic, as are all of their stone ground products.  I highly recommend them!  There are other on-line sources, as well as the possibility of local grist mills still operating in your area.
Once you get that bag of stone-ground goodness home, make a big batch and enjoy. Just repeat after me “Salt and butter, not sugar!!”